Rihanna feat. Drake - Work

Well, what more needs to be said that hasn't already been said?

For starters, it is a shame that Rihanna's managers booked her in for the studio right after her dentist appointment. Or maybe they booked her in right after some sort of reconstructive facial surgery, but then the surgery ran a bit longer than it was supposed to, so the surgeons quickly finished it up without their usual attention-to-detail, meaning that once Rihanna arrived in the studio, her jaw was not correctly in place, but she decided to power through it anyway, and the studio was happy enough with the final result.

For real though, I do understand that she is speaking some sort of creole that I am not familiar with, but that does not excuse just how bad it sounds. Sure, you can sing in another language, but that doesn't change the fact (IMO, not an actual fact :P) that it doesn't sound good.

The beat too, argh. I mean, it's almost non-existent, and when I do hear it, it's pretty limp and not something I can get down to. And, from reports I've heard, the producers hadn't even finished with the beat before Rihanna just wanted to sing over it, which just seems a little shit to be honest. It seems like musicians don't even have to try anymore, but can instead create these half-formed songs, then release it to the public, and then everyone just seems to be okay with that.

I mean, if you're going to make a song like this, there needs to be some life in it. I think that is why I like "Panda" in the way I do. There's actually quite a few similarities between that and this (not understanding the lyrics being one thing), but at least the beat and vocal delivery in "Panda" come at you with some energy and force, making it a real trap banger. This though doesn't have enough of that to make any impact on me.

Oh yeah, and Drake's on this too, and he doesn't do all that much. He references his Meek Mill rap beef in a couple of lines, but other than that, there's not too much memorable there in that regard. I'm actually getting a little sick of the Drake over-saturation to be perfectly honest.

This song (in terms of the album), to me, is just the personification of the idea of throwing a whole bunch of shit on the wall just to see what sticks. In the time that she has been around as a mainstream pop star, the time gap between "Unapologetic" and "Anti" is the longest gap between album releases, because before then, she was pretty much releasing albums on a yearly basis. On "Anti", it seems she wanted to come back with something a little different from the usual pop shtick, so her team threw out a bunch of left-field sounds and ideas, hoping that at least one of them would become a hit.

And, amazingly enough, that is what she got here. I just find it baffling that this was able to reach number-one in the US, let alone spend 9 weeks there. It doesn't really even sound like something that is a hit or should be a hit. I'm notching that all up to name value and name value only, because if you had two completely different names attached to this project, I'm 100% confident this would not have struck it big.

Look, kudos to Rihanna for wanting to try something new at least, but while what I've heard from this album so far sounds different from her previous material, if this is the kind of music we're going to be getting as a result, I can't see myself listening to her music any further.