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Rihanna - R8 (Album Thread)
No word on a release date, tracklisting or artwork, but with new material coming to light, I think a thread for the album is needed.
Just a reminder on what has been released so far
FourFive Seconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt0g4dWxEBo
Bitch Better Have My Money
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M77stISbaY
American Oxygen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao8cGLIMtvg
James Joint (Interlude)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JsI9YuO0xY
Just a reminder on what has been released so far
FourFive Seconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt0g4dWxEBo
Bitch Better Have My Money
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M77stISbaY
American Oxygen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao8cGLIMtvg
James Joint (Interlude)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JsI9YuO0xY
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Comments
FourFiveSeconds grew on me but I can see it becoming a forgotten hit in a couple of years, unlike many of her other lead singles and follow-ups.
And the other songs are awful in my opinion. Where's her commercial appeal gone? She's gotten edgier with the last few albums but always balanced it with still making radio friendly, commercial music. This new stuff seems self indulgent, arrogant and messy.
Other snippets we've heard:
Higher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnrTtoiVy58
Kiss It Better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHYdLCSU5vU
Promised
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQTK74dFNfM
A Night (samples Florence + The Machine - Only if for a Night)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU32okQ8Xjw
Thank you
I did not have a clue about these.
Just before Christmas my excitement levels for R8 were sky high, now though I couldn't care less. Not giving up yet though, hopefully she pulls something out the bag...
To me, her new music has Kanye West stamped all over it and just sounds a bit too "try hard". Bitch Better Have My Money is incredibly try hard, arrogant and self indulgent (not to mention awful)
I'm not saying she needs to go full on commercial dance again, but she risks alienating a huge amount of her fan base and sales by totally abandoning her pop/R&B roots. She's worked hard over the last 6/7 years establishing herself as one of the biggest artists in the world and it seems silly to risk all that by doing trashy songs like BBHMM.
And if you are going to risk that, at least do a credible job of it instead of doing songs like American Oxygen and BBHMM.
But Rihanna's released songs before that were self-indulgent. 'Hard' is one example. I love that side of her tbh. Although I admit I'd rather she wasn't working with Kanye West.
True, but Hard is a much better song than BBHMM I think, it has just enough mainstream appeal whilst also being white creative and different.
I do feel Rihanna should have released R8 after FourFiveSeconds. I think that song got the majority of people excited or at least a bit intrigued by her new sound, but the follow-up songs have deflated quite a lot of anticipation and excitement for the album. It'll still do well I'm sure, but not as well as a Rihanna "comeback" should do and I think her next album will be a return to radio friendly commercial songs.
FINALLY in 2015 FourFiveSeconds comes out. The initial reaction is 'what is this crap'. As it turned out, the song is a massive grower and turned out to be great. But it was promised as 'not the lead single' for #R8 and instead just the first track to be released. Basically hinting that better stuff was to come.
What comes next? BBHMM. One of Rihanna's solid dark/hip-hop tracks that come on pretty much every Rihanna album (eg. Pour It Up, Numb, Birthday Cake etc). Again, it's a grower, but not exactly of the quality you'd expect from the so-called biggest popstar in the world. But let's hope the best is yet to come. A true banger MUST be on its way? She's been working on this album for literally YEARS.
And then along comes American Oxygen. A damp squib of a song that sounded like it was gonna be huge from the snippets, but ended up lifeless and forgettable. Arguably one of the worst tracks she's done in a long, long time. I've given it a few listens but it's so MEH.
I just pray that she's got something up her sleeve that is gonna save this era. She's made her fans wait way too long to be releasing this stuff. If she doesn't give us a We Found Love/Only Girl/Don't Stop The Music/Diamonds/Rude Boy I'm gonna be so pissed off. And tbh #R8 will deserve to flop if she doesn't. It'll teach her for screwing over her fans like this.
FourFive seconds is good - but after about 10 listens I deleted it off my playlist.
American Oxygen had the potential to be an awesome song but it just sounds to *busy*.
BBHMM is just dreadful.
Hopefully she'll have a great single when the album is due.
Edit: There's something off with her PR campaign - shes released the 45S song, but promoted her movie, then had loads of album cover (which she shared on instagram). I can only assume that the time these covers were booked she was orignally supposed to release her album? hence the maximum exposure. I could be wrong though.
I agree with this. I also agree with another poster I saw the other day who said Rihanna has become a victim of her own success and now seems to think herself "above" releasing commercial music, much like Beyoncé.
I almost feel like this Rihanna would find it uncool to release a song like Only Girl or We Found Love now.
She didn't get to become one of the top female artist by releasing crap experimental music and she won't stay there very long if she continues to do so.
Rihanna is basically like Madonna.
Madonna throughout the 80s released some of her most classic pop songs. Likewise Rihanna also released some of her most classic songs in the latter end of the 00s.
What happens?
Madonna "grew up" and alienated her pop fans with the Bedtime Stories era. Likewise, Rihanna also seemed to do the same with Rated R.
Both Madonna and Rihanna made returns to form (Ray Of Light, Loud) before trying to be adventurous again and losing impact (American Life, R8).
In Rihanna's case, that means her next era should be on the similar level to Confessions On A Dancefloor. I don't think we're going to get any tracks like We Found Love with this era. It all seems so contrived to being edgy and mature but at the end of the day, it's not what the majority of Rihanna fans want.
It's sad to see that she spent 2 years on an album and had 0 writing credits on the lead and minimal on all the others.
She's not talented at all and it's so sad because Unapolgetic, I thought, was brilliant!
Rihanna has proved she can sound more mature with songs like Stay she needs to stick to her formula that's widked before
The odd song like FourFiveSeconds is refreshing, and she could have released that as a second single after a huge lead.
No she has not at all. Her very first album is very Caribbean urban influenced, which was then carried into her second album. In fact all of her albums have all had urban influenced styles in it. But her and her label have been wise in picking up the more obvious poppy commercial songs. You make it sounds as if she has suddenly turned all urban and ghetto when she hasn't. She's never been a typical pop star. She has always delved into different genres. Many of her influences have been urban artists, she grew up on urban music and most of her music collaborations have been urban artists. This is hardly new territory for her. She's just delving into it a lot deeper than usual.
What I imagine they have at the minute is a lot of tracks of different styles for the eighth album. Since American Oxygen and BBHMM haven't taken off as much, I imagine they'll be dumping the tracks that sound like those and filling the album up with songs that sound different to them.
This very much reminds me of the rumour (or was it true?) that Beyonce's 4th album was originally planned to be more alternative/dancey/experimental, but after Girls (Run The World) didn't take off, they shelved a lot of the more upbeat tracks and stuffed the album with more ballads and R+B songs. I imagine Rihanna's team at the minute are doing the same and that's why they're being cagey as to what kind of music/influences will be on the album in interviews.
She was still a pop star, just with an urban edge. What I meant was Rihanna in the general sense has always been seen as a pop star and her pop songs are what she's most known for, , she's doing an album that seems quite experimental and urban, and the public just aren't here for that. Pop Rihanna with an urban edge? Yes. Urban Rihanna with a slight pop edge? No.