Rihanna - ANTI (January (???) 2016)

katherine otm wrt camps

autotune/melodyne fingerprints all over this suggest they sometimes might have had only one vocal take to work with, giving the record the feeling of like, a diary of individual unplanned moments of spontaneous emotional engagement on the part of the performer

― james brooks, Thursday, January 28, 2016 5:53 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I kinda feel like it's more "ok, please just record this thing, just one take please"

anyway here is my #take: it's instructive to compare "birthday cake" with "james joint" -- one is a barely 1:15 "song" that was blatantly unfinished and turned into a horrific tabloid monstrosity involving chris brown. one is a barely 1:15 song that's very pretty and feels sincere

rihanna's vocals have sounded one-take for years. she's often turned that hoarse scratchiness in her voice into a positive (BBHMM is a prime example) but very often it just sounds blarey and at times unlistenable (seriously "higher", WHO TOLD HER THAT WAS OKAY - rtc did you ever get beyond "woo"? you have to at least hear "higher")

though the one-take thing is evident even more in her (lack of) phrasing

a second listen has already changed my mind about winehouse being a good look for her

feel like putting "woo" in the rolling worst songs thread

it is so bad

"love on the brain" was the standout to me after one listen.

her vocals are so good on "higher"

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm yeah idk

i love the tame impala cover and i'm dreaming about rihanna going through the entire tame impala catalog

i...assumed that was sarcasm :/

xp

also "kiss it better" is ingenious; i need a loop of it playing when my body is shot into space when i die

I actually like "higher," her voice suits the last-callness of it

people really seem to either love or hate "Higher" everywhere

"higher" is one of the only songs of hers i've ever connected to emotionally and a major reason for that is that i think there's a real rawness and authenticity to her vocals

"higher" would've made a helluva closer but alas

it works because she's essentially screaming into the void with no response which enhances the sense of isolation and melodrama, to have that dusty violin remain present when it was there the whole time, twirling in the air and keeping her company

i get it but it sucks to listen to

there are plenty of rihanna ballads where she's trying to sing "correctly" but obv doesn't have the vocal talent to pull it off. if you can ride with those songs i don't really get how you draw the line at a song where she's clearly singing raggedly as a way of heightening the effect of a song that's about being emotionally spent.

also i think there's a richness to her voice on that song that she's actually cutting through, it works on both fronts

prediction: 50% of the people in this thread will come around to "higher" eventually and it'll probably be after 12 a.m. on that particular night

^^^

there's ragged singing that magnifies the emotions in a song and there's ragged singing that's still unconvincing and "higher" is def the latter

i've obviously never heard the tame impala original and am mildly disgusted that this cover exists, but in terms of both song and production it's really a standout, albeit by low standards

the tame impala original is the exact same thing, with kevin parker singing. i will say i prefer rihanna's voice

there's ragged singing that magnifies the emotions in a song and there's ragged singing that's still unconvincing and "higher" is def the latter

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Thursday, January 28, 2016 7:35 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

you're wrong but taste is taste

yeah i get that the desperation in her voice is sort of ~the point~ with "higher" but all the same i wish she'd done a second vocal take. everything else about the song (lyrics, instrumentation) i am very down with

welp already feeling this album on less than day one of hearing it, see you all here in six months

i've obviously never heard the tame impala original and am mildly disgusted that this cover exists, but in terms of both song and production it's really a standout, albeit by low standards

brad is correct that they are basically identical, which makes the kneejerk hatred towards the unheard original very amusing

a lot of people are reckoning with the fact that they like a tame impala song, yes

makes me wonder whether all those "let it happen" haters ever listened to it!!!!

(rihanna covering let it happen would be something to behold)

I don't not like Tame Impala. They mainly just never make any impression on me whatsoever. But I did find "Let It Happen" to be a test of my patience.

I mean I'm not a big fan of his but having one of his songs to get covered or for him to do production work for someone big has seemed inevitable to me since "Feels Like We..."

I foresee a lot of people acting like this is a huge new thing for rihanna, like, this is the person who built an entire song (drunk on love) around the xx before they fell off

you know what i think i'm a closeted tame impala fan and i'm not afraid to share this tidbit of information with y'all

hmm, is it just me/my system (entirely possible) or is the mixing of james joint fucking terrible

the riri hitmaking machine became so efficient that it essentially became sentient and started operating without her, so she turns around and makes a record based around messier human qualities that can't be faked or convincingly imitated by others

Love this

Is there any precedent for Rihanna's Tame Impala cover? I've never ever heard a pop act cover a song before by just singing over the original instrumental and calling it a day. At least not on an official commercial release anyway? Hilarious either way

tons of precedent I'm sure, though maybe not recently

I wish she'd just replaced Woo with Pose - it's everything Woo wants to be and then some. That being said, I like this more than I did yesterday, Thumbs up to Higher, too.

xpost
lol maybe this *is* Rihanna's dancehall album

Is there any precedent for Rihanna's Tame Impala cover? I've never ever heard a pop act cover a song before by just singing over the original instrumental and calling it a day. At least not on an official commercial release anyway? Hilarious either way

― MrExplorer, Friday, January 29, 2016 4:13 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I still think he just wrote the song for rihanna originally. he was writing for kylie and others, why not her?

according to pfork she asked for the song after hearing it on the tame impala record?

who knows though

OK I made it to "Woo."

Will check out the art show if it comes to town.

i think "stay" was a similar situation actually, just with a much more obscure artist who ended up making his continued presence on the song a condition of his giving permission for rih to record it

and what a career it sparked

help I can't stop listening to "Work"

lol at some of you trying to justify your approval for a Tame Impala track.

And it's a fucking lazy and needless cover. Drunk in Love was based on an instrumental so at least she had to work her vocals around it, this is Rihannas's Karaoke version.

so, like, you see, there's this thing called "demo tracks"

would've loved if nuno had recreated every part of "same ol' mistakes" on his guitar

^^^right, i mean, all her songs are kinda 'karaoke versions', we usually just haven't heard the originals.

xp

not only that but most pop artists' songs in general are "karaoke versions"