Frankly, any track from this set could work as a single, even the ones I don t like that much. On the lead single, Umbrella , Rihanna starts singin in the rain after an opening rhyme from Jay-Z, the current champ of cameos. One of the more intriguing songs you ll hear about an inanimate object, Umbrella finds Rihanna taking her sweet time, stretching her gritty croon to soothe her mate, When the sun shines, we ll shine together / Told you I ll be here forever .
Last year, she was in dire need of assistance, going so far as to send out an S.O.S.
Someone come and rescue me , she said. This year, she s a protector, a comforter, ready to provide shelter from the proverbial storms, but not with the attitude of Beyonc s Suga Mama . Nah, Team Rihanna knew better than to go down that road.
Rather, it s a ladies-eye-view of Johnny Gill s Fairweather Friend (except Gill was a bridge over troubled waters"); it s the sunnier side of Mary J. Blige s Everyday It Rains ; and it s the lyrical prequel to Alicia Keys Diary , the stage in the relationship before the intimate secrets are exchanged. Umbrella is a monster, so much so that I ll even confess to spending a portion of a rainy afternoon practicing the hook, You can stand under my um-buh-rrel-LAH el-LAH el-LAH eh eh eh.
That s how she sings it um-buh-rrel-LAH and you gotta really pop that b to get it right. Singer Chris Brown evidently liked the song so much, he has added his vocals to it, chiming in, You can be my Cinderella , and he sings it at Rihanna s pace Cinnnn-der-rel-LAH. The song works rather well as a duet because, after all, isn t that what people do with umbrellas?
They share! (Good idea, Chris. I tell ya, that young man is somethin else.
) A remix with raps from Lil Mama instead of Jay-Z has also been floating around. Soon, there s going to be more versions of Umbrella than answer records to U.T.
F.O. Thanks to Team Rihanna s decision to enlist songwriters and producers like Christopher Tricky Stewart, Timbaland, J.
R. Rotem, Ne-Yo, StarGate, and Terius Nash, the songs are clever, if not classic. Take, for instance, Shut Up Drive .
Every so often, a song comes along that makes a Prince fanatic like me say, Prince didn t write that but it sure sounds like he did! In 1994, it was TLC s Waterfalls . This year, that song is Shut Up Drive , a swerving rock-infused ditty that upgrades Vanity 6 s almost intolerable (at least to human ears) Drive Me Wild ("Ooh, look at me, I m a Cadillac") and shifts Little Red Corvette into reverse: the car does the talking while the would-be driver keeps quiet.
I suppose it s the word qualified that reminds me of Prince, as well as the cadence of the verses, as Rihanna opens with, I ve been lookin for a driver who is qualified / So if you think that you re the one, step into my ride . She then proceeds to immerse herself in the role of the fine-tuned supersonic speed machine with a sunroof top and a gangsta lean . The ending, where I presume the daring driver of the Rihanna-mobile loses control and crashes, absolutely cracks me up.
Ha! You can t handle Rihanna! You gotsta tighten up yo game, son!
Shut Up Drive is Aretha Franklin s Freeway of Love , but sassier. It s Michael Jackson s Speed Demon , but without the Speed Racer motif. Keep thinking and you ll conjure up a bunch of like-minded car songs (which is a fun game to play on road trips).
Shut Up would ve fit comfortably on Gwen Stefani s first album, alongside tracks like Crash , What Are You Waiting For , and Bubble Pop Electric . Hell, it s practically screaming to be the marquee song for a pickup truck commercial can I get my finder s fee for that one? Most of all, it s catchy as hell.
I caught myself in the grocery store humming part of the chorus, My engine s ready to explode, splode, splode , right in the middle of the frozen food aisle. It turns out that people with questioning, confused looks on their faces don t respond well to Hey, it s Rihanna, coupled with a timid shrug. In addition to Um-buh-rrel-LAH and Shut Up Drive , is loaded with dance numbers.
Last time, the ballads brought the party to a crawl. In the review for , I blamed the lyrics in songs like Unfaithful for the problem; others might blame the vocals. But this is a new year and, accordingly, Team Rihanna seems determined to keep the party moving with Push Up On Me , which is basically a Part Two of last album s Break It Off , although I could have done without the sample of Lionel Riche s Running With the Night .
In fact, I love his song pulling off drive-bys to Running is one of the reasons I still play but I didn t love the song s gong sound running with this track. The song that follows, the Michael Jackson-sampling Don t Stop the Music , inspires the type of tail feather shaking you can only produce when you re chanting, Ma ma say, ma ma sah, ma ma koo sah , from Wanna Be Startin Somethin . Hee hee!
Take that, Ciara! If only they could ve worked in the You re a vegetable line from Wanna Be ! That would ve been classic, almost as awesomely bizarre as Jill Scott s Tarzan impression (I don t know any other way to describe it!
) at the finish of s He Loves Me (Lyzel in E Flat) . But, did someone mention a ballad ? I used to like ballads That s Ballad , not All Bad : Did you know all bad was an anagram of ballad ?
Well, forget that just know, this time around, that Rihanna s attempts at balladry aren t all bad. Actually, I m not convinced they count as full-fledged ballads , but you should at least check out Hate That I Love You , a duet with other wunderkind Ne-Yo. It has a So Sick feel to it, but isn t it just a little bit catchy?
And smooth? C mon, admit it, you know Ne-Yo is a smooth dude. If I had a daughter, I d definitely warn her about that Michael Jackson-dancin , tennis shoe wearin kid, especially the way his voice seems to melt over a backdrop of luscious guitar strumming and sappy-go-lucky handclaps.
Don t fall for it, I d tell my daughter, but you know how the story goes. She d fall, and fall hard, like an egg on hot concrete. The other non-party numbers don t match Hate That I Love You , but they pass muster.
There s Shea Taylor and Ne-Yo s whispery, existential production of Questions Existing , as Rihanna sings, in the slow, angst-ridden whine she has in common with Nelly Furtado, Who am I living for? Is this my limit? Can I endure some more?
There s also a contribution called Rehab from the two Tims, Justin Timberlake and Timbaland. You have to know, when Rehab begins with the violins and cellos, that J.T.
is somewhere around it s like a remix of Timberlake s own What Goes Around . Timber could ve used it for himself, maybe as a b-side or a soundtrack item, but he let Rihanna have it, complete with his own background vocals, something like Babyface s collaboration with Madonna on Take a Bow and Forbidden Love from Frankly, any track from this set could work as a single, even the ones I don t like that much.
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