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She getting that bajan thick on her.. She's ripe for the no pullout action
Cool chick I met her before. She was nice to me. We chopped it up about her Carribean roots. Very dope convo I must say.
Vulture Editors Discuss: Was Rihanna’s Anti Worth the Wait?
Let the red balloons fly: Rihanna's Anti has arrived. Released as a free download Wednesday night, after a hiccup from Tidal earlier in the dayand numerous delays, Rihanna's first album in four years finally exists. Now that it does, what do we make of it? Between her dance-hall chune with Drake, a Tame Impala cover (!), and countless odes to the blaze, Rihanna has, as usual, given us tons to talk about. Vulture editors Dee Lockett, Jillian Mapes, Ira Madison III, and Lauretta Charlton spent the night in RiRi land and have returned with some first impressions on the whole shebang. (Look for a review from our music critic, Lindsay Zoladz, in the coming days as well.)
Could Tidal have botched this release any worse? Or might the leak and free download have been the plan all along?
Dee Lockett: I have a hard time accepting that Tidal dropped the ball this hard on its first marquee release, but so many signs are pointing to just that. Some poor intern (or maybe even Rih herself) supposedly uploaded the album by mistake on Wednesday afternoon and took it down within seconds; a couple of hours later, the whole thing leaked online to no one’s surprise. The plan, according to Forbes at least, was for Tidal to drop the album at midnight with a subscriber-only stream and a limited-release free download for everyone. That’s obviously not what happened. Just before 10 p.m., Rihanna unlocked her eighth room (part of that silly Samsung scheme), the whole album went live on Tidal, and then she tweeted out free download codes (which are still live, by the way). If we’re to believe Tidal actually flubbed Anti’s release and perceive this as a bad thing, how does the service recover? Tidal’s been an easy target for mockery from the jump, but this kind of screwup could burn bridges, with both artists and members who paid for exclusivity they certainly didn’t get. Don’t be surprised if Kanye’s Waves drops first on kanyewest.com, lest Tidal leak that, too, intentionally or not.
Ira Madison III: Was this all a marketing ploy? Part of me wants to believe that, but the other part of me knows that — from all of the single releases that went nowhere to all these damn rooms you had to unlock on something called ANTIdiaRy.com — it was belabored. Like, just relinquish the vocals, and let us get on with our lives. Tidal has always seemed confusing to me, too, and has yet to become a real thing.
Lauretta Charlton: I don’t know anyone who has managed to make it through all eight rooms, but I’m assuming some die-hard Navy members have and they found the promised free download code for the album. Things could have been much worse if this ridiculous marketing stunt ended up being an endless labyrinth of rooms to unlock that led absolutely nowhere.
What happened to all the singles? Is it better without them, or lacking?DL: I loved “Bitch Better Have My Money” and enjoyed “American Oxygen,” but neither makes much sense on this album. “FourFiveSeconds,” with its raspy vocal accents and folk roots, absolutely would’ve — but then, that song’s over a year old. Musically, Rihanna’s never dwelled on the past, and I’m happy she took the risk of starting fresh. (She could've easily just thrown those three songs on the deluxe edition, but she didn't.) Then again, maybe it wasn’t so much a risk as it was smart business. None of those songs performed especially well, and they divided critics. “Work,” though, now that just feels like a hit, not in the least because it features Drake (with whom she’s reached No. 1 before). That’s the clear play for radio, and I think “Kiss It Better" will be too based off early reaction from the Navy. But I love that the majority of the singles gave practically nothing away about what the rest of the album sounds like.
IM: “American Oxygen” worked best as an Instagram caption. I have literally only liked “Bitch Better Have My Money,” which was a jam, but you’re right, it doesn’t fit on this album. I actually love “Work” as a single. It’s a dance-hall jam, it’s got my boo Aubrey on it — what’s not to love? Sure, she’s giving you a bit of Lady Saw and Elephant Man on it, more than she ever has, but that’s par for the course with this genre. I think “Kiss It Better” could definitely kill on the radio, but also “Consideration” is amurderer. SZA puts in that work.
LC: I thought “American Oxygen” was moving and timely in the moment, but there’s just no rhyme or reason behind how to release an album right now. The traditional rollout (single, build radio momentum, drop video, release another single, repeat until album release date) just isn't proven to work, even for superstars. I don’t think the three singles released prior to the Anti leak last night were terrible; I think Rih’s team realized the public’s opinion of those songs had already calcified and they weren’t that good, so they left them off. That was a smart decision.
Jillian Mapes: "BBHMM" and "FourFiveSeconds" were such definitive moments of 2015, I get why they're not here — they're their own thing. And "American Oxygen" straight-up sucked, sooooo.
Are you feeling the chilled-out stoner vibe, or do you miss the bangers?
IM: At first, I’ll admit I was on team For Those Who Have Considered Hating Anti When Her Bangers Were Enuff. I wanted a “Please Don’t Stop the Music," an “S&M," something to really shut the club all the way down. But then I got high and bought some street tacos and chilled out to the album as it was meant to be listened to (sans million-dollar gold headphones), and it kind of just … washed over me? The vibe is just so relaxed and self-assured, and if you’re not expecting songs to dance to when you’re on club substances at 4 a.m. in West Hollywood, then you can really just appreciate the direction Rihanna is taking herself in. This is her808s & Heartbreaks, her 4. It’s not what we expected at all, but I think it’s necessary for Rihanna to continue to stay relevant and necessary.
LC: I want to listen to this album and imagine smoking multiple joints with Rih and Melissa Forde while chilling on a beach in Hole Town. Thanks.
DL: I'm with Lauretta. If Rih has gone full Wiz Khalifa, I'm here for it. The thing about Rihanna is even her sappiest, chilled-out stoner tracks arebangers. "Kiss It Better" might be a Miguel-esque rock ballad, but it bangs. And, of course, there's a woozy DJ Mustard production ("Needed Me") for the club's sake, which sounds as savage as Rihanna claims to be. "Work," for sure, is the obvious banger here, but even that's understated. There's no "We Found Love" or any bombastic EDM drops on this one, and I'm not mad about it.
JM: Rihanna's best work up until this point has almost exclusively been bangers, and the No. 1s roll deep. We know she can do that, so generally I'm in favor of the new direction, though parts of Anti work better than others for me ("Woo," for one, is a meandering throwaway that caters to her hip-hop base). Besides, a number of Anti's best songs — "Work," "Consideration," "Desperado" — are defined by the kind of increasingly pointed "only Rihanna should sing this" attitude that can make a Rih banger really pop off in recent years. She's certainly not the first pop star to go all "Radio say 'speed it up,' I just go slower," and she does it with purpose. Anti is a late-night album that's looking for something; sometimes it's a baseball-bat blunt, sometimes it's sexual conquest, but mostly it's Rihanna herself. She's looking inward, which is real hard to do with any amount of emotional depth on a banger, y'know?
Is this the best Rihanna’s voice has ever sounded? “Love on the Brain” and “Higher” are really something.
IM: When I said Rihanna needs to relinquish the vocals, she really didrelinquish some vocals. She sounds amazing on this album. She’s not only become an artist, but she’s gotten her voice to the point where she can back it up. It was kind of pointless to see Rihanna in concert before; I saw the Glow in the Dark Tour, and she was fine, but I was there for Kanye and N.E.R.D. When I saw her again, she was grinding on a pink military tank, and it was all very desperate and like a post-breakdown, pre-Vegas Britney concert. (Not good.) But here she is serving vocals and notes that were previously foreign to Miss Fenty. She started giving us glimpses of this with her live performances, and now here’s the final result. I’m living for it.
JM: This is absolutely the best Rihanna's voice has ever sounded. "Higher" is a feat for her, her little vocal run on "Needed Me" is lovely, I like what she does on her Tame Impala cover, and I dig her down-low tenderness on "James Joint." That said, I think SZA edges her out a little vocally on "Consideration." That's a bold move, getting SZA on there so prominently.
It took a village to build this album, as the credits show. Any standouts?
DL: Exciting as I think it is to see songwriting and production creds on there from the Weeknd (“Woo”) and No. I.D. (“Higher”), naturally, all I can pay attention to is who’s missing. Kanye announced at the Grammys nearly a year ago that he was executive-producing the album, but lo and behold, he’s nowhere to be found on this album. Not a single cred or hint of his associates (unless we’re still calling Travis Scott that). And no Young Thug, whom Kanye blabbed to the radio would be on there. Conspiracy theorists will try to convince you that Ye flexed his Twitter fingers to drag Wiz Khalifa and Amber Rose yesterday all to divert attention away from Rihanna’s release, which, depending on how long he remained involved, he may have known was planned to drop last night. I … sort of buy it? Kanye and Rihanna have never had beef before, but if they’ve had some career-shifting falling out (rumor has it she cut him from the album), and Kanye was gone off the Henny just enough, sabotage isn’t that far-fetched. Not that it had any chance of working.
JM: Getting back to the matter at hand: I think it's actually pretty smart for Rihanna to not have a big-name executive producer on this thing (at least according to the credits). Perhaps more than any of her pop peers, short of Katy Perry, Rih has been pegged as a singles-only artist. That's a game where people are just falling over themselves to give credit to so-called genius producers songwriters — who, yes, are typically men. Rihanna worked with an absurd amount of people on this album, some of them well-known studio figures — Timbaland, DJ Mustard, No I.D., the list goes on but is devoid of the usual pop names she's worked with before (Dr. Luke, Max Martin ) — but none come anywhere near stealing her shine, which is exactly the way it should be on an album that shows Rihanna's interest in the album (as an artistic format) itself. All that said, shout-out to Kuk Harrell, who worked on production for nine of these songs; I also liked Boi-1da's production on "Work."
What are some of the album's best songs, moments, lines, etc.?
DL: That Tame Impala cover, are you kidding me? What I love about Rih is when she goes indie or left of center, she does it shamelessly. We’re talking about a woman who has sampled the xx’s “Intro” and Avril Lavigne’s “I’m With You” — she’s not about subtlety. She even sampled Florence and the Machine’s “Only If for a Night” on an Antibonus track, and there’s a very obvious melodic reference to Dido’s “Thank You” (a.k.a the semi-sample in Eminem’s “Stan”) on “Never Ending.” My God, Rihanna once spun Michael Jackson and“Tainted Love” for hits; she doesn’t play. I love that of all the Tame Impala songs, she covered “New Person, Same Old Mistakes,” the closer on last year’s Currents, one of the most acclaimed white-boy rock albums of 2015. What’s more? She nails it. It’s so predictably straightforward, right down to the breakdown in the middle, that you’d think it'd be boring. But because Rih’s voice is so bewitching and you rarely hear her in this element, you wind up completely under her spell. Other contenders for best moment: Rih's casual dirty-talk on "Yeah, I Said It" — “I want you to homicide it." This filthy ether on "Needed Me": “Baby, don't get it twisted / You was just another nigga on the hit list / Tryna fix your inner issues with a bad bitch / Didn’t they tell you that I was a savage?” And Rih and SZA’s Fugees flow on “Consideration,” because Fu-Gee-La for life.
JM: You kinda covered it, Dee, but I'll add: The lyrics of "Needed Me" are endlessly quotable for those of us who, uh, definitely have our demons and use pop music as a power source for personal inspiration. Also, "Man, fuck your pride" on "Kiss It Better" — which is like if Beyoncé and Miguel had worked on a song for 4 together. What a phenomenal power ballad; it sounds simultaneously timeless and like the last five years of R&B-pop."Desperado" is a song that I foresee having on repeat a lot, too.
LC: Snap judgement: “Consideration” is my standout. It reminds me of a Portishead song, and SZA and Rih sound beautiful together.
Where does Anti stand among the rest of Rihanna's oeuvre?
DL: No two Rihanna albums sound alike, and I don’t think you can make a similar argument for any other pop star of her generation. I never know what I’ll get from a Rihanna album: She constantly surprises me with her creative choices, even if all they are is selecting which songs make the final cut. After “Diamonds,” did you think Rih would pass on multiple Sia submissions — songs that Sia thought were good enough to make her own solo album? Your fave would never. The slight against most female pop stars not named Adele is that they can’t sing; no one hears it more than Rihanna. She showed us with “Stay” that vocals are an area for improvement that she’s willing to sacrifice the time to exercise. But even I couldn’t have predicted the limits to which she’d stretch that muscle on this album. I knew she’d striven for a modern take on a classic rhythm-and-blues album (for once, justifying her place in the R&B category award shows always toss her in), but I never imagined she’d pull it off just as well as Anderson .Paak did this year, too. This, in my opinion, is her most cohesive album yet. As I’ve seen some say, it also feels like a capital-Aalbum from her, not what we’re used to. But maybe we’ve all been underestimating Rihanna. That ends here, with Anti.
IM: Rated R is Rihanna’s best album, hands down. It has pop hits like “Rude Boy” and “Hard,” but it’s also a dark, metallic-sounding departure for Rihanna’s sound. Even her subsequent albums didn’t continue in theRated R direction, instead reverting back to form with even more of a pop sheen. Anti feels like an extension of Rated R, in that it’s bold experimentation and different from everything else she’s put out. It’s a bit too soon to say, but the album feels like something that will stick with me, and ultimately one of the strongest exhibits of Rihanna at her best.
Let the red balloons fly: Rihanna's Anti has arrived. Released as a free download Wednesday night, after a hiccup from Tidal earlier in the dayand numerous delays, Rihanna's first album in four years finally exists. Now that it does, what do we make of it? Between her dance-hall chune with Drake, a Tame Impala cover (!), and countless odes to the blaze, Rihanna has, as usual, given us tons to talk about. Vulture editors Dee Lockett, Jillian Mapes, Ira Madison III, and Lauretta Charlton spent the night in RiRi land and have returned with some first impressions on the whole shebang. (Look for a review from our music critic, Lindsay Zoladz, in the coming days as well.)
Could Tidal have botched this release any worse? Or might the leak and free download have been the plan all along?
Dee Lockett: I have a hard time accepting that Tidal dropped the ball this hard on its first marquee release, but so many signs are pointing to just that. Some poor intern (or maybe even Rih herself) supposedly uploaded the album by mistake on Wednesday afternoon and took it down within seconds; a couple of hours later, the whole thing leaked online to no one’s surprise. The plan, according to Forbes at least, was for Tidal to drop the album at midnight with a subscriber-only stream and a limited-release free download for everyone. That’s obviously not what happened. Just before 10 p.m., Rihanna unlocked her eighth room (part of that silly Samsung scheme), the whole album went live on Tidal, and then she tweeted out free download codes (which are still live, by the way). If we’re to believe Tidal actually flubbed Anti’s release and perceive this as a bad thing, how does the service recover? Tidal’s been an easy target for mockery from the jump, but this kind of screwup could burn bridges, with both artists and members who paid for exclusivity they certainly didn’t get. Don’t be surprised if Kanye’s Waves drops first on kanyewest.com, lest Tidal leak that, too, intentionally or not.
Ira Madison III: Was this all a marketing ploy? Part of me wants to believe that, but the other part of me knows that — from all of the single releases that went nowhere to all these damn rooms you had to unlock on something called ANTIdiaRy.com — it was belabored. Like, just relinquish the vocals, and let us get on with our lives. Tidal has always seemed confusing to me, too, and has yet to become a real thing.
Lauretta Charlton: I don’t know anyone who has managed to make it through all eight rooms, but I’m assuming some die-hard Navy members have and they found the promised free download code for the album. Things could have been much worse if this ridiculous marketing stunt ended up being an endless labyrinth of rooms to unlock that led absolutely nowhere.
What happened to all the singles? Is it better without them, or lacking?DL: I loved “Bitch Better Have My Money” and enjoyed “American Oxygen,” but neither makes much sense on this album. “FourFiveSeconds,” with its raspy vocal accents and folk roots, absolutely would’ve — but then, that song’s over a year old. Musically, Rihanna’s never dwelled on the past, and I’m happy she took the risk of starting fresh. (She could've easily just thrown those three songs on the deluxe edition, but she didn't.) Then again, maybe it wasn’t so much a risk as it was smart business. None of those songs performed especially well, and they divided critics. “Work,” though, now that just feels like a hit, not in the least because it features Drake (with whom she’s reached No. 1 before). That’s the clear play for radio, and I think “Kiss It Better" will be too based off early reaction from the Navy. But I love that the majority of the singles gave practically nothing away about what the rest of the album sounds like.
IM: “American Oxygen” worked best as an Instagram caption. I have literally only liked “Bitch Better Have My Money,” which was a jam, but you’re right, it doesn’t fit on this album. I actually love “Work” as a single. It’s a dance-hall jam, it’s got my boo Aubrey on it — what’s not to love? Sure, she’s giving you a bit of Lady Saw and Elephant Man on it, more than she ever has, but that’s par for the course with this genre. I think “Kiss It Better” could definitely kill on the radio, but also “Consideration” is amurderer. SZA puts in that work.
LC: I thought “American Oxygen” was moving and timely in the moment, but there’s just no rhyme or reason behind how to release an album right now. The traditional rollout (single, build radio momentum, drop video, release another single, repeat until album release date) just isn't proven to work, even for superstars. I don’t think the three singles released prior to the Anti leak last night were terrible; I think Rih’s team realized the public’s opinion of those songs had already calcified and they weren’t that good, so they left them off. That was a smart decision.
Jillian Mapes: "BBHMM" and "FourFiveSeconds" were such definitive moments of 2015, I get why they're not here — they're their own thing. And "American Oxygen" straight-up sucked, sooooo.
Are you feeling the chilled-out stoner vibe, or do you miss the bangers?
IM: At first, I’ll admit I was on team For Those Who Have Considered Hating Anti When Her Bangers Were Enuff. I wanted a “Please Don’t Stop the Music," an “S&M," something to really shut the club all the way down. But then I got high and bought some street tacos and chilled out to the album as it was meant to be listened to (sans million-dollar gold headphones), and it kind of just … washed over me? The vibe is just so relaxed and self-assured, and if you’re not expecting songs to dance to when you’re on club substances at 4 a.m. in West Hollywood, then you can really just appreciate the direction Rihanna is taking herself in. This is her808s & Heartbreaks, her 4. It’s not what we expected at all, but I think it’s necessary for Rihanna to continue to stay relevant and necessary.
LC: I want to listen to this album and imagine smoking multiple joints with Rih and Melissa Forde while chilling on a beach in Hole Town. Thanks.
DL: I'm with Lauretta. If Rih has gone full Wiz Khalifa, I'm here for it. The thing about Rihanna is even her sappiest, chilled-out stoner tracks arebangers. "Kiss It Better" might be a Miguel-esque rock ballad, but it bangs. And, of course, there's a woozy DJ Mustard production ("Needed Me") for the club's sake, which sounds as savage as Rihanna claims to be. "Work," for sure, is the obvious banger here, but even that's understated. There's no "We Found Love" or any bombastic EDM drops on this one, and I'm not mad about it.
JM: Rihanna's best work up until this point has almost exclusively been bangers, and the No. 1s roll deep. We know she can do that, so generally I'm in favor of the new direction, though parts of Anti work better than others for me ("Woo," for one, is a meandering throwaway that caters to her hip-hop base). Besides, a number of Anti's best songs — "Work," "Consideration," "Desperado" — are defined by the kind of increasingly pointed "only Rihanna should sing this" attitude that can make a Rih banger really pop off in recent years. She's certainly not the first pop star to go all "Radio say 'speed it up,' I just go slower," and she does it with purpose. Anti is a late-night album that's looking for something; sometimes it's a baseball-bat blunt, sometimes it's sexual conquest, but mostly it's Rihanna herself. She's looking inward, which is real hard to do with any amount of emotional depth on a banger, y'know?
Is this the best Rihanna’s voice has ever sounded? “Love on the Brain” and “Higher” are really something.
IM: When I said Rihanna needs to relinquish the vocals, she really didrelinquish some vocals. She sounds amazing on this album. She’s not only become an artist, but she’s gotten her voice to the point where she can back it up. It was kind of pointless to see Rihanna in concert before; I saw the Glow in the Dark Tour, and she was fine, but I was there for Kanye and N.E.R.D. When I saw her again, she was grinding on a pink military tank, and it was all very desperate and like a post-breakdown, pre-Vegas Britney concert. (Not good.) But here she is serving vocals and notes that were previously foreign to Miss Fenty. She started giving us glimpses of this with her live performances, and now here’s the final result. I’m living for it.
JM: This is absolutely the best Rihanna's voice has ever sounded. "Higher" is a feat for her, her little vocal run on "Needed Me" is lovely, I like what she does on her Tame Impala cover, and I dig her down-low tenderness on "James Joint." That said, I think SZA edges her out a little vocally on "Consideration." That's a bold move, getting SZA on there so prominently.
It took a village to build this album, as the credits show. Any standouts?
DL: Exciting as I think it is to see songwriting and production creds on there from the Weeknd (“Woo”) and No. I.D. (“Higher”), naturally, all I can pay attention to is who’s missing. Kanye announced at the Grammys nearly a year ago that he was executive-producing the album, but lo and behold, he’s nowhere to be found on this album. Not a single cred or hint of his associates (unless we’re still calling Travis Scott that). And no Young Thug, whom Kanye blabbed to the radio would be on there. Conspiracy theorists will try to convince you that Ye flexed his Twitter fingers to drag Wiz Khalifa and Amber Rose yesterday all to divert attention away from Rihanna’s release, which, depending on how long he remained involved, he may have known was planned to drop last night. I … sort of buy it? Kanye and Rihanna have never had beef before, but if they’ve had some career-shifting falling out (rumor has it she cut him from the album), and Kanye was gone off the Henny just enough, sabotage isn’t that far-fetched. Not that it had any chance of working.
JM: Getting back to the matter at hand: I think it's actually pretty smart for Rihanna to not have a big-name executive producer on this thing (at least according to the credits). Perhaps more than any of her pop peers, short of Katy Perry, Rih has been pegged as a singles-only artist. That's a game where people are just falling over themselves to give credit to so-called genius producers songwriters — who, yes, are typically men. Rihanna worked with an absurd amount of people on this album, some of them well-known studio figures — Timbaland, DJ Mustard, No I.D., the list goes on but is devoid of the usual pop names she's worked with before (Dr. Luke, Max Martin ) — but none come anywhere near stealing her shine, which is exactly the way it should be on an album that shows Rihanna's interest in the album (as an artistic format) itself. All that said, shout-out to Kuk Harrell, who worked on production for nine of these songs; I also liked Boi-1da's production on "Work."
What are some of the album's best songs, moments, lines, etc.?
DL: That Tame Impala cover, are you kidding me? What I love about Rih is when she goes indie or left of center, she does it shamelessly. We’re talking about a woman who has sampled the xx’s “Intro” and Avril Lavigne’s “I’m With You” — she’s not about subtlety. She even sampled Florence and the Machine’s “Only If for a Night” on an Antibonus track, and there’s a very obvious melodic reference to Dido’s “Thank You” (a.k.a the semi-sample in Eminem’s “Stan”) on “Never Ending.” My God, Rihanna once spun Michael Jackson and“Tainted Love” for hits; she doesn’t play. I love that of all the Tame Impala songs, she covered “New Person, Same Old Mistakes,” the closer on last year’s Currents, one of the most acclaimed white-boy rock albums of 2015. What’s more? She nails it. It’s so predictably straightforward, right down to the breakdown in the middle, that you’d think it'd be boring. But because Rih’s voice is so bewitching and you rarely hear her in this element, you wind up completely under her spell. Other contenders for best moment: Rih's casual dirty-talk on "Yeah, I Said It" — “I want you to homicide it." This filthy ether on "Needed Me": “Baby, don't get it twisted / You was just another nigga on the hit list / Tryna fix your inner issues with a bad bitch / Didn’t they tell you that I was a savage?” And Rih and SZA’s Fugees flow on “Consideration,” because Fu-Gee-La for life.
JM: You kinda covered it, Dee, but I'll add: The lyrics of "Needed Me" are endlessly quotable for those of us who, uh, definitely have our demons and use pop music as a power source for personal inspiration. Also, "Man, fuck your pride" on "Kiss It Better" — which is like if Beyoncé and Miguel had worked on a song for 4 together. What a phenomenal power ballad; it sounds simultaneously timeless and like the last five years of R&B-pop."Desperado" is a song that I foresee having on repeat a lot, too.
LC: Snap judgement: “Consideration” is my standout. It reminds me of a Portishead song, and SZA and Rih sound beautiful together.
Where does Anti stand among the rest of Rihanna's oeuvre?
DL: No two Rihanna albums sound alike, and I don’t think you can make a similar argument for any other pop star of her generation. I never know what I’ll get from a Rihanna album: She constantly surprises me with her creative choices, even if all they are is selecting which songs make the final cut. After “Diamonds,” did you think Rih would pass on multiple Sia submissions — songs that Sia thought were good enough to make her own solo album? Your fave would never. The slight against most female pop stars not named Adele is that they can’t sing; no one hears it more than Rihanna. She showed us with “Stay” that vocals are an area for improvement that she’s willing to sacrifice the time to exercise. But even I couldn’t have predicted the limits to which she’d stretch that muscle on this album. I knew she’d striven for a modern take on a classic rhythm-and-blues album (for once, justifying her place in the R&B category award shows always toss her in), but I never imagined she’d pull it off just as well as Anderson .Paak did this year, too. This, in my opinion, is her most cohesive album yet. As I’ve seen some say, it also feels like a capital-Aalbum from her, not what we’re used to. But maybe we’ve all been underestimating Rihanna. That ends here, with Anti.
IM: Rated R is Rihanna’s best album, hands down. It has pop hits like “Rude Boy” and “Hard,” but it’s also a dark, metallic-sounding departure for Rihanna’s sound. Even her subsequent albums didn’t continue in theRated R direction, instead reverting back to form with even more of a pop sheen. Anti feels like an extension of Rated R, in that it’s bold experimentation and different from everything else she’s put out. It’s a bit too soon to say, but the album feels like something that will stick with me, and ultimately one of the strongest exhibits of Rihanna at her best.
http://listen.tidal.com/album/56638...ed_track&utm_content=Rihanna&af_adset=Rihanna
tidal.com/track/56638583
tidal.com/track/56638583
MOAAR
Tidal Says a ‘System Error’ Leaked Rihanna’s Album, So You Can All Stop Your Conspiracy Theories
Now that Anti, Rihanna's latest boss move, is out for all the world to hear, Tidal is finally coming clean about the mishap that forced its early release. The streaming service tellsSpin that a "system error" is to blame forAnti's preemptive leak, not foul play or Kanye. "Look, we know what happened here, in the sense that unfortunately we still rely on systems, and there was a system error. But I don’t think it hurt it at all,” a rep says. They're right, Rihanna isn't hurting: The album is now RIAA-certified platinum, having been downloaded 1.4 million times in 15 hours. But Tidal confirms that none of those free downloads will count toward Anti's sales on the Billboard chart. "There were conversations [with Billboard] early on when this promotion and partnership started, but ultimately it became about giving music directly to the fans. While everyone would’ve loved to have it count, the thing that we’re focused on here is that it’s No. 1.” For more on Rihanna's Anti, read Lindsay Zoladz's review and Vulture's roundtable discussion.
Now that Anti, Rihanna's latest boss move, is out for all the world to hear, Tidal is finally coming clean about the mishap that forced its early release. The streaming service tellsSpin that a "system error" is to blame forAnti's preemptive leak, not foul play or Kanye. "Look, we know what happened here, in the sense that unfortunately we still rely on systems, and there was a system error. But I don’t think it hurt it at all,” a rep says. They're right, Rihanna isn't hurting: The album is now RIAA-certified platinum, having been downloaded 1.4 million times in 15 hours. But Tidal confirms that none of those free downloads will count toward Anti's sales on the Billboard chart. "There were conversations [with Billboard] early on when this promotion and partnership started, but ultimately it became about giving music directly to the fans. While everyone would’ve loved to have it count, the thing that we’re focused on here is that it’s No. 1.” For more on Rihanna's Anti, read Lindsay Zoladz's review and Vulture's roundtable discussion.
Rihanna’s Free Anti Release Is the Biggest Power Move of Her Career
Late Wednesday night, just shy of 10 p.m., Rihanna did the unthinkable:She released an album. It was an event that, given her track record, should've happened in 2013 (from 2005 to 2012, she released an album every year, save for 2008). But Rihanna was not interested in playing par for the course. With Anti, she took her sweet time, likely surveying the changing music landscape poolside in Barbados, blunt inevitably in hand. Not that she hasn't been work, work, working: Rihanna has used her mid-20s to build one of the most profitable multihyphenate empires — in 2015 alone, she became the first black woman to star in a Dior campaign, launched an apparel line with Puma, took co-ownership of a little something called Tidal, and tried out some Anti singles that ultimately didn't make the cut.
Like a lot of pop giants who've been playing this game for at least a decade, Rihanna has been on the fence about music streaming in the past. Shedenied Spotify of 2012's Unapologetic for weeks, instead favoring the traditional pay-me-what-you-owe-me route, which led to her first No. 1 album. Putting her faith (and dollars) in her trusted mentor Jay Z's latest business risk, it turns out, has not meant a full embrace of streaming just yet. Throughout 2015, Rihanna granted Tidal considerable access, releasing some songs and videos exclusively for paid subscribers — but not all her work. While Tidal continues to carve out its place in the streaming wars, Rihanna seems done waiting. Hours after the site appeared to bungle her album's surprise drop — putting it live on the site then yanking it immediately — Rihanna did something even more unthinkable for someone in her position: She gave it away for free.
All too many disgruntled artists have been in a similar situation. They're tangled in an impossible web of industry bureaucracy; their major label won't effectively market their album; or, in some dire cases, it won't release it all. So they'll pull an Azealia Banks and kick and scream their way out of a contract, later releasing an album on their own terms. Or they might do what Jeremih did late last year and tap out, quietly releasing their years-overdue album in the middle of the night with virtually no press or promotion (and then proceeding to low-key trash the label). But those are the beleaguered efforts of an artist backed into a corner with not nearly as much clout or coins as Rihanna. Why, then, would she releaseAnti for free — personally tweet out the code to download it, even — at a time when one of her biggest competitors is penning op-eds with the rigid message "music should not be free," while another has refused streaming altogether and sold more than anyone else this decade while doing so? For the first time in Rihanna's career, her primary concern isn't commercial bragging rights (though Anti has already gone platinum). She's got legacy on the brain, and Anti's more subdued and cohesive sound isn't the only reflection of that.
First, keep in mind that Rihanna is not the total rule-breaker her zero-fucks-given attitude would suggest: On the same day she made Anti a freebie, she also revealed its first single, "Work," featuring Drake, having scrapped all previous singles from the album, as we later learned. The song went to Tidal and, eventually, iTunes and Apple Music (though not Spotify), but it debuted on global radio. In the U.S., it was the most-played song on Wednesday, outperforming Justin Bieber's "Sorry" and Adele's "Hello" (which have both gone No. 1). So even if Anti's shoddy release and initial free price point hurts her overall first-week sales, her decision to drop a single the traditional way should make for a strong debut on the Hot 100, where she has long dominated. Not that Rihanna couldn't pull off a No. 1 debut for Anti anyway, seeing as it's now available on iTunes. (Also, the album was streamed 13 million times in less than a day on Tidal, which does factor into the Billboard 200 album tally, but at an adjusted rate; the free downloads don't factor into Anti's charting position.)
But Rihanna is also a savvy rule manipulator. Months into Anti's inconsistent album cycle, reportedly around April 2015, she struck a deal with Samsung, which would sponsor her upcoming world tour with Live Nation and promote the album for little in return. Unlike Jay Z, who agreed to release 2013's Magna Carta Holy Grail exclusively on Samsung devices for a fraction of what Rihanna reportedly made overall, her commitments — as far as what's been made public — weren't nearly as invasive. All she had to do was film a series of creepy commercials, partner with the company on her ANTIdiaRy app (which gives fans behind-the-scenes content), and, on the day of the album's release, allow around 1 million Samsung users the opportunity to unlock free-download codes if they could find them in Room 8 on the app (or, you know, just look at her tweet).
The business of this particular free download was also cleverly opportunistic. On the surface, it seems like it'd do a disservice to Tidal: Who would want to pay to stream or download the album when she's already made it so simple to take it free of charge? Wednesday night, when I clicked on her link, Tidal didn't even prompt me for a code. I just filled in my name and email, and boom, one of the most sought-after albums of this year and last was all mine. But there's always fine print: That download didn't just give you an album, it offered you a free 60-day trial subscription to Tidal. Rihanna, via Samsung, has essentially bought you her album and two months' worth of Tidal content, a probable attempt at softening Tidal's image as some greedy oligarch. And, as others have pointed out, it's a great way for Tidal to keep tabs on every single person who downloaded her album but isn't signed up. Tidal now has your email; it can spam you with all the promo it wants without even having to ask for permission.
But like Adele, Rihanna isn't actually all that concerned with doing favors for big companies, even the ones she has stake in. For Rihanna, giving Antiaway for free for a day is more a statement of control. Around this same time last year, Drake reportedly attempted to drop If You're Reading This It's Too Late as a free DJ Drama–hosted release on popular mixtape site DatPiff. That plan derailed, however, when his parent label, Cash Money, intervened and forced an iTunes sale (Drake has been partnered with Apple ever since). Rihanna could've similarly been at the mercy of Tidal, even after it blew her release, were she not equipped with an incomparable mastery of fan service: She worked on offense and seemingly self-managed the damage control, knowing that the most effective response to a leak is not to stick to the plan and hope for the best, but to own it. Rihanna might've escaped a release-day disaster just by understanding that music fans care the most about access; rather than allow leakers (in this case, Tidal) to hijack that access, she took what will likely be a short-term sales hit to give the album away herself under her conditions, not Samsung's or Tidal's.
It's a measure of authority she's been plotting for some time. Leaving Def Jam for Roc Nation (though not entirely) two years ago was a step toward creative autonomy, as has been her ability to reportedly run point on her career going forward, much like Beyoncé has. But brokering a deal to retain all past and future master recordings, as well as self-releasing music on her own label, Westbury Road? That is the move of someone whom Nicki Minaj would describe as a boss-ass bitch. Jay Z said it best himself,telling Vanity Fair last year, “What took me 15 or 20 years to get has taken her 10, and will take the next person 5 years.” By following his lead but also forging her own path, Rihanna is, as she says, calling the shots, shots, shots.
Late Wednesday night, just shy of 10 p.m., Rihanna did the unthinkable:She released an album. It was an event that, given her track record, should've happened in 2013 (from 2005 to 2012, she released an album every year, save for 2008). But Rihanna was not interested in playing par for the course. With Anti, she took her sweet time, likely surveying the changing music landscape poolside in Barbados, blunt inevitably in hand. Not that she hasn't been work, work, working: Rihanna has used her mid-20s to build one of the most profitable multihyphenate empires — in 2015 alone, she became the first black woman to star in a Dior campaign, launched an apparel line with Puma, took co-ownership of a little something called Tidal, and tried out some Anti singles that ultimately didn't make the cut.
Like a lot of pop giants who've been playing this game for at least a decade, Rihanna has been on the fence about music streaming in the past. Shedenied Spotify of 2012's Unapologetic for weeks, instead favoring the traditional pay-me-what-you-owe-me route, which led to her first No. 1 album. Putting her faith (and dollars) in her trusted mentor Jay Z's latest business risk, it turns out, has not meant a full embrace of streaming just yet. Throughout 2015, Rihanna granted Tidal considerable access, releasing some songs and videos exclusively for paid subscribers — but not all her work. While Tidal continues to carve out its place in the streaming wars, Rihanna seems done waiting. Hours after the site appeared to bungle her album's surprise drop — putting it live on the site then yanking it immediately — Rihanna did something even more unthinkable for someone in her position: She gave it away for free.
All too many disgruntled artists have been in a similar situation. They're tangled in an impossible web of industry bureaucracy; their major label won't effectively market their album; or, in some dire cases, it won't release it all. So they'll pull an Azealia Banks and kick and scream their way out of a contract, later releasing an album on their own terms. Or they might do what Jeremih did late last year and tap out, quietly releasing their years-overdue album in the middle of the night with virtually no press or promotion (and then proceeding to low-key trash the label). But those are the beleaguered efforts of an artist backed into a corner with not nearly as much clout or coins as Rihanna. Why, then, would she releaseAnti for free — personally tweet out the code to download it, even — at a time when one of her biggest competitors is penning op-eds with the rigid message "music should not be free," while another has refused streaming altogether and sold more than anyone else this decade while doing so? For the first time in Rihanna's career, her primary concern isn't commercial bragging rights (though Anti has already gone platinum). She's got legacy on the brain, and Anti's more subdued and cohesive sound isn't the only reflection of that.
First, keep in mind that Rihanna is not the total rule-breaker her zero-fucks-given attitude would suggest: On the same day she made Anti a freebie, she also revealed its first single, "Work," featuring Drake, having scrapped all previous singles from the album, as we later learned. The song went to Tidal and, eventually, iTunes and Apple Music (though not Spotify), but it debuted on global radio. In the U.S., it was the most-played song on Wednesday, outperforming Justin Bieber's "Sorry" and Adele's "Hello" (which have both gone No. 1). So even if Anti's shoddy release and initial free price point hurts her overall first-week sales, her decision to drop a single the traditional way should make for a strong debut on the Hot 100, where she has long dominated. Not that Rihanna couldn't pull off a No. 1 debut for Anti anyway, seeing as it's now available on iTunes. (Also, the album was streamed 13 million times in less than a day on Tidal, which does factor into the Billboard 200 album tally, but at an adjusted rate; the free downloads don't factor into Anti's charting position.)
But Rihanna is also a savvy rule manipulator. Months into Anti's inconsistent album cycle, reportedly around April 2015, she struck a deal with Samsung, which would sponsor her upcoming world tour with Live Nation and promote the album for little in return. Unlike Jay Z, who agreed to release 2013's Magna Carta Holy Grail exclusively on Samsung devices for a fraction of what Rihanna reportedly made overall, her commitments — as far as what's been made public — weren't nearly as invasive. All she had to do was film a series of creepy commercials, partner with the company on her ANTIdiaRy app (which gives fans behind-the-scenes content), and, on the day of the album's release, allow around 1 million Samsung users the opportunity to unlock free-download codes if they could find them in Room 8 on the app (or, you know, just look at her tweet).
The business of this particular free download was also cleverly opportunistic. On the surface, it seems like it'd do a disservice to Tidal: Who would want to pay to stream or download the album when she's already made it so simple to take it free of charge? Wednesday night, when I clicked on her link, Tidal didn't even prompt me for a code. I just filled in my name and email, and boom, one of the most sought-after albums of this year and last was all mine. But there's always fine print: That download didn't just give you an album, it offered you a free 60-day trial subscription to Tidal. Rihanna, via Samsung, has essentially bought you her album and two months' worth of Tidal content, a probable attempt at softening Tidal's image as some greedy oligarch. And, as others have pointed out, it's a great way for Tidal to keep tabs on every single person who downloaded her album but isn't signed up. Tidal now has your email; it can spam you with all the promo it wants without even having to ask for permission.
But like Adele, Rihanna isn't actually all that concerned with doing favors for big companies, even the ones she has stake in. For Rihanna, giving Antiaway for free for a day is more a statement of control. Around this same time last year, Drake reportedly attempted to drop If You're Reading This It's Too Late as a free DJ Drama–hosted release on popular mixtape site DatPiff. That plan derailed, however, when his parent label, Cash Money, intervened and forced an iTunes sale (Drake has been partnered with Apple ever since). Rihanna could've similarly been at the mercy of Tidal, even after it blew her release, were she not equipped with an incomparable mastery of fan service: She worked on offense and seemingly self-managed the damage control, knowing that the most effective response to a leak is not to stick to the plan and hope for the best, but to own it. Rihanna might've escaped a release-day disaster just by understanding that music fans care the most about access; rather than allow leakers (in this case, Tidal) to hijack that access, she took what will likely be a short-term sales hit to give the album away herself under her conditions, not Samsung's or Tidal's.
It's a measure of authority she's been plotting for some time. Leaving Def Jam for Roc Nation (though not entirely) two years ago was a step toward creative autonomy, as has been her ability to reportedly run point on her career going forward, much like Beyoncé has. But brokering a deal to retain all past and future master recordings, as well as self-releasing music on her own label, Westbury Road? That is the move of someone whom Nicki Minaj would describe as a boss-ass bitch. Jay Z said it best himself,telling Vanity Fair last year, “What took me 15 or 20 years to get has taken her 10, and will take the next person 5 years.” By following his lead but also forging her own path, Rihanna is, as she says, calling the shots, shots, shots.
Who Leaked Rihanna’s Album? Tidal and Universal Play the Blame Game
Now that Anti, Rihanna's latest boss move, is out for all the world to hear, Tidal is finally coming clean about the mishap that forced its early release. The streaming service tellsSpin that a "system error" is to blame forAnti's preemptive leak, not foul play or Kanye. "Look, we know what happened here, in the sense that unfortunately we still rely on systems, and there was a system error. But I don’t think it hurt it at all,” a rep says. They're right, Rihanna isn't hurting: The album is now RIAA-certified platinum, having been downloaded 1.4 million times in 15 hours. But Tidal confirms that none of those free downloads will count toward Anti's sales on the Billboard chart. "There were conversations [with Billboard] early on when this promotion and partnership started, but ultimately it became about giving music directly to the fans. While everyone would’ve loved to have it count, the thing that we’re focused on here is that it’s No. 1.” For more on Rihanna's Anti, read Lindsay Zoladz's review and Vulture's roundtable discussion.
Update: A representative from Tidal has clarified to Spin that, when discussing a "system error," Tidal's marketing director was "referring to a system error caused by Universal Music Group. The error was not something Tidal caused." Additionally, "Billboard and Nielsen are counting Anti's sales on Tidal towards their totals, [but] they aren’t counting the Samsung/Rihanna download code gift to fans. The 400k+ sales of Anti via Tidal will be counted by Billboard."
Update No. 2: An anonymous Universal exec now tells Billboard that the label had nothing to do with the leak, despite what Tidal says: "This whole thing is absurd, we would have taken responsibility if it were our error. Instead of having their flack flail around trying to revise their own media spin, maybe they should just focus on serving Rihanna — that's what we're focused on." Tidal tells Billboard it stands by what the company told Spin, so whoever really did leak Anti remains a mystery. (Was it you, Kanye?)
Now that Anti, Rihanna's latest boss move, is out for all the world to hear, Tidal is finally coming clean about the mishap that forced its early release. The streaming service tellsSpin that a "system error" is to blame forAnti's preemptive leak, not foul play or Kanye. "Look, we know what happened here, in the sense that unfortunately we still rely on systems, and there was a system error. But I don’t think it hurt it at all,” a rep says. They're right, Rihanna isn't hurting: The album is now RIAA-certified platinum, having been downloaded 1.4 million times in 15 hours. But Tidal confirms that none of those free downloads will count toward Anti's sales on the Billboard chart. "There were conversations [with Billboard] early on when this promotion and partnership started, but ultimately it became about giving music directly to the fans. While everyone would’ve loved to have it count, the thing that we’re focused on here is that it’s No. 1.” For more on Rihanna's Anti, read Lindsay Zoladz's review and Vulture's roundtable discussion.
Update: A representative from Tidal has clarified to Spin that, when discussing a "system error," Tidal's marketing director was "referring to a system error caused by Universal Music Group. The error was not something Tidal caused." Additionally, "Billboard and Nielsen are counting Anti's sales on Tidal towards their totals, [but] they aren’t counting the Samsung/Rihanna download code gift to fans. The 400k+ sales of Anti via Tidal will be counted by Billboard."
Update No. 2: An anonymous Universal exec now tells Billboard that the label had nothing to do with the leak, despite what Tidal says: "This whole thing is absurd, we would have taken responsibility if it were our error. Instead of having their flack flail around trying to revise their own media spin, maybe they should just focus on serving Rihanna — that's what we're focused on." Tidal tells Billboard it stands by what the company told Spin, so whoever really did leak Anti remains a mystery. (Was it you, Kanye?)