Unapologetic
Rihanna
Def Jam
Bajan superstar Rihanna experiments with the power of simplicity on her seventh album, Unapologetic. Containing 14 tracks (with a bonus track for those that bought the deluxe edition) while channeling and sampling iconic pop tracks and collaborating with some of the largest names in the industry, the album is stylistically diverse and unique, drawing from dubstep, trance, euro-electronica, reggae dancehall, classical R&B and pop influences.
The tone of this album is markedly different from her previous two efforts, Loud and Talk that Talk, and sees a return to overarching themes from Rated R, the album following her famed assault from former boyfriend Chris Brown in 2009.
Though the album’s dark themes hide within her upbeat ballads, what is most unsettling to the listener is the singer’s ability to blend her personal life with her career, most notably seen in her traumatic encounter with Chris Brown. In the stripped-down reggae track “No Love Allowed,” Rihanna croons “Like a bullet, your love hit me to the core/I was flying ‘til you knocked me to the floor” evoking the ghost of her bruised face in a now famous leaked police photo.
This dark imagery of toxic relationships is present in many other songs on the album, including “Jump,” a sultry dubstep track sampling Ginuwine’s mega hit “My Pony” involving Rihanna addressing a former flame and “Lost in Paradisem,” the closing ballad that channels Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” into a solid track about Rihanna realizing the dangers of love too late.
The album does show depth by contrasting the public’s perception of Rihanna’s private life with her perspective on several powerful ballads that mark the high points of “Unapologetic,” including the anthemic lead single “Diamonds,” the operatic two-part ballad “Love Without Tragedy/Mother Mary,” where Rihanna resigns her romantic life to being defined by tragedy.
Her powerful collaboration with Mikky Ekko, “Stay,” is where she invites her lover to remain at her side forever in what could very well be her greatest ballad to date.
And neatly tucked in between these two extremes is a collaboration with none other than Chris Brown. In “Nobody’s Business, “ Brown channels Michael Jackson in a track which sees the two announce their undying love for each other. “You’ll always be mine, sing it to the world/Always be my boy, I’ll always be your girl” which the singer vows in the opening hook of the track. Though Rihanna has received much criticism for the track, the song helps serve as the conclusion to the story being told on the album, being seen as a foregone conclusion.
This story is difficult to determine however, as the first half of the album is bogged down in bland techno trance mixes most notably seen in the easily forgettable and generic collaboration with David Guetta, “Right Now.”
While the album demonstrates Rihanna’s creativity through the myriad styles and simple but powerful message of toxic love, the listener must be fully invested in the album to truly enjoy it.
