For Rihanna, 'Rated R' doesn't reveal it all
12/07/2009 11:53:00 AM
kenmouse
, Posted in
When Rihanna entered the recording studio last March to begin work on Rated R, she knew what kind of album she didn't want to make."I didn't want to talk about relationships," the 21-year-old R&B singer says. "Or at least, I didn't want to do just love songs. Love wasn't what I wanted to talk about."
That's hardly surprising, given what had just transpired in her personal life. In February, less than an hour before the Grammy Awards were to air live, Rihanna and her then-boyfriend, Chris Brown, abruptly canceled plans to perform on the show. Before the night was out, the world learned that Brown had attacked a woman and was in police custody. Photos of Rihanna's battered face soon surfaced.
Going back to work wasn't the first thing on her mind. "I hid out for a while, but that just drove me crazy. I got cabin fever. I was ready to make music again. It was a hard time, but I found peace in the studio."
Rihanna allows that Rated R is her "most personal album" yet, but she stresses that the songs – which do address love, though seldom from an idealistic perspective – don't refer directly to her well-documented troubles. (The album made its debut at No. 4 last week, selling 181,000 copies.)
The single Russian Roulette (No. 26 on USA TODAY's top 40 airplay chart) likens a relationship to that potentially fatal game, ending with the sound of a shot. In one of several disturbing images in the video, Rihanna faces a young man holding a gun.
But Rihanna says she's "disappointed that some people are taking the song so literally. Any time someone is in love, the greatest fear is of getting hurt, and Russian roulette is a metaphor for that."
On the similarly emotional Stupid in Love, "blood on your hands" is one metaphor hurled at an unfaithful beau. "That song was actually written two days before the Grammys," chiefly by Ne-Yo, also the principal writer of Roulette and previous hits Take a Bow and Unfaithful. "It was amazing, like a premonition."
Other collaborators on Rated R, which has a denser, grainier feel than previous Rihanna fare – "I wanted something grimy," says the singer, whose voice sounds deeper and more raw – include Tricky Stewart and The Dream (who helmed Rihanna's Umbrella), Stargate and Justin Timberlake. "It was important to have familiar people in the studio, for there to be a comfort level, because of what I wanted to say."
Yet Rihanna points out that "not all the songs are angry and sad. There are songs about having fun and having sex, and cocky, bragging songs like Hard and Wait Your Turn."
Island Def Jam Music Group chairman L.A. Reid, Rihanna's co-executive producer, sees the album as "a bold artistic statement. Like all greats, she has taken her life experiences and transformed them into an ambitious leap forward. I'm very proud of this record."
Rolling Stone deputy managing editor Nathan Brackett says Rated R's prospects will hinge "on how much her fans connect to her as a person. There's always been a bit of darkness in her sound, but she's basically been a pop creation. She's going for something deeper here, and the question is whether she can pull that off."
Rihanna plans to tour in spring and says she's eager to face the public again. "Fearlessness – that's the attitude I want to give off. If other people can learn from my mistakes, that's a positive thing."
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