New Vibrations: Rihanna

To all of the dank basements cluttered around campus, a new pong and grinding soundtrack has been found!

It's the sixth album from Rihanna, Talk that Talk. It certainly doesn't feel like her last album, Rated R, released in 2009, further underlining her ongoing domination of the charts since her first album came out, Music of the Sun, in 2005. The music industry has taken notice, and the corroding production line is clamoring for its dose of stardust, making Rihanna the go-to-girl for Kanye all the way to Coldplay.

As a result, it is impossible to escape her voice, blaring in the clubs, on the radio or the background of a house party with a host eager to avoid judgment. I mean, how can you dislike Rihanna, right? In short Rihanna has become the one constant in a world on a tilt towards financial apocalypse; our North Star in these times of uncertainty.

Talk that Talk is a pink pop confection with a filling of blunt naughtiness, making it seem as if the darker kinky musings of Rated R were packed back up and shoved in the garage. This is not to say that the album is not something to behold, combining power ballads ("Farewell"), Dancehall beats ("Watch N' Learn"), mainstream electronica ("We Found Love" featuring Calvin Harris), Hip Hop ("Talk that Talk" featuring Jay Z), and dubstep ("Red Lipstick").

The diversity of the offering reveals the intelligent tapping of present musical trends, while inching the boundaries of comfort a bit further with the up and coming. A formula so successful that Rihanna has quietly taken a jackhammer to the legacy of Madonna as the most successful female artist of all time. In September, Rihanna was the fastest solo artist to have 20 Top Ten Singles on the Billboard Hot 100. The rise of Rihanna coincides with the seismic shifts in the way music is made and heard. We live in an era in which music is not tethered to a physical form, like a record or a cassette tape; rather it's floating in a readily accessible "cloud."

This complete lack of boundary erodes the defined power relations between the artist and consumer, forcing the artist to cede control over the vision of the album, a death knell for the "concept" album.

Instead the consumer can gleefully vulture tracks. The modern musician is now faced with the expectation of churning out successful singles, narrowing the already microscopic potential profit. This increase of financial pressure is maybe why more and more often songs are collaborations with artists who have a surefire pull factor (i.e. Rihanna, Lil' Wayne).

Rihanna has taken this into account and spreads herself to accommodate all interests and leanings while maintaining a constant pop sensibility. The range of genre that is offered by Talk that Talk is both a strength and a weakness. It manages to attract a wider audience, but, at the same time, it forces Rihanna into uncomfortable positions that weaken the album.

As expected from the title, Talk that Talk explores love in its variation, lots and lots of presumably mind boggling sex and then one lone goodbye.

The fact that she manages to make all of this work time after time is a testament to the versatility (or is it blandness?) of her voice.

She is a sexy aggressive dominatrix in "Birthday Cake" but at a tip of the hat she is shouting out her incredible satisfaction about how she has found the one amongst the afro-beats of "You da One." Rihanna works best when she is not bogged down by heavy sappy emotions ("Farewell"), which exposes her thin voice, and is instead flirtatiously making her way around the dance floor to a generic electro-pop beat ("Where have you been").

The dance floor seems to be a comfortable middle ground between R&B and Hip Hop that brings the best out of Rihanna.

In "Cockiness" Rihanna doesn't really sing, but rather piles on the sass with a healthy serving of double entendré. It is a delightfully edgy song that is more interesting than much that follows.

The aggression unlocked in Rated R, is let out somewhat in "Red Lipstick," complemented by her use of dubstep, a wildly popular genre with an emphasis on big beats. The most touching song is the operatic "Fool in Love," in which, over descending synths and wailing guitars, Rihanna pleads to her father and her mother to accept the flaws of her lover because she loves him.

Talk that Talk doesn't break the mold, but it's not supposed to.