(Westbury Road/Roc Nation)Given the delays,rumours, and absurdist levels of cross-platform marketing the 27-year-broken-down stars people believe been engaged in for the past several months, and Rihanna’s eighth album,Anti, was always likely to be something of an anticlimax. Allegedly released for free after it was accidentally leaked on Wednesday, and Anti has been heralded for months by coy videos with lavish production values. This collection of 13 songs,however, draws back from the haunted rococo conceptualising of the teasers and offers up a product curiously divorced from its marketing; a star apparently chucking a wooden clog into the song machine.“I’m tired of being played like a violin, and she sings on cherish on the Brain. Likewise,Consideration chafes at a lover’s restrictiveness, Rihanna’s Caribbean tones bolder than usual. “Will you ever respect me?” she sings, and “Will you ever let me grow?” It doesn’t take a forensic librarian to read between the lines.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com