New music review: Unapologetic, Rihanna (Universal) | Montreal ...

Tucked in the home stretch of her seventh album, Rihanna offers us the year?s most surreal moment.

Jaw-dropping in its cynical manipulation and hypocrisy, Nobody?s Business features the singer in a duet with Chris Brown, the restraining order after he used her face as a punching bag seemingly a distant memory.

It?s not a big surprise, since the two had collaborated earlier this year on a remix of Birthday Cake. Yet there?s something even more nauseating and sinister about this track, which is otherwise a pretty fair R&B smoker: its message. Incredibly, this second collaboration between abuser and victim is not just about letting bygones be bygones. What the two seem to want is for everyone to just mind their own business and leave them alone.

Seriously? If so, why make this demand on a no-doubt-platinum album? The not-so-hidden agenda of such self-mythologizing is to get people talking, listening and, of course, buying. This sanctimonious request for privacy comes off, paradoxically, as a publicity grab.

The rest of the album is pretty much the expected combo of tuneless dance-floor swill, Autotune assault, forgettable ballads and deeply dumb lyrics that celebrate little but partying, money and celebrity.

Unapologetic is more or less divided between an uptempo, surrender-to-the-beat first half and a more introspective, slower-paced second section. The David Guetta-produced opener Fresh Off the Runway, all robotic whomp and f-bomb shtick, quickly establishes a melody-free, pedestrian turf. Things become slightly more interesting with Numb, a decent duet with Eminem that takes a fatal turn with its wince-inducing, brain-dead words.

?I?m the butt police, and I?m looking at your rear rear rear/ But the odds are I?ma end up in the back of a squad car,? Eminem raps. Number of people sharing writing credits on the track: seven.

It?s a recurring problem as an army of writers and producers ? including the Swedish team Stargate, The-Dream and Future ? look for a cut of Rihanna?s inexplicable popularity and scramble to get their names on the disc. But there?s no doctoring this weak material.

For every tiny moment of hope ? ?the oddly intriguing production on Jump or the decent first section of Love Without Tragedy/ Mother Mary (in which Rihanna seems to be asking ?Mr Jesus? to help her with those world domination plans) ? there are too many spirit crushers like the clubby cliche Right Now, the instantly unmemorable slow-tempo duet Stay, with Mikky Ekko and the aptly-titled Get It Over With.

In the end, there?s little here but look-at-me hype and factory-made, soulless product. With this disc, Rihanna most clearly defines herself as a triumph of marketing.

Rating: *

Here?s the video for Diamonds, from Unapologetic:

Unapologetic will be available Nov. 20. Rihanna performs March 17 and May 1, 2013, at the Bell Centre. Tickets cost $48.50 to $165.50. Phone 514-790-2525 or go to evenko.ca.

Bernard Perusse

Twitter: @bernieperusse

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Source: http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/2012/11/18/new-music-review-unapologetic-rihanna-universal/

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