The Problem With... Rihanna's "Only Girl (In The World)"
Dammit! Rihanna has finally gone and broken my heart!
Let me back this up a little: I've been following Rihanna ever since her big punk makeover in 2006.
When I heard "Disturbia" and "Shut Up and Drive", I thought I was hearing this decade's version of Grace Jones or maybe Skin from the band Skunk Anansie. This is a tradition I like to call the "Rude Girl," or female Anglophone African artists with counter-cultural flair. Ri even threw a bone out to the nerds in 2008 with T.I. in "Live Your Life." Numa Numa, yay!
So, yeah. For a while, I've been loving Ri like a... a hot pie?
But Rihanna's latest track "Only Girl" strips a bit of that punk/dancehall charm that has kept her in my mind for this long. In her other hits that copy the sound of the day (such as "Rock Star 101" and as far back as "Don't Stop the Music"), Ri's awesome voice would save them from mediocrity.
This time, though, we get that same European House sound with the beehive pads that everyone is usiing these days. It's a sound that was old ten years ago for Christ's sake! Even her voice can't rise above it this time.
The lyrics follow that tit-for-tat, S&M relationship thing she's been doing for a while. Not much to work with, unfortunately; there are only two verses. The one hiccup in these is in the first verse where she promises "I wanna make your bed for ya / then i'mma make you swallow your pride." Cart before horse, Ri.
Count this track as a chip in the armor of love and subservience that Ri promises. I'm gonna try and keep on lovin' her like a hot pie regardless
But I guess you've gotta take the burns with the taste.
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