Talk That Talk To Me [UPDATED]

You’re one of the biggest pop starlets in the world currently, your album is reaching double platinum status, your current music tour is selling out arenas around the globe, and you’ve just been nominated for a Grammy for Album of the Year. One would expect that a well deserved holiday would soon follow, but that’s not the case at all for 23 year old star Rihanna. Almost a year to the date following her 2010 album, LOUD, Rihanna has released her creative follow-up in the form of Talk That Talk.

Rihanna, like Madonna, has never been one to fear the idea of re-inventing oneself before the release of a new album. Good Girl Gone Bad saw the singer loosening the chains on a contained image of what a pop star is, and opened her up to a wider audience, which gave her her first taste of A-list stardom. Her image then became darker and introspective with 2009‘s Rated R, and more cheerful and decidedly commercial with her last offering.

This trend of metamorphosis led fans to ponder what the singer had planned for her forthcoming release. Would she ditch the electro-pop fans became accustomed to? Would she go back to her R&B/Bajan roots? The question seemed to be answered with the release of the lead single, "We Found Love" featuring Calvin Harris. Rihanna seemingly was sticking to the dance formula that still dominates the charts to this day. Originally, TTT was conceived as a re-release of LOUD, titled LOUDer. The shift from conceiving a re-release of a dance-pop album, to an album Rihanna herself described as “GangstR”, combined with the singer ducking in and out of the studio during downtime on her tour to finish the product, results in an album that is sonically satisfying, yet indecisive on what it wants to be.

The album starts off with the second single, “You Da One”, a pleasant, if not inoffensive offering that does not necessarily offer fans anything new from the singer, but gets the job done of moving the album along. The LP kicks into high gear on the second track, “Where Have You Been” in which the bajan beauty sings about a sought-after lover over a slick dance beat that quickly turns the volume up to 11 with it’s hard-hitting chorus. The next few tracks follow in the same breadth as this and show the singer displaying her open sexuality. With lyrics like, “Suck my cockiness/Lick my persuasion”, Rihanna shows that she is fearless in expressing how she really feels about sex.

From then on, the album comes to a screeching halt with the ballad, “We All Want Love”. The Esther Dean penned song attempts to show the softer side of the singer, however its placement on the album and its stark contrast to the rest of the album makes it feel out of place; another sign it is possibly from the LOUDer project. A few more ballads follow before Talk That Talk turns to midtempo songs to close out the set.

Overall, Rihanna offers a very solid collection of music this go-around. However, there are a few problems. Some songs bear rather simple lyrics, or repeat verses to fill out a song. One song in particular, “Birthday Cake”, is not even finished, clocking in at 1:21 long with an awkward fade-out. Rihanna has promised a full version of the song in the new year, so until then, fans must wait. The album at times, seems to not have a clear direction in its spirit, and it’s very clear this was a semi-rushed project that was not properly put together. The LP in its entirety does not have a “bad” song at all. The only real problem is that it feels like 2 different albums placed together. As a fan, I still hold out hope that the next Rihanna project will come sooner than later, with a clear mind, and a new sound.

3½ out of 5 stars



UPDATE: After reviewing this post, I've decided that my score did not accurately reflect my feelings on the album. Therefore, I've decided to change my score to 4 out of five stars.