60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Umbrella”—Rihanna

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Rob celebrates pop icon Rihanna while looking back at her smash hit “Umbrella.” While combing through Rihanna’s expansive career, Rob also discusses whether Jay-Z’s guest verse on “Umbrella��� is the worst of his career. Later, Brittany Spano joins the show to answer the difficult question of what song is Rihanna’s best, and much more. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Brittany Spano Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Additional Production Support: Olivia Crerie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Bill Simmons. I am thrilled to announce our newest YouTube channel. It's called Ringer Movies. If you're a fan of our movie coverage here at The Ringer, then you're in luck because every episode of The Rwatchables and The Big Picture, now on YouTube. Like Bill said, Ringer movies will feature full episodes of my show, The Big Picture, the Rewatchables,

as well as special live episodes, deep dives into movie history and a bunch of other fun stuff featuring other movie-loving Ringer personalities. Search Ringer movies on YouTube and experience the joy Chris Ryan impersonating Wayne Jenkins on camera. One time I'm standing in line at Taco Bell, right, with like six other dudes. And they got a TV monitor facing the line that's showing us security camera footage of the line, just to intimidate or perhaps demoralize potential Taco Bell patrons. This is like 2002.

And I'm standing there waiting to buy my Mexican pizza or whatever. And I'm staring at this security monitor. And I am startled to discover that, who is that behind me? There's a terrifying, hulking, stupefied weirdo looming directly behind me in line. Don't turn around. He's like eight feet tall and galactically disheveled. He got this giant, bushy, unkempt beard with raccoons wrestling in it. He's wearing an arbitrary shotgun blast barrage of denim and flannel.

He looks like a bear that just staggered through a car wash. He looks like Totero in a terrible, gritty Zach Snyder directed. live action reboot of my friend Totoro. And I'm freaked out like, who is this foul, feeble, desultory beast lurking behind me? And yeah, it turns out it's me, obviously. It's me. I am the foul desultory beast looming behind me. I am Car Wash Bear.

I am Zach Snyder Totero. I have startled myself. I have startled myself with the teetering wreck of myself. I have perhaps let myself go physically and spiritually. I am often unaware. Even now, I am often unaware of how I look, how I come across to people, both my aura and my physical presence.

I am six foot four and medium large and entirely harmless, but you don't know that. You, a stranger, don't know the harmless part when you encounter me vibing on the sidewalk or standing in line at the post office or sitting next to you at the parent, meeting. To you, a stranger, I most likely look like a rejected teenage mutant ninja turtles villain or something. Moreover, on account of working from home for 12 years and counting, I am entirely

unsocialized. I am catastrophically unaccustomed to being in public or interacting with other humans. I do not excel at small talk or really talk of any kind. I went on a big work trip recently and I botched 200 consecutive hug or handshake greetings with my coworkers. I guessed wrong. I biffed it 200 straight times. That is every bit as impressive and improbable a streak as Cal Ripkin Jr.'s streak of 2,632 consecutive played games. And worse yet, inevitably, I'm either listening to loud music via headphones or I have somehow even louder music stuck in my head. and I am concentrating on that music real hard, too hard, visibly too hard.

And I am thus radiating unnerving intensity with an unclear source or focus. What I am saying is that if you were walking down the street and you saw me, if you saw car wash bear rumbling toward you in the opposite direction, you would not like it. You would be unnerved. you would be, perhaps, justifiably, outright panicked. And so, I would like to take this moment to formally apologize to anyone unfortunate enough to pass me on the street in New York City between the years 2006 and 2011 while I was walking around listening to bed by Jay Holiday and viving way too hard. Jay Holiday.

Capital J. Holiday, born in Washington, D.C., highly skilled wearer of hats. From his 2007 debut album, Back of My Lack, this song is called Bed. Right off the rip, let me say that the substantial amorous Victoria's secret type boudoir-ass content of this song is immaterial to my abiding love for and obsession with this song. Okay, it's not immaterial, but I love slash am obsessed with this song, primarily for its astounding radiance, its exuberance, its horniness, but also its rampant goofiness, the joy in this man's voice. There is a winsome, joyous silliness to his galactic horniness. Jay Holliday is deftly plucking each word, each descending note in the phrase, perfume, spray it there, put our love in the air. the air as if each note is an errant eyelash he is delicately removing from the rosy cheeks of his beloved

and then gently blowing off his fingertip roll with it or at least i ill-advisedly imagined that jay holiday is doing this cute errant eyelash thing as i rampage down houson street viving way too hard to this song on my ipod look out make way for gritty totoro don't make eye contact bed was my favorite song on earth for five years coincidentally these were my five years living in new york if you lived there from 2006 to 2011 i probably startled and unnerved you as we passed on the street in what the village lower manhattan fort green brooklyn heights and carroll gardens primarily a little williamsburg but not too much williamsburg yeah but other places too i got around

I got around to all the other boroughs. Okay, not Staten Island, but all the other ones. I loved this song. I put Bed by Jay Holiday on repeat and I walked to work. I walked home from work. I walked to some medium cool indie rock show. I walked home from some medium cool indie rock show. The silliness, the silliness that lovingly overpowers the horniness.

That is ridiculous. That is ridiculous. Ridiculous. Rub my back like you do right there. Uh-oh, right there is an absurd series of syllables to deploy in the first verse of your breakout song. But Jay Holiday is undeterred. Jay Holiday is going to sing the bejesus out of this song in all its soft core ludicrous glory. The old singing the word stop and the beat stops trick revelatory when Jay Holiday does it. The majestic pole vault leap up to the word cute here,

transformative when Jay Holiday does it. And maybe especially the graceful, descending crystal staircase of oh, oh, there. Also revelatory and transformative. The almost childlike playfulness, the childlike simplicity of this song. the luxuriant repetition. We are winding up to the chorus now. We are certainly going to take our time getting there. You get it.

You get it. And here I come, car wash bear, scourge of the sidewalks, iPod earbuds crammed into my ears, getting way too into this song and picking up speed as I terrorize my fellow New York City pedestrians, go lumping down Houston, go lumping down Court Street, Golomping through Prospect Park,

Galumping through Central Park, galumphing across 125th Street, galumphing down Queens Boulevard. I love this song, unreasonably. Mid-Dillade 2000s, this is peak iTunes era, your iTunes collection, your MP3s, everything meticulously labeled. All my song titles painstakingly retyped in all lowercase.

It's eccentric. I'm expressing my personality. Hundreds of hours. spent on this activity, I obsessed over my most played songs, right? My top 25 most played iTunes songs. My play counts were exceedingly accurate. If I happened to listen to one of my favorite songs on YouTube or on CD or at a party or something, I would manually log that play on my iTunes later. My shit was pristine. And bed was my most played song for years. My top 25 was like a bunch of wolf parade, a bunch of say anything. Those are bands. And bed at the top. We'll talk about

those bands later. Maybe. Chorus. And finally, we hit upon the true revolutionary aspect of bed, which is Jay Holliday's ecstatic, pleading, unashamed, majestically goofy repetition of bed, bed, bed, I'm a put you to bed, bed, bed, this should not work. This should sound, It does not work on paper. It does not work in theory. It is even more ridiculous than the ridiculous back rubbing thing, but it lulls you into a trance. Does it not? Bed, bed, bed. It is both stupefying and electrifying. I could listen to Jay Holiday, just sing the word bed for hours, days, weeks. According to my iTunes play counts, I did. Is this song The Future, R&B wise, pop wise, slow jam wise? Or is it more the past? Bed has ultra-smooth 70s quiet storm energy,

and it has ludicrous quasi-swaggering Drake-type late 2000s energy. It is somehow both the past and the future. It is Jay Holliday's first top five hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Top five songs in the Billboard Hot 100 on October 6th, 2007. Number five, Bed. Number four, Fergie. Big Girls Don't Sure. Number three, Timbaland and Carrie Hilsen, the way I are. No thank you. Number two, Kanye West, Stronger. And number one, Soldier Boy, crank that parentheses, soldier boy. Absolutely. 2007. To quote Frank Sinatra, it was a very good year. Frank was talking about another year. But nonetheless, I regret to inform you that bed was also Jay Holliday's last. Top five hit. I went to see Jay Holiday Live in New York City and an in-store appearance at a lower Manhattan

music and electronic store. I believe at J&R Music World down near Wall Street in 2009, and he was wearing a jet black baseball cap very skillfully, and the crowd was modest, but enthusiastic, and so was I. The second Jay Holiday record came out in 2009 and is called Round 2, and I like this song called It's Yours very much. Didn't crack my iTunes top 25, but apparently not much did other than wolf parade. And there's an echo of bed here, of course, the echo of beds, many echoes, the gauzy sumptuous repetition. It is yours, it is yours, it is yours, it is yours, it is yours. But there is some extra intangible bonus quality to the repetition of bed, to the exquisite cheeseball hypnosis of bed. Bed, bed, bed, I'm going to put you to bed, bed, bed.

And when you follow Jay Holiday on Instagram now, he is thriving. And Jay Holiday posts triumphant video of himself performing at, for example, the 2024 I Love R&B festival out in Los Angeles. Most likely he will be performing bed with his trademark exuberance. He ain't trying to hit all the high notes anymore, but neither am I. And anyway, the high notes were never what made bed my absolute favorite song on Earth for a solid half decade. Watch the sunlight peek over the horizon. And then the climactic line, triumphantly hornball and profoundly sweet all at once. Pretty good song, in my opinion.

Sorry if I passed you on the sidewalk at Bowery and Prince with a disconcertingly animated look on my face. This is my jam. But once again, the true legacy of bed, the aftershock it sent out into the world. It's the, ooh-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo. Repetition is an old. It's maybe the oldest pop-song trick. Exquisite cheeseball repetition of the, ooh-oo-oo-o-oo variety, that's a different story. And like it or not, given that Bed was co-written and co-produced by Carlos McKinney,

better known as Los de Mistro, and Terrius Nesson. otherwise known as Terius Adamu Ya Yistiel Diamond and better known as simply the dream. The story of bed is also another guy's story. It's also the dream's story. Right up front, the dream is a complicated, fraught, possibly upsetting figure here in January 2025. He has recently

been accused of terrible things. He is not the highest profile rap slash R&B slash pop superstar recently publicly accused of terrible things. He is perhaps not the most challenging separate the art from the artist pop cultural figure at the moment. But the dream is tremendously challenging to me personally because this person's voice, the dream's own singing voice and his writing voice filtered through many of the biggest pop stars on earth. This person defined the back half of the 2000s for me, which I largely spent walking around New York City, scaring people while vibing too hard to him.

I loved the dream. And I loved the music he made. And I still do. And I love it precisely for its goofiness and frivolity. And I still hear that goofiness and frivolity now. And if we're painting the whole beautiful but also ugly picture here today, I'd at least like to try to get you to hear what I love about it, too. And so he's on it.

here he is. It's nine in the morning. I'm horny, you horny, u-o-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo. That is almost a haiku. I checked. It's a haiku if you remove one and a half o-oos. This song is called Love Songs. That's Love, L-U-V. It is written and this time also sung by the singer, songwriter, and producer known professionally as the dream from his 2007 debut solo album love slash hate even here on his debut solo album you can already tell that ooh-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-type repetition is this guy's whole deal the hyphen dream i don't know what the deal is with the hyphen and i don't intend to find out he was born terius young dell nash and rockingham north carolina in nineteen seventy seven as a little kitty moved with his mother to atlanta His mother passed away when he was 15, which would impact, he says, the songs he would write from that moment forward.

In 2010, Terry has told New York Magazine, quote, I've always had a soft spot for women because of my mom, just their power. Man's biggest enemy is a woman who has it in for them. I just like being around them, watching, soaking up the information, being cursed out, being put out, end quote. Terrius gets an early break when he lands a co-writer credit. on the 2002 album Pandemonium, exclamation point, from the noted turn of the century boy band B2K, featuring Omarihan and Lil Fizz and two other guys. Specifically, along with his future collaborator,

Christopher Tricky Stewart, Tarius Nash is one of 11 credited songwriters on a song called Everything. And that's a lovely Melith Lewis chorus to the B2K song, everything. Though if you're trying to guess, if you're making a feeble attempt to isolate Terrius Nash's contribution to any particular track, even a track with 10 other songwriters, my inclination anyway is to zero in on the goofiest part of the song, which in this case would be

the part where the dudes in B2K sing melifluously about having phone trouble. It's pretty goofy. Pretty the dream-esque. Sounds like somebody needs to swing by J&R Music World down by Wall Street. They sell chargers and batteries and stuff, presumably. Or they did in 2002. Terrius Nash gets an even bigger break in 2003, when, once again alongside Christopher Tricky Stewart,

Terrius is one of seven credited songwriters on Me Against the Music by Britney Spears. Let's find out how many words Britney can sing super fast while still sounding molyfluous. That's why she's the best. But 2007 is when the dream goes supernova, or when his ooh-oo-oo-o-o-a-a-esthetics go supernova. Jay Holliday's Bed is a bigger hit chart-wise than anything on the dream's love-slash-hate album. But I love this album very much,

and I love it more, the more preposterous it gets. This song is called falsetto. The chorus of falsetto is a marvel of restraint and sophistication. Amazing, restrained, sophisticated, preposterous. The dream will later assert in a song with a title, You Don't Want Me to Say Out Loud, that, quote, I'll never be a pop star, I'm too raw, end quote. But I would argue that the rawness isn't the issue.

It's the preposterousness. The lead single off this love slash hate album is called either Shoddy as a 10 or Shoddy as the Shit, depending on who's listening. I'm sorry I had to say that one. out loud, but it's a classic in one of my favorite pop song subgenres. Songs that name a whole bunch of women real fast. Fantastic. Other songs that songs that name a whole bunch of women real fast subgenre include

Freakalique by Pidi Pablo. Tired of Sex by Weezer, 88 lines about 44 women, and Mamba No. 5. But even here, amidst the rundown of Kisha and Sonia and Tanya and Monique, you get the trademark syllables. You get O-O-O-O-O-O action. If we're looking for the song on this love-slash hate album that best predicted the future, the beautiful and ugly parts of the future of R&B and pop and rap, I would go with Nikki, N-KKK, i nicky for the catchiness but also the grievance the indignation the bitchy self-pity that will soon infect the conier west's and drakes of the world but it's still there in the background the best part oh oh oh oh hey hey hey the dream made three straight a plus plus plus solo albums love slash hate in 2007 Love versus Money in 2009, and Love King in 2010. And then he made, you know, a bunch of other albums. The Dream was also sampled on the best remix of the late 2000s,

which is, of course, the remix of Throw It in the Bag by Fabulous. That remix is absolutely majestic, and I was going to play it for you. But I think we've given this person enough airtime. In June 2024, the New York Times reported that the dream, terius Yistiel Diamond, is being accused of rate. and battery in a lawsuit filed by a former protege named Shana's Mangro. Terrius denies these charges, telling the New York Times that they are, quote, untrue and defamatory, end quote. That case is ongoing.

Also in 2014, he was arrested and charged with felony assault and strangulation, reckless endangerment and child endangerment. That case was later dismissed. It is ordinarily my impulse to avoid, even quite prominent artists, singers, songwriters, producers and superstars facing these sorts of accusations. But here in January 2025, given the barrage of accusations made against Sean Diddy Combs, with the Diddy saga growing uglier and more convoluted by the day, it is harder than ever to wall off the biggest and best pop songs from the potential and actual awfulness of many of the people who helped make them. The dream is a legit superstar hitmaker.

He's helped make extremely giant hit songs by Mariah Carey, Justin Bieber, J.Z. and Kanye West, Megan the Stallion. Also, Beyonce. The Dream, with Tricky Stewart, co-wrote and co-produced Beyonce's single ladies put a ring on it in 2008, and the Dream has been credited on every Beyonce record since, up to and including Beyonce's Cowboy Carter in 2024, which means that in two weeks or so, the Dream might be on. at the Grammys for helping make the album of the year. Now, Beyonce's Cowboy Carter will not win album of the year at the Grammys. Taylor Swift will win again. But ah, well, nevertheless, and all of that.

Plus, somehow, we haven't even mentioned the song that actually legitimately first made the dream famous. 2007 was his year because of his love slash hate album and because of bed by Jay Holiday. But mostly 2007 was his year. much because of his voice, but because of hers. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 14th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s Cole in the 2000s, and this week we are discussing Umbrella by Rihanna. From her 2007 album, Good Girl Gone Bad.

Umbrella was produced by Christopher Tricky Stewart and Thadis Kukhorell, and co-written by those two guys, plus prominently, the dream. All those AAAs are very the dream coded. And also Sean Carter, better known as Jay-Z, who in December, alongside Sean Diddy Combs, was accused of rape in a civil suit. Jay-Z is vehemently denied those charges. That lawsuit is ongoing.

Umbrella is an absolutely transcendent and all-time great pop song, and it is very frustrating that it requires these disclaimers. It is maddening to know that when Rihanna first sung this song, she couldn't have known how much she would have to transcend. You want to get Jay-Z out of the way right now? Sure you do. The song sure does.

No clouds in my stones. Let it rain. I hydroplane in the bang coming down like a cowl Jones. When the clouds come, we go. We rock a fella. We fly hiding weather. Umbrellas starts with a guest verse from Jay-Z. That's a fact.

An umbrella improves as it goes along. that's an opinion. That is also a fact. It's mostly the vocal tone that grates for me here. No cloud in the tone. Like he's rapping with a close bin on his nose. I hear Jay-Z's first line on umbrella and I tune him out. Honestly, I have never really paid attention to anything he says here. I always thought it was, we fly higher than weather and cheap rides are better. That's not what he says. He says in G-5s are better. Why would he say cheap rides are better? That doesn't sound like Jay-Z at all. Matter of fact, rude question

for you, what is Jay-Z's all-time worst guest verse? He's legitimately factually one of the greatest rappers all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, what's Jay-Z's single worst performance on someone else's song? I feel like Kanye West's

monster is a sentimental favorite here, sentimental least favorite. Jay-Z's monster verse where he mostly just lists Monsters, Sasquatch, Godzilla, King Kong, Latinas. No, thank you. People seem to dislike Jay-Z's verse on Justin Timberlake's suit and tie. And to be honest, I totally forget what Jay-Z says on suit and tie,

and I don't feel like listening to Suit and Tie again. No, thank you. I wouldn't say that Jay-Z exactly covers himself in glory on Beyonce's drunken love. Now, does he? Your breast is or my breath is. No, thank you. You know what Dark Horse candidate for worst? Jay-Z guest verse.

His contribution to the 2011 Rihanna song, Talk That Talk. Oh, I'm trying to chill, bitch just want to fuck me. Every little city I go, fuck me.

Chaudy must have heard got the word I moved at D. Had it by a bladder and she like, oh, I got a pee. Oh, shut up and stop laughing. That is gross.

JZ, not particularly improving Rihanna songs since 2007. I'm calling it. Talk That Talk is the worst JZ guest verse until I think of a worse

one. He's more tolerable on Umbrella, which is incredible given that he calls himself Rain Man and calls Rihanna Little Miss Sunshine.

Great question. Where are you at, Rihanna? Rihanna, please come save us from all these other people. I got so indignant about that guest first that I almost forgot to do an ad break. Excuse me for a second. Goodness gracious. You know who we haven't talked enough about yet? Rihanna.

That's who. I am sorry about that. I apologize to you and to Rihanna. Robin Rihanna Fenty was born in St. Michael Barbados on February 22nd, 1988. Her father ran a garment warehouse. house, her mother was an account. Rihanna has talked often in interviews about her rocky relationship with her father. Her father's struggles with drugs and alcohol in her father's history of domestic abuse. As a kid, Rihanna struggled with terrible headaches. In 2007, she told Entertainment

Weekly, quote, I had to go through a lot of cat scans. They even thought it was a tumor because it was that intense, end quote, but she says that they went away when her parents divorced. She grew up wanting to be a pop star. Per Rolling Stone at around 15, she won a beauty pageant and also won a talent show by singing Mariah Carey's hero. Actually, where I can, I'd prefer to let Rihanna tell you about herself, if for no other reason, then I vastly prefer her voice to my own. Obviously, here she is talking to MTV in 2006. You know, it's a small island, so, you know, I prefer R&B and hip-hop reggae.

My influences are Beyonce, Moray Carey, Alicia Keys, Whitney Houston. I always used to sing. In the shower, I used to sing at home.

Nibbers would complain because I used to be singing solo. Rihanna's speaking voice is more melodic than most other people's singing voices. That's another opinion.

That's also a fact. Young Rihanna formed a girl group in Barbados with two classmates, and they got an audition with Big Shot veteran music producer Evan Rogers, who was on vacation and Barbados. And as Evan told Entertainment Weekly, quote, the minute Rihanna walked into the room, it was like the other two girls didn't exist. She carried herself like a star when she was 15. End quote. Rude but fair.

For this audition, Rihanna sang emotion. She sang the Destiny's Child Version of the 1975 Samar. Samantha sang hit Emotion written by Robin and Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. It's just emotion taking me. Her voice is better. Sorry. Rihanna's got a four-song demo. Evan Rogers brings her to New York City to help shop it.

And Rihanna auditions as a 16-year-old for Jay-Z for Def Jam Records. She was nervous to meet a celebrity, let alone audition for one. But it went well. It went almost too well. Once again, this will sound better in Rihanna's voice. Talking to Tyra Banks in 2005, here is Rihanna recounting what Jay-Z told her. He said, there's two minutes to leave here, either through the door with the deal sign or through this window, and we're on the 29th floor. So, you're like, where's the pen?

So that's not great. A less disquieting thing that Rihanna says J-Z told her during this audition, it was that deaf jam. signs artists, not songs. Rihanna auditioned in part by singing the song that would become her first big hit single. And as Jay-Z himself put it, talking to MTV News around that time, he says, quote, I was like, that song is too big for her. When a song is that big, it's hard to come back from. End quote, it is very fun to imagine a time when anyone thought this song was too big for Rihanna. No offense to it. Rihanna's debut single in her first big hit single is called Pondar Replay.

It appears in her 2005 debut album, Music of the Sun. Pondy replay, in fact, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, beaten out only by Mariah Carey's We Belong Together. That makes sense. That's okay. You know how many top 10 hits Rihanna has had total 32? You know how many number one songs Rihanna has had? 14. Yeah, it turns out Pondere replay was not too big for Rihanna. Again, no offense. Shake it till the

moon becomes the sun. That's a fantastic line. Ponder replay is a great, fun, propulsive, insidious, doggedly upbeat, globally minded, peak mid-2000 song. There would be a career highlight for plenty of respectable pop stars. And yet it barely sneaks into Rihanna's like top 20. That's more opinion than facts, but you get me. So there's a tension here. There's a fun little dichotomy between the way Rihanna was often publicly perceived in 2005 when her debut album came out and the way Rihanna is often publicly perceived now. Specifically, Rihanna is often publicly perceived now as the master of the universe. Thanks in large part to Fenty, her beauty and fashion empire, Rihanna is literally a billionaire, according to Forbes. She did the Super Bowl half-time.

show while pregnant. She has, this bears repeating, 14 number one songs and 32 top 10 songs. She is a star of stage and screen. She starred in, for example, the 2012 action film Battleship,

based on the children's game with the red and white pegs in the gray boats battleship. Remember when Rihanna pointed the giant battleship turret at the alien and said Mahalo, mother, and then blew the alien up.

It sounded better when she said it. She is Rihanna. is what I'm saying. Rihanna is Rihanna. I know you know what I mean. I find it genuinely difficult to listen to Rihanna's first two albums and imagine her as a mere pop star contender as not yet a sure thing, as not yet the surest thing. Another fun little dichotomy between Rihanna then and Rihanna now, Rihanna's first two albums were released less than eight months apart. Her debut, Music of the Sun, came out on August 29, 2005. Her sophomore album, A Girl Like Me, came out April 10th, 2006.

In fact, Rihanna started her career by putting out seven albums in eight years. Between 2005 and 2012, she released an album every year except 2008. This, too, is in sharp. contrast to the way Rihanna operates now. Rihanna's last album, Antai, came out in 2016, and she is very delightfully in absolutely no hurry to follow it up. Remember in June 2024 when she triggered a panicked news cycle by saying she was starting over on her new album?

Hilarious. Incredible. Another remarkable thing about early Rihanna is that, as she melithuously told MTV News, she prefers R&B and hip-hop and reggae. What separates music of the sun from the other big pop albums of 2005, Mariah Carey is the emancipation of Mimi, Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor,

even Kanye's late registration, is Rihanna's overwhelming focus on Caribbean music. She is a young singer, a teenager from Barbados, making a pop record with guest verses from, well, not JZ. who mercifully does not appear. Rihanna's guests instead include Vibes Cartel, Cardinal official, an elephant man.

Nobody else could have made this exact album in 2005. You can imagine Madonna are like Gwen Stefani trying to make this album, but why would you do that to yourself? That song is called If It's Lovin' That You Want, the other big single from Music of the Sun, albeit a more modest hit, merely a top 40 hit. Number 36. This first record, it's not Rihanna's best work, and it's certainly not her biggest, but it feels tremendously and winsomely true to her, or true to the 17-year-old her who released it.

She is not going to be, simply, an aspiring young star from Barbados for very much longer, so I suppose we should enjoy it while we can. That's Rihanna's cover of You Don't Love Me, parentheses, no, no, no. originally a huge hit for the Jamaican singer Dawn Penn in 1994. Young Rihanna's voice is not necessarily a turbocharged octave-scaling diva canon in the grand tradition of her biggest influences, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Beyonce. But there's a fluidity. There's a bite.

There's a pleasantly coexisting sweetness and swagger to Rihanna's voice immediately. And for reasons of both personality and geography, at this scale, there's simply no other pop are that sounds quite like her. You can imagine a few of these songs working great for, say, Destiny's Child back in 1999, but there's really only one person they're going to work for now. That song is called That La La La. I feel ridiculous saying that song title out loud. Once again, I apologize.

On this music of the Sun record, I also really dig this song called Let Me, which has more of your straightforward American Hot 97 conquering pop buoyancy and rap bravado bombass to it, reminiscent of Beyonce or perhaps A. Marie. But for me, mostly, it's just that Rihanna's voice and the flute riff just really get along. What I think this first Rihanna record does prove is that Def Jam signed an artist, not a song. So good job. And then, seven months and change later, more new Rihanna music. What a time to be alive. That song is called break it off from Rihanna's second album, a girl like me, released in 2006,

and that's Sean Paul providing encouragement. And even the subtle but quite striking curve in Rihanna's voice right at the end there, set it off, boy, I need to stop singing. I'm sorry. Rihanna already has this way of conveying both outrageous grace and immeasurable power, even when she's singing songs about wanting to be yours

and wanting you to let her do things for you and whatnot. There is a soft power. power to both Rihanna's singing and speaking that's going to start getting harder and more powerful real quick. Pretty soon the real question will be, is this song big enough for Rihanna? In the meantime, anybody in the mood for a monster power ballad? Here we have unfaithful, which proves that Rihanna's voice does not have to abruptly jump octaves to convey tremendous riveting emotional catharsis.

Because, see, now I really want to hear the other half of this course. us just for the way she rips into, I don't want to hurt him anymore. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. This is not necessarily my favorite facet of Rihanna, the stormy minor key piano ballad, Rihanna, but already this specific version of Rihanna can also have a top 10 hit, Unfaithful hit number six. Myself, I might be a little more partial to a song like Kisses Don't Lie for the crunchiness,

this like grouchiness, the bracing humidity of the organ and the electric guitar, while Rihanna's voice pull vaults into some killer high notes. But we are all kidding ourselves here, I suppose, if we discussed the 2006 Rihanna album, A Girl Like Me, without acknowledging her first giant bonkers number one song, which is, of course, called SOS. And this is a fantastic, gargantuan undeniable jam. SOS, undiminished by the fact that it exists in the proud, endless lineage of huge pop songs driven by a gargantuan, undeniable sample of another pop song.

In this case, of course, Tainted Love by Soft Cell back in 1981, which of course Tainted Love itself was first recorded by Northern Soul Giant and Cincinnati native Gloria Jones in 1965. This is how upper echelon mainstream pop works, the hugeness, and often the delight. obviousness, the colossal brazen samples, the interpolations, the audacious echoes, the familiarity. Each new chart-topping pop smash, preferably you know the song before you even hear the song. You know what I mean? And SOS is a major mile marker on Rihanna's path to becoming Rihanna. SOS is one of the last instances where the song's hugeness and Rihanna's hugeness are remotely aligned.

To my mind, going forward, you will hear Rihanna first and the song itself second. Her reputation, her imperial majesty, will precede her from here on out. And then a year passes. Barely a year. 13 months. April 10, 2006 to May 31, 2007. I'm sorry, but I can't quite get over this. The nearly decade-long era where we just casually expected a new Rihanna album every year.

It's like science fiction now, but like science fiction set in the past. But anyway, let's tee up a couple more rad colossal brazen samples, shall we? Please don't stop the, please don't stop the music. Sorry, we got Michael Jackson whooping in the background there and everything. I dig it that as with Pond to replay, we are once again directly addressing the DJ, but also we're sampling thriller now. It gets no more brazen and colossal than sampling thriller. This song is called Don't Stop the Music.

And of course, it samples Michael Jackson's want to be starting something. Although, not to be pedantic or whatever, but want to be starting something, of course, very colossally and brazenly, interpolates Mano de Bongo's 1972 hit Soul Makasa, because this is how pop music works. Rihanna's third album, released in 2007, is called Good Girl Gone Bad. And this too is how pop music works. The teenage pop music prodigy on, let's say, her third album, she rebels, she toughens up, she darkens, she rejects her goody, goody image. I was listening to Bangers the other day, the 2013 Miley Cyrus Ultra Rebellion album Bangers with a Z that almost caused a global moral panic.

And that's coming later chronologically. But nonetheless, this is how pop music works. In 2007, an entertainment weekly under the headline Caribbean Queen, or you're supposed to pronounce that Caribbean queen, I suppose. That's another huge famous pop song. That's how headlines work. Rihanna says, quote, good girl gone bad as an expression of where I'm at in my life and my career. It's like, this is me. This is what I'm doing. I don't care if you like it or not. That's a bad girl's attitude. End quote. She also says, quote, I I got really rebellious. I was being forced into a particular innocent image and I had to break away from it. End quote. And finally, with regards

to her new short, jet black, asymmetrical hairstyle, Rihanna says, quote, I always wanted to cut it, but I was never allowed. Now I don't give it damn. I think every teenager has a point in their life when they go into their own world and shut out everybody's

opinion. That's what I'm doing. End quote. This song, is called Breaking Dishes. The way Rihanna sings the words Polisa Lites really does it for me. I almost cut her off before she sang, I'm a fight Amanda Knight,

but the song is the song. It's a great song. So it's the one called Shut Up and Drive, in which we tee up, you guessed it, another colossal brazen pop song sample. If you can, baby boy, that we can... No. Sorry.

We are, of course, delightfully and audaciously interpolating Blue Monday by New Order. now. Subtlete is not the vibe, generally on this, the time-honored rebellious third album. We want to be as loud and huge

and confrontational and undeniable as possible. And thus, it is time to unveil our most brazen and colossal and undeniable and shameless sample yet. And of course I'm referring to our sample of garage bands vintage funk kit O3. and who amongst us doesn't have fond childhood memories

of perhaps cranking up the radio in the super 80s wood-paneled family station wagon to hear garage bands vintage funk kit 03 dropped into a rock block right between beated by Michael Jackson and Blue Monday by New Order. It was right there. This drum loop was just sitting there on the Apple Music Software Program garage band.

I'm defining garage band just a case like my parents are still listening. And the knock against using this drum loop is that absolutely anybody could have used this drum loop. And the argument for using this drum loop is that, well, nobody else did. You have my heart,

and we'll never be world apart. You'll still be my star. The snare on that drum loop is really something. The super satisfying snare crack. Like snapping a redwood tree in half. half. And here we have umbrella. And I do remember distinctly sitting at my desk at my music editor job in New York City watching the umbrella video on my computer for the first time and thus hearing umbrella for the first time. And I was just like, well, yep, that is actually

literally what I thought verbatim. Welp. Yep. And I stand by that, honestly. Excellent analysis. by me. I don't mind telling you. Rihanna is a highest echelon superstar from this point forward in my humble fact-based opinion. And I think I knew right here on the second verse with the ever so slight and yet gargantuan flutter of Rihanna's voice on the words part and cards. And those words that Rihanna just sung there, those words are dumb. Those words should sound dumb. They don't work on paper or in theory. When the war has took its parts,

when the world has dealt its cards, if the hand is hard, there is a clunkiness to these words, a clunkiness that exists only for Rihanna to ignore when she sings these words. And this is how pop music works. The warp speed with which preposterous transubstantiates

into eternal greatness. Because also the two-note melody, that's been banging around in your skull this whole time. Doong ding, dong, ding, dong. The gorgeously deceptive simplicity of that melody. That melody too simple, really, to be called a riff. And yet it's perfect. And also the super heavy ascending bass line at the end there.

Yeah, ba-bom, boom, boom, boom, that bolsters Rihanna as she sings the word because, as though because is the one and only word of the Lord. Now that it's raining more than ever, sorry. Rihanna does truly incredible things with the word because on umbrella. Does she not? This is a song that improves as it goes along for other non-JZ related reasons. Umbrella escalates. It intensifies.

Incredible things happening with the word poor and more as well. But on the other hand, all this granular detail, all this fixation on individual words. riffs, vocal flutters, maybe we're overthinking it. We meaning me, I'm overthinking it. Try this. Do me in favor. Imagine the Rihanna song Umbrella, where everything about it is exactly the same,

even JZ, except that when the chorus hits, she sings, sorry in advance, you can stand under my umbrella and stops. And the redwood snapping snare is still going, the two-note melody, the escalating, base-heavy synth bluster, that still going. The chorus is rumbling along, but Rihanna stops singing after every line and she doesn't start singing again until, sorry, you can stand under my umbrella, and then she stops again,

and so forth. Is the song Umbrella still Umbrella if Rihanna doesn't give the word umbrella 10 syllables? It isn't the same song, is it? The world we live in today isn't quite the same, is it? And it's just reverb. It's just Rihanna providing her own manual reverb. Rihanna is the voice, and Rihanna is the Grand Canyon echoing the voice. The dream, talking to Billboard in 2017, says, quote, The Ella part was a play on reverb. Back in the day, we couldn't afford the good reverb program,

so I started repeating the phrases to make it sound like it, end quote. But enough about him. Enough about all hymns, matter of fact. The dream came up with a cool vocal tick that served him well elsewhere, but that vocal tick needed Rihanna. It needed Rihanna's voice, needed the cataclysmic force of Rihanna's personality that would make her a superstar and make the dream a superstar whisperer.

I keep wanting to say he made it a hotline, she made it a hot song, but that doesn't quite capture it. The dream helped write a great song, but only Rihanna could turn that song into a career. Umbrella spent seven weeks at number one. song of the summer of 2007. Rihanna's Rihanna now. In December of 2007, still 2007,

songs been out for like nine months. The observer interviews Rihanna and asks her, Are you sick of singing umbrella? And she says, quote, no, and thank God. I don't think I'll ever tire of it because it means so much to me. Every time I hear the first bars, it feels brand new. I do get tired of singing my other songs.

End quote. That's funny. That's hilarious. I do get tired of singing my other songs. Outstanding. I'm stalling now. Don't mind me. Can I tell you my all-time favorite Rihanna quote to date?

I took the liberty of committing this to memory. Rolling Stone puts Rihanna on the cover in 2011, and she's shooting the video for her single California King Bed, where she's cavorting on a bed with a male model named Nathan, who Rihanna picked personally for this video after seeing pictures of him on the internet. And the Rolling Stone reporter watches as Rihanna and Nathan meet in real life. And Rihanna shakes Nathan's hand and says, quote, hi, I'm Rihanna. Nice to meet you.

No boners. End quote. And they shoot the video. Hi, I'm Rihanna. Nice to meet you. No boners. Unbelievable. Yeah, I'm calling it audible.

I had this whole agonizing spiel planned about the next two years or so. in the public life of Rihanna, but I've talked enough about shit I don't want to talk about. And Rihanna doesn't deserve to have her story defined by men who have done, really has been accused of doing terrible things.

And also, I haven't reveled in Rihanna's physical voice nearly enough. I will limit my remarks to only two post-Umbrella Rihanna songs. The first one is called work. The juice, the spin Rihanna puts on the word wake here immediately. Look out.

when hell and nothing's wrong. Just get ready for work, work, work, work, work. You see me, I'll be work, work, work, work, work, work. You see me do me dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt. That's something better work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, of course, appears on Rihanna's 2016 album, and TIE, and listen, I want a new Rihanna album as bad as anybody, but it is nonetheless very funny to me

that the aggressively hypothetical next Rihanna album is now being held over our heads, like the winds of winter or something. Rihanna, the George R.R. Martin of pop. She has no pages. Never mind, the patois, the reveling in that barrage of syllables throughout work. It's a cool echo for me, a through line,

all the way back to Rihanna's earliest albums. The deep immersion in reggae that plenty of pop stars have attempted, but none have effortlessly embodied the way she can. My second and last post-umbrella Rihanna song is We Found Love. specifically for this part, this melody. We found love from 2011's Talk That Talk. We found love written and produced by Calvin Harris. We could lay down some context here.

Sure, the EDM boom of the late 2000s and early 2010s and the demand for massive pop stars to sing massive hooks while massive EDM bombast is transpiring all around them. The way Rihanna's voice specifically was perfect for this moment, her voice that does not lose its charisma, its force, its singularity, no matter how conclusive the bass gets, or how outlandish the drop is.

But my love for this song, it's simpler than that for me. It requires no context. It's just the graceful, descending crystal staircase of the way Rihanna sings. Sorry, last time. Because the way I'm feeling,

I just can't. Listen to it again. Remember, everything you know about Rihanna, artistically and personally, and then forget all of it. And then, if you're me anyway, you put in your earbuds, put the song on replay, and joyfully rumble on down the street without any concern for anyone you might frighten as you pass by. Our guest today, we are delighted to welcome back Brittany Spanos. She is a senior writer at Rowing Stone.

She is an adjunct instructor at NYU. She is, dare I say, a Rihanna scholar. Brittany, welcome. So when did you first hear Rihanna? When did she enter your life? When did you accept Rihanna as your personal lord and savior? I heard her pretty early on with Ponda Replay. I watched MTV constantly and, you know,

listening to the radio all the time. So as soon as Ponda replay came out, it was like pretty much on, you know, on MTV constantly. It was, I think TRL still exists at that time or maybe it didn't some, maybe it was VH1 countdown. Like, you know, it's just like a video that was, was on a lot. So, yeah, I was a big fan pretty immediately. And when girl like me came out to the song SOS, I was obsessed with.

So she was someone that, like, I pretty much immediately loved. And I feel like everyone, you know, this was like probably like around middle school for me. So it was like everyone I knew loved her and was obsessed with her. So she was kind of. of like, she was like an immediate cool girl. Like people just, I feel like everyone in my life immediately was like, yeah, Rihanna is amazing. Yeah, Raleigh Stone did a list a few years back of the 100 greatest debut singles of all

time. And you wrote about Ponderee play on there. Like, what made that song great? What made it the ideal introduction to her? And how was she immediately a cool girl for everyone in middle school? I mean, I think it was a little bit of the mixture of style, but also like, you know, a song that was so connected to who she is. she's from Barbados.

It was a song that was like kind of this like great sort of like dance hall, Caribbean sound to it. You know, she still had that, you know, she was a teen. So she did have that teeny bopperness to her that still felt like accessible. It didn't feel like she was trying to be something like much older than what she was.

And or someone much older than what she was. So yeah, I mean, her style was always great. Like I remember in that video, like she had these like, I think they were like low rise cargoes or something. thing that was so like trendy at the time and you know even 2000s yeah yeah so even before she kind

of had her big like style revolution she was still really cool and fashionable and like on point um so everyone kind of just like wanted to like have the same sort of like makeup as her and same like like his clothes and dress like her and like you know it was just kind of it was just like immediate like really fun cool dancey music that felt kind of clubby and not like the other like teeny bopper songs. And SOS, obviously that was her first big hit or first number one, but that one really did it for you as well. Yeah, I mean, it's just a great pop song. I was listening to it earlier and I haven't listened to it in a while, surprisingly, because it's so good. And obviously, there's so many great Rihanna songs. I feel like there's so much of her discography to return to constantly.

So that one kind of falls by the wayside in a way that I'm like, I need to rectify that because it's such a perfect pop song. It's an incredible beat. The chorus. like, I mean, it's just like, it was such a big, like, I think sort of the precursor to umbrella, where it's like her first big, like, I am a pop star. I can make a big pop hit. And it will be stuck in your head forever. Yeah, I mean, not to make everything about eras, right? But I always, like, umbrella is the start of the second phase of Rihanna. And so I'm really interested in like the first phase, like the debuts, you know, before

Rihanna becomes Rihanna, at least in my mind, these first couple albums, when she is a teenager and She's from Barbados, and there's so much reggae happening, you know, like these two, those first two albums feel distinct for me from the rest of her catalog. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, you know, I think she was still finding her voice. Like, I think this was a time where every label and every, you know, every facet of the music industry was really pumping out pop princesses, you know? And I think there was this is a great moment for the R&B pop princess. And it was kind of hard to see what could stick. I think everyone, was sort of looking for that next Beyonce moment and looking for that artist that could really

be that incredible kind of like R&B hip hop pop crossover type of star. And so there's a lot, you know, there's a lot of really great, great artists at this moment. And I think everyone was really trying to find their niche, really trying to find their audience, really trying to become the like the one that really stands out and sticks out. So those first two albums are great Rihanna moments because they are like super poppy but still kind of have that like dance hall clubby music vibe to him but it's still sort of you know those are a lot of those songs probably could have been done by anyone and kind of still like very you know like not in a bad way but like just in the sense of like this was a moment where they were really trying to like figure out where she fit into

this ecosystem of of the of the kind of pop time of I mean great singles obviously. obviously those singles are kind of what stands out and like helped bring her a little bit further along than I think a lot of her peers at the time. But but yeah, I mean, those albums were still, it's funny to like go back to them because Rihanna after that moment is so like unique and so like completely opposite of everyone else at any given moment or like the person who's defining what's going to happen next. And at that moment, she's still kind of like feels like almost a little timid in comparison to. you know, in comparison, yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. Not to other people, but timid in the Rihanna. Of course. Yeah, timid relative to herself later. Absolutely. I agree with you completely.

Like, I can imagine other pop stars like A. Marie or somebody like singing, doing SOS, but not umbrella, you know, and not anything after umbrella. After that,

like, it has to be Rihanna. Totally singular. I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. What did you think? think when you first heard umbrella, did you recognize it immediately? Like, I think you're still

in middle school at this point. Like, as a turning point, like, she's really, now she's really Rihanna, you know, as we know and love her now. It's so funny because that video always still really, and, you know, I think it's with artists like of the of this time, it's like so much the video plus the song you kind of have to talk about because it's like kind of one in the same. And I think that video like still kind of gives me chills because it does feel like this like reintroduction, like this imperial phase of Rihanna is really kicking off because that video is so huge. She's like such a presence in it. It's like, I mean, just like her dancing under, like the, like the umbrella choreography under like the sparklers and, you know, her like paint her body

painted silver. Like it's just like such an incredible moment. And, you know, I think that, you know, I don't think I had like the sort of the idea of like what this would mean in the long term for her, but it did feel like, oh, yeah, like, Rihanna is that is that girl. Like, she is, like, the, like, one of the best pop stars, like this name brand. Like, she deserves that singular name and we are only going to, to, like, be talking about her for probably the rest of the year. And so, and for the rest of, you know, decades to come. But, yeah. Time. Yeah. For the rest of time, we'll be thinking about Rihanna every day for many years. So, yeah, it's, I mean, that song just got, it gives me chills.

Like, it's so perfect. It's so catchy. But that video, I think, was the real sort of like, it felt so different than anything else she had put out at that point. Because it felt like expensive. It felt like even like. It did. I know you mean. It just felt like that real sort of like.

All the sparks, you know. Yeah. The sparks. And yeah, like the fashion in it, like everything. It just felt like a really like expensive pop star moment. I wanted to talk to you about the fashion piece of it. because obviously she's an icon, you know, she's a billionaire, you know, is Fenty, her company arguably more influential, more indicative of her greatness than any one song

she's ever done? No. I mean, I think it can only exist. I mean, she's, you know, there have been a lot of pop stars prior to this moment in time where every pop star has a beauty brand and fashion brand. But, you know, like, everyone's, everyone's tried for decades to. kind of make those things happen. I mean, there are artists and movie stars and models who just completely pivot and just completely make that their thing after a while. And, you know,

she has pivoted for the most part. But I don't think that any of, I mean, for better for where she's pivoted. You know, I don't think that anything about Fenty as a beauty brand or a fashion brand would work if it weren't Rihanna. Like I don't think, I think a lot of, that authenticity of herself and like of her own sort of renegadness in terms of style is the only thing that makes it work. But I think it's also like such a testament to her how much people beg for music because they love all of the music that she put out so much. Even just like leaving on anti like that album alone kind of being like this like like almost goodbye in a way to music. I mean, I hopefully she does make new music. Absolutely it is. You know,

Those companies are billion, billion dollar companies that she has. And the fact that those are already such big names in fashion and in beauty, especially in beauty. And the fact that people are still begging for music, you know, we're fenty every day. Like, I'm still begging for any Rihanna music. So, yeah, it's kind of surreal that that's still such a thing because it's been years now. Do you think that a new Rihanna album could ever live up to the Rihanna album? in your head. Like, I want a new Rihanna album as much as anybody, but it is very funny to me

that occasionally she's like, oh, I'm thinking of starting over, you know, and everybody freaks out, right? Like, it's very funny to me how it feels like this is never going to happen. That feels like the perfect ends to the Rihanna discography is her just threatening us with new music, but never doing it. I think that would be the real boss move at this point, I think. She's just never put out another album. I don't know. I feel like it's always going to be, people are going to be disappointed by anything all the time. But also, like, there's a part of me that, like, feels like with Rihanna because she is so... She's always kind of left field in a way.

Like, I mean, every single time that she sort of does one thing and her next album is something totally different or she has a single that's like... You're like, how can it top this one? And then all of a sudden she like, you know, you're like, okay, I guess she did. Like, you know, it's like, I guess like that's her best single of all time. Like, okay. And so, you know, I think she could end up having, like, another great album if she did want to return. I would hope that she would make more singles at least. I think that's, like, kind of where I'm at in the Rihanna wish list is, like, I'm like, I would love for her to do a few more great hits because she was such, you know, a leader in that, you know, in the 21st century canon of, like, having a great string of top 10 hits, even on literally.

the album that umbrella's on, like, Good Girl Gone Bad. There's like, what, like eight singles and they all were hits. Like, I mean, it's just really incredible. So, yeah, I think I would love for it to make some more singles more than anything. This is such a ludicrously broad question. How would you define, you know, her style? I just have no vernacular to even talk about this. But, you know, what is, what is this style that Rihanna brought, you know, both to pop music and to fashion, you know, to beauty as a How would you summarize, you know, what she's brought? Yeah. I think like something about her style and like outside of the red carpet style, which is its own thing.

But I think like her street style is so important to it. And it's, I think she just was such like a trendsetter and like trying like weird experimental things. Like, you know, what was it? Like she like, I think she was the one of the first people who did like the heels with like, with like athlete. You know, like that was such a big thing. Like her outfits felt they, you know, were in the same way that like the umbrella video felt expensive. Like her outfits were expensive. They felt expensive because you could tell us she was only wearing designer clothes.

But there was an accessibility to how she styled herself and was styled in that, you know, you can almost like, and this is again off the red carpets, but like more so when you'd see pictures of her on the street or on the beach or at a club or going out. it felt like, oh, I can like maybe like imitate and like have my Rihanna moment at a club and like dress like her or I'm going to, you know, get tattoos like her. It just felt like kind of cool girl, you know, like especially like 20 something like cool girl going out was so her her vibe. I've only seen her live once. It was around the rated R tour, which is now forever ago. You've seen her way more recently. I think of the Diamond Ball. Yeah. For starters, like, how would you describe the Rihanna Live experience? I would say, I've seen her twice.

I saw her at, or not actually three times. I saw her on, was her tour with Eminem, which was their co-headlining stadium tour. Really fun, actually. It was a really good tour. Weird in retrospect that that existed. But it's so funny. I saw her at the VMAs, the year that she got the, her, the, what was that the video? Vanguard Award and she did like multiple performances throughout the night. That was really,

really fun. And then yeah, I started at the Diamond Ball, but she does, I think, still annually her like charity gala. And she did like a surprise performance with Farrell with that song. What was it? Lemon. I really dig that song. Yeah. She did like a surprise performance, which is so fun. It's like there's a looseness style she performed. She's not like the most enthusiastic dancer. She seems to mostly kind of hate it. And, you know, she's not like a, she's, she's, she's, I think she's a great singer. I don't, you know, she's not like, you know, a belter. Um, though she's, uh, towards the, towards anti, she started to really show off a lot more

in the way that every pop artist kind of grows and matures their voice over decades of touring. Um, but, you know, she, that was never her thing. Love on the brain. Yeah, love the brain. Like, you know, I think it was her. Higher. I love higher. Yeah, like her skill was in her loose.

just the way she carries herself, like, even at the Super Bowl performance, there's just like this, like, real presence that she has, this real, like, you know, really kind of all-consuming type of, like, coolness that she embodies that's sort of, like, hard to pinpoint, hard to emulate, hard to, like, really find in anyone else, you know? And so it's just, like, yeah, like, watching, like, performance. I didn't go to the anti-tour, but I remember seeing, like, videos of her just kind of, like, just kind of, like, grinding on stage, like, just kind of, like, moving her. her body and just kind of singing and feeling the song.

And like, it was like, yeah, like, this is like exactly what you want. Like, you want to feel like she's doing what you're doing in the audience, too. But yeah, I mean, like, the Eminem tour was fun when I did see, like, sort of like, that was the only real, like, full on tour of hers that I had seen, or like, full on concert of hers. But, yeah, I mean, she was, like, just such, she's like such a fun time. Like, her songs are just, like, so big and fun and dancing. And so it's so much, like, a facility.

for the audience themselves to like really have the best time in the crowd. You sort of mentioned she has so many hit songs that it's almost impossible to like remember them all at any one time. Like what are the Rihanna songs, performances, whatever that, you know, don't get enough love? Like what makes your personal Rihanna top five at this point? Personal top five. I love stay. I'm a really big stay fan.

I think that is a great ballad, great karaoke song, which is often my like determination for a top five with any artist is if I enjoy doing it karaoke. That's an important vector, absolutely. Love that song. This one is one that does get a lot of attention, I guess. But like I think we found love is one of the greatest songs of the 2010. Like, I think it is so important to that sort of like EDM revival moment that was happening,

that sort of like Calvin Harris, Zed, Skrillex, kind of like, like, moment where DJs were pop stars. And Calvin Harris and Rihanna were such a great pairing on that. So I love, we found love. And that song like makes me feel like I can like lift a car when I hear it. So excited I get. I know what you mean. It's actually really hard. I love unfaithful.

That's a really, really good one. Earlier. Yeah. Yeah. I really love Disturbia. Ooh, we don't talk enough about disturbia. Yeah, Disturbia is a great one. And consideration from Antai, I think, it's such a great opening track.

It's Cizza. Like, I mean, this was like, just a really, really great song. Yeah, it's kind of hard because I feel like my brain is like popping up so many, like, Rihanna songs right now, like when I'm trying to think of it. I don't know if that was bad. I think that was bad. Yeah. But she has.

That's close enough. Yeah. I think I remember you noted on Twitter once that Rihanna, Kirk Cobain and Olivia Rodrigo have the same birthday. And I was wondering what you think the universe is trying to tell us and having orchestrated that for us. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, they're Pisces.

And I like that Olivia calls herself a spicy. spicy Pisces was her like her her description of it and I feel like that's a good way of describing all three because I think that when people think of of Pisces they think only of them being emotional and like kind of like sad boy, sad girl vibes but like Pisces are pretty they kind of love the spotlight a lot more than people give them credit I feel like every Pisces I know is really good at at commanding a room. And they're really good at sort of like telling a great story or like really getting people kind of like engaged with them.

There's like a mystery about them that people like really want to unlock. And I think all three of them have that in their own ways. Obviously, you know, there are like massive differences in how they deliver that and like what their music, you know. Yeah. But like, you know, there's like this like thing. There's like aura about all three of those people like that really kind of feels. like, you know, captivating and feels like it's almost like leading a movement or something.

Like, you know, it's like leading this whole thing. And so, and, you know, I would say that Rihanna and Kurt and Olivia, like, in each of their times of debuting, sort of just, like, created a new kind of youth culture for people and really spoke to people in this, like, important way. And yeah, but I don't know, Pisces, less sad. I mean, they're still like sad boy, sad girl vibes, but they do love the stage more than people. And they, they, they, they're sad, their sad boy, sad girl vibes come out in the music in a, in a big way. Because Rianna has some great, I mean, great breakup songs.

Absolutely. When you do stay at karaoke, do you have to arrange, like, find somebody to do the other part? Like, this is, this is explicitly a duet. Like, how important is that finding the right duet partner for stay? I do love doing a duke. that. So it is more fun to do it with someone else. But I will do both parts if I need to. So you've done both parts. Now that I'd really have to see. But I do love to do it. Do you like, turn to one side and then the other? Yeah.

Oh, I just keep going. I'm like, this is a solo song actually. And mind your business. You're going to, don't ask for my, my Mickey Echo. I am both. Sure. Sure. Yeah. You're both. You contain multitudes. I mentioned Olivia Rodriguez, like, says, like, Rihanna's in a weird place right now because she's kind of a contemporary of pop stars. Like, she's still like present tense. Like, she could put out an album. But she's also a massive influence, obviously, on everyone. Even someone like Tyler, you know, when you hear, where do you hear her influence now in new music coming out now? Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of it, I mean, I think everyone sort of aspires to, to,

having that level of kind of chart dominance generally, like just in the essence of it. Like, people want to have that kind of Rihanna level of like pop dominance. And so I think people kind of try to like really think of making those albums that really kind of contain those types of singles on them and that, you know, kind of have like the six to eight back-to-back hits on them. But I think in terms of her music, like, you know, I think her personality and like that looseness, that freeness of who she was and like, you know, the fact that she can so authentically move between like a really great, like, hard rap song to like a super pop princessy type of moment,

to, you know, a big EDM song to like an R&B ballad and still made it all feel like Rihanna. I think everyone still is like, I think everyone's goal is to be able to like move so flexibly and freely between that. I think a great pop star is really trying to make their personality so strong in how they deliver it in terms of like their presence and their style, but also like their actual musicality that they can like achieve that type of like looseness and and flexibility and nimbleness and delivery that Rihanna has. But yeah, I mean, it's like I think that, you know, there's always going to be that that sort of influence of that kind of like, dancehall popa for early years that will always be there. And I think Rihanna is going to be such a

touchstone for any artists that's trying to achieve that. But yeah, I think it's really that kind of presence and that kind of coolness and looseness and relatability that Rihanna has that people want more than anything. All right. Well, Brittany, this has been fantastic. I will sing stay at karaoke with you anytime. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for talking. This has been awesome. Thank you. Thanks very much to our guests. week, Brittany Spanos, thanks to our producers Jonathan Kerma and Justin Sales. Thanks to Olivia Kriri for additional production help. Thanks to Julianna Ress for fact checking. And thanks very much to you for listening. And now, please, let's all go listen to Umbrella by Rihanna.

We'll see you next week.