Tirade 2. Rihanna – Umbrella (or, Why Rihanna Deserves All the Hype She’s Been Getting)

I am a percussion girl. That is to say, I believe that a song bordering on complete suckage can be saved by some clever drumming. Thus I begin a post dedicated to the 29 March 2007 release by Rihanna, née Robyn Rihanna Fenty: that Barbadian beauty queen who suggested everyone pon de replay back in 2005, when she was still just a good girl and not a Good Girl Gone Bad (Def Jam, 2007). This album title begs the question: why, in today’s pop culture world, is “artist maturity” nearly always a flattering euphemism for “increased sluttiness”? Bloggers and proper critics alike have praised Rihanna’s efforts on this album as representative of a more “grown-up” sound: a sign that she is coming into her own as a unique and self-designating artist. And it may be true, but it is inevitably framed by a less-than-subtle suggestion that Rihanna is now sexually available. See music video, below, wherein Rihanna appears in little more than silver body paint for several frames. I do wonder.



To return to my previous comment, I will acknowledge that it is unusual to begin a post about a good song by implying that it borders on complete suckage. But let’s be brutally honest here. There is nothing organic about the track, from the carefully layered false pizzicato over a predictable synth line to the unremarkable introductory rap from Jay-Z (We Rocafella / She fly higher than weather / And she rocks it better… yawn). And it’s more than likely that Rihanna is a legitimately talented singer, but it’s difficult to tell in the middle of the digitally corrected sound. And who wasn’t more than slightly thrown at first by the jarringly fragmented chorus (ella… ella… eh, eh, eh)? And don’t even get me started on the pathetic excuse for a bridge (2:45 until about 3:07), which for nearly twenty seconds threatens Rihanna’s credibility and career with its inane octave shift and uninteresting lyrical details. Speaking of which, “You’re part of my entity / Here for infinity”? My dear child, what in the name of pantyhose are you (or your songwriters – I’m looking at you, Terius Nash) on about?

However. “Umbrella” does not completely suck. Frankly, it’s a great song, and it is all thanks to some genius drum programming; namely (according to Wikipedia), Vintage Funk Kit 03 (and please correct me if I’m wrong, because as much as I love Wikipedia, you really never know). If I ran the music world, I would use only real instruments, because they sound better (for a better idea of what I mean, see The Roots and Bay Area hip-hop group Subtle). But I also can’t resist a good beat, live or otherwise, and so I will forgive you, Vintage Funk Kit 03, because you are this song’s knight in shining, audio-codec’ed armor. You may constitute a loop of perhaps three or four measures, but my God, can you bump to this, as they say. So, with my apologies to those affected by the aptly nicknamed Rihanna Curse that flooded major metropolitan areas of the UK in June and July of this year: let it rain.