Rated R found the Barbados well pissed at Chris Brown and out for revenge to disappointing results and Loud seemed to find the middle ground behind the bucolic Rated R and her speedily released followup, the new Talk That Talk.
Talk That Talk is pure pop for now people, one piece of glossy product after another: from electro pop to dubstep, a smash hit, a couple of maybes, a Jay-Z rap, and a very good acoustic number. It adds up to a field of top pop producers coming together to release a Christmas gift of an album, that Rihanna will be able to tour with for the next 18 months easy.
But it is a shallow exercise in pop sound, for all its abilities to deliver the goods, too much of it is dribble. "You Da One", "We Found Love" and "We All Want Love" jump the bathetic qualities obvious in the song titles. "Cockiness", "Birthday Cake" and too many others don't. They aren't inert, everything moves on its stomach, but none of it is going anywhere.
It's not that any of this is bad pop, actually all of it is catchy, dancy, state of the art stuff with the usual suspect, Esther Dean for the songs, dr. Luke for the productions among a list of thousands, polishing it up. Yet, it has a looseness and ease and Rihanna MCs her songs well.
But it adds up to loves by roto with an edge of sexiness thrown in for good measure, disposable by definition, and while a probable smash hit it is a holding action, recorded too fast and released too fast with too much filler excusing itself by overproduction. Also, stuff like "Drunk On Love" sounds sludgy.
"Give me your love, it's all I need" she sings at one point. "Love", "Need", "ready"… there's got to be more to romance than these declarations.
Grade: B+