Switched on Pop - Rihanna Party! ICYMI

Episode Date: February 12, 2023

In case you missed it, “Rihanna Is The 21st Century’s Most Influential Musician” according to NPR. Millions and millions of fans the world over agree, and while we try to avoid overt expressions of pop favoritism, we think they’ve got a strong case. It’s for that reason and a dozen others that we were thrilled to welcome Gina Delvac of the hit podcast Call Your Girlfriend back to the show to discuss the legendary career of one Ms. Robyn Rihanna Fenty. As we all await her ninth studio album (R9), join us for a virtual* blunt-smoke-laced tour through the hit songs that defined her early sound, and a delectable deep dive into her most recent album, ANTI. MORE CONTENT Check out Jenny Gathright’s NPR article “Rihanna Is The 21st Century’s Most Influential Musician.” And find even more work from our wonderful contributors this week down below: Gina Ivie Zoe Cate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Hey, it's Charlie. It's an exciting moment because it's Rihanna's first live performance in seven years. I'm of course not talking about Rihanna, our great producer, but Robin Rihanna Fenty, the global pop star. And to celebrate her Super Bowl halftime show performance, thought it would be a good time to go into her back catalog, which Nate and our friend Gina Delvac did a little wild back. I hope you

have a good time listening with them to Rihanna's repertoire. Welcome to Switch Don Pop. I'm musicologist. Nate Sloan. I'm so happy to be joined by Gina Delvec. Hey, Nate. So happy to be back. Friend of the show, I think.

We don't have many of this. But we're all friends. You make friends everywhere you go. But you're a capital friend. Thank you. I can't call myself the baddest in music, but I definitely love to podcast. So I'm happy to be back. Yeah.

So who are you? I'm the founding producer of Call Your Girlfriend, a podcast for Long Distance Besties Everywhere, and then I work on a variety of other projects as suits my needs. And what is your burning musical question today? Okay, so looking back through the truly epic catalog of Switched on Pop's History, there's one huge omission to me. Oh gosh. And her name is Robin Rihanna Fenty.

Yes. Better known as Rihanna, Riri to some. She who walks out of restaurants with wine glasses and hands. She who has graced many a Met Gala red carpet, a celebrity, a fixture in our culture, and somewhat of a goddess, I might say. You've shamed me in the town square, and rightly so. Let's write this wrong today. I'm so looking forward to doing that. And the reason that we want to do this is because she has a new album dropping any day now.

Now, in the meantime, we wanted to set the stage for why is R9 as her fans, aka the Navy? She has a special name for her fandom. Whoa, this is all news to me. R9 being the ninth album from Rihanna? Okay. And the Navy being... Her fan base. Okay, great.

You know, Beyonce has the beehive. Rihanna has the Navy. Enough said. Yeah. So we want to talk beyond Rihanna as a celebrity, Rihanna as a celebrity. Rihanna as a social fixture to understand what's been happening in her music that I think has gone somewhat unnoticed because she's so pervasive and she's been in our ears for so long. So where has she been?

Where is she going? What do we need to know about her catalog to understand why this is such a big deal that she has a new album? I'm really excited. I'm already learning a lot about Rihanna. And I'm excited to talk about her music. You're right. This is some unfinished business for us. So let's get, let's do it.

Let's get into it. Where do we start, Gina? Well, let's go bird's eye view. Yeah. Rihanna is one of the most prolific pop stars ever. She has a professional music career that spans nearly 15 years. She's won nine Grammys, 13 American Music Awards, 12 Billboard Music Awards, and six Guinness World Records.

Every one of her eight studio albums has hit. the top 10 or higher on the billboard charts. And you might not know this, but she has as many number one singles to her name as Michael Jackson. What? These are some eye-popping stats here. It's kind of, I won't say it's surprising, but it kind of is, right? Because here she is in the present day. We haven't yet begun to think about her legacy or her as an icon beyond what's she's doing and making right now. So we're going to do a lightning fast, fast forward trip through the first 10 or 12 years of Rihanna's epic career. And then we're going to really go deep on her last album, R8, which was Antai in 2016, which I think, as we'll talk about, really marks a big

period of growth and departure for her and sets the stage for why the expectations for this next album are so dang high. Yeah. And we're going to disentangle a little bit the myth of her celebrity from her work as an artist. And I am honored to be your music-go-spiritual shaman on this journey. Amazing. So last year, as part of a series called Turning the Tables, which focused on women in music, NPR music named Rihanna the most influential musician of the 21st century.

Wow. Bold, yeah. And I spoke with Jenny Gathright, who's a producer there. and wrote an amazing essay about Rihanna. My name is Jenny Gathright. I am a producer at NPR, who occasionally writes for NPR music. We're going to use some thoughts from Jenny throughout. Great. So let's start at the beginning.

Rihanna was discovered in 2003 in her home country of Barbados. And let's take a mental journey to what was happening on the American Pop-Tarts of this time. Yeah. 50 cents into club. Wow. That takes me back. I don't even know if we're allowed to be. mention the song anymore are Kelly's

Remixed to Ignition. Whoa, 2003. Okay. Yeah. Beyonce and Jay-Z are collabing on Crazy in Love, which you know, was then in all of our earbuds for... What a year. Three years afterwards, every dance party. Black-Eyed Peas, Where is the Love?

And Sean Paul's Get Busy. I mean, that... If you just played those down... I'm getting a chill, aren't you? It's like a time travel. I mean, those... You could play those tracks in a row at like a party and people would go nuts today. Right. Right.

They're still iconic. Okay. So this is making me feel like there's a Rihanna's entree into the music scene. There's a lot of competition. Yes. And the first track we hear from her is this. This is Pondy replay. Yeah.

I remember this. It's still bangs. Do you remember, does this take you to a specific time or place when you hear that song? Yeah. It takes me to. I guess maybe like my first year of high school. And it's wild to listen to now. I think I have such a different set of,

a different way of listening to this. At the time, you know, I couldn't differentiate her from any other, to me, sort of like airbrushed pop star. I think one of my favorite things about pop music is how much it can transport us back into a time and place.

Yes. That when it's current, when something really like strikes you deep in your heart and in your bones, that it like foments change for you in that moment and then every time you hear that song later, it can take you back to that place. So it seems really relevant to me that Jenny writes in her essay that she was in middle school when Rihanna first came out. And I want to use Jenny's age and journey as a little bit of a guide as we zoom through these hits. Because when we talk about middle school Rihanna for Jenny,

we can also track how Jenny is growing up alongside how the music is changing. So here was her first glimpse of Ponda replay. Just the way that she sang, I thought was really, really cool. There was this depth to it. Pondi replay is a song where she actually shows a lot of vocal range, but a lot of it's in the lower part of her range, which I think is something that gets highlighted throughout her career, is this sort of low singing that I didn't know. I just really took to as, you know, a preteen, thinking about all the different ways that women, can sing and how we don't have to sing in just one way for it to be well received or for it to be a hit. So just a year in change after Pondre replay, we get the song that Rihanna is perhaps best identified with.

Maybe, certainly at this point, the first line of her obituary. Umbrella. Yeah. Who knew that Umbrella had an A sound in it? Yeah, that's the first place I'd go to. The way she says that this whole song is, predicated on just that single utterance, A, that phony. And on one note.

It's like it's got so much. It's A, eh, eh, eh, eh, it. It's incredible. Like, that single syllable, like, goes through so many tonal shifts just in, in its, like, nanosecond of explosiveness. Ostensibly on the same B, on the same note. It's just, I mean, it's not her first single, but it is really, doesn't it feel like her debut of like this is the beginning of the Rihanna that has stayed in our culture and consciousness

for totally and I wonder if that's because she's really staking a claim on language itself she breaks down she finds new syllables within that word new consonants she turns it into a four syllable word umberella instead of a three syllable and then a a a ella it's like she's like literally like a a French critical theorist, like Jacques Derrida, would be very proud of the way she just breaks down language into pure sound, recognizing that the way we construct meaning has as much to do with the sonic quality of a word as its actual significance. And her sonic quality. Thank you.

Yes. And she really, that is on full display here. It's wild to think of her as the most influential musician of the 21st century until I actually stop and think about who I would suggest instead, and I can't come up with anyone who has the same arc and the same sense of transformation and diversity of sound. It's cool. I want to keep this in mind as we continue our Rihanna musical biography. Exactly. Jenny Gathright at NPR was in middle school when she first heard Pondryplay and Umbrella. And as she grew up, Rihanna was like her constant soundtrack, evolving ever so slightly with each new song. So when I asked her, what's the Rihanna track that embodies high school tour? She had this to say. I think what's my name is probably the song that stands out to me the most from high school. Maybe because it was this intersection with Drake being such a thing too. And unfortunately, I had to bring up Drake. Someone else didn't do that. I just did that. So part of what Jenny's alluding to is this tendency,

especially as Rihanna became a tabloid sensation, to link her to all the men that she was close with. Collaborators, romantic connections. People may remember that she had a long and complicated relationship with Chris Brown, where she survived domestic abuse. And people read that onto the music. But for Jenny, in the music is where she, she often found Rihanna's response that she was able to take control and shape her own story,

regardless of the story developing around her. So let's bookmark that for a moment. Nate, can I tell you just a few of Rihanna's top 10 charting songs between the years 2007 and 2012? Layed on me. Are you ready? Yeah. Don't stop the music, 2007. Classic.

Disturbia. Oh, yeah. Wow. Takes me back. Take a bow. Uh-huh. Live your life. Great track.

Run this town. Uh-huh. Russian roulette. Okay. Don't remember that one at all. That's fine. Hard. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Rude boy. Fantastic. Yep. What's my name? The only girl in the world. That might be my favorite of the ones you just listed. S&M.

Yeah. We found love. Cheers, drink to that. You to one. Diamonds. What? Where have you been? And stay.

Those are like Michael Jordan numbers there. Let me re-say that. Those are like Serena Williams, Simone Biles numbers right there. That is staggering. Exactly. Many of these songs come to define pop of last decade. So let's talk for a second about Rihanna's collaborators. Because, you know, people who know her as a celebrity, that gorgeous.

woman walking out of restaurants with her glass of red wine, popping up courtside at NBA games. We hear a lot about her associations with men. The first one is Calvin Harris. My pulse is racing. Don't you feel like, oh yeah, the beginning of the Coachella era, like the modern Coachella era? That is what the freshness, the freshest sound of 2010 sounded like to me. And this takes me right back there.

I mean, it's such a perfect marriage of music and lyrics. We found love in a hopeless place. And then that build and drop is like the musical catharsis expressed by that lyrical sentiment. It is perfect. So this first couple of tracks we've heard, we hear Rihanna bringing the sounds of Barbados into a pretty tight pop package. Yeah. And then this just feels like a whole new. place to go, right? That it's like, here she is anchoring this anthemic dance song. And that's a

good hint of the way that she mixes and blends with genre. And like thinking of what Jenny said earlier about how low her vocal ranges in an early track like Pondre replay, here she's going up and up and up exploring the upper ranges of her voice becoming more of a quote unquote pop, you know, goddess or something. Definitely. But she blends it all together seamlessly. I think that there's a so much more creativity, even within this pretty tight pop package that we're talking about. And Jenny had something interesting to say about this. Rihanna did some really interesting work in kind of taking these more like alt sounds and putting them into the mainstream pop and kind of making a broad audience understand

why they were valid to begin with. Cheers, drink to that, where she has that Avrilavine sample. In Uta 1, she kind of brought in that kind of scrylix. dubstep sound. And I thought that was really effective and really smart. So this kind of genre experimentation, the willingness to take on different collaborators, the seamlessness with which she can move from, you know, alt rock into anchoring a Calvin Harris song. There's a lot to be said for the boldness and flexibility that she shows in all these moves. So Nate, we've done some nice kind of like zooming through the late aughts

and early part of this decade. And I feel like we're very deep into, you know, Rihanna putting out an album every year, single spinner of gold and platinum. And yet, you know, it feels very like within a pop norm. I think that as Jenny pointed out, there's experimentation that goes under-recognized, but in part because these are fun songs.

their party songs. They may anchor us in time, but they're really in that single, you know, moving on to the next kind of format. Totally. The risks are subsumed into that type pop package that you talked about. Definitely. I sense a butt coming. I mean, yes. So when we get to 2016, so this is the year that Antai comes out.

Yeah. Rihanna hasn't released almost any music in four years. let alone an album. So she's taken a break from this prolific, you know, the beat is always dropping pace of her career. And so a handful of singles are an exception. She had another iconic Calvin Harris collaboration this year. We are dancing in the studio. Oh my gosh.

So hot. We're bopping. Yes. And there's another song before we get to Antai that I think has become so iconic that definitely deserves a mention. I mean, listening to Fitch Better Have My Money Next to This Is What You Came For, it's like how many artists are able to do these two very different extremes of personality

And like have them both be hits? That's pretty remarkable. Yeah. And Jenny had something really interesting to say about this. Every time Rihanna put out a song, it felt like, you know, during that time, it would chart. And I don't think that she, She gets enough credit for pulling those things off because they were risks. Also, a great little aside that Jenny had to me was in Bitch Better Have My Money,

this last little bit that we heard, where she's like, pull up to the club, turn up to Rihanna. Oh, wow. This image of Rihanna is a woman in the world as she shows us over and over in the cultural figure that she cuts. And even she understands the significance that she has, that she is turning up to her own music when she's in public spaces. What a power play. I know. Getting high on your own supply. I just love the swagger of the song.

The rappers, confidence, articulation, the backgrounds of it. I mean, it tells us it's a nice hint of where we're going next. Yeah. Ooh, okay. And I think this is a nice way to frame where we're about to go. Jenny from NPR, put it so well. Rihanna actually knows exactly how important she is, and she knows that she's a visionary, and she knows how much she has to offer the world as an artist.

She knows how influential she is. And so, you know, this conversation we're having, none of it is for her sake. She's already told us that she knows. And after the break, Nate, she's going to show us. I can't wait. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster?

Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Do not sugarcoat something for me.

No, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesday.

on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. We're back with Gina Del Vak. We have just raced through Rana's discography, R1 through R7. Yes. I believe. And it seems like all the pieces are in place for something big. As you said, people have been waiting four years now. So it's 2016.

And we're waiting for the next thing from Rihanna. She's given us all this vast palette of musical sound. when this album anti-drops, what do we hear? Here's what we hear, Nate. Work, work, work, work, work. You see me do me, there, there, there, there, there, there. I think this song is a whole episode, work, work, work, work, work. Where you are your lurking.

I think this song is a whole episode, a whole season into itself. No doubt. Work is sort of a desert island Rihanna track, like perhaps replacing umbrella level first line in her biography level hit for her with so many hits to her name, right? Yeah. So I don't want to dismiss it or zoom by too quickly. But what I think is going to be really fascinating for us to talk about is beyond this incredible single, there were a bunch of other tracks that came out of this album. And I think it's one of the first times we hear Rihanna making an end-to-end album that is not just a single that shows her dexterity, her ability to move between any genre and make a hit. But in fact, to show us more of her artistic vision.

So you're ready to go there? Yeah, yeah. I'm on the edge of my seat. Let's do it. So, Nate, here's the assignment I gave you. Right. Hey, Nate, it's June Adel back calling. Okay, so I'm so stoked that we're going to talk about Rihanna.

and I need you to do some homework to get in the mood. Find a cozy situation in your home, get your best speakers or headphones, and do at least one to two full listens of her 2016 album, Antai. Know that we're going to talk about a couple of songs on there, but just marinate, bask yourself in this experience, and get ready for our follow-up chat. Can't wait to talk to you. Bye.

I've pride myself from being a good student, so I followed your directions to the letter. Okay. And I am ready to break down these tracks with you. So, Nate, let's listen to the very, very opening of Antai. This is the first track of consideration. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no.

I know you try to. I come right. Yeah. To me, this first track sets the tone for the album in a lot of ways. It tells you this album is going to explore three themes. themes. One is the power and mystery of Rihanna's voice, which we've talked about a little. The song really centers her voice in the, in the center of the mix. It's loud. It's out front. And it centers her ability, her range, her different kind of characters and a mode of beguiling, expressive modes.

second it tells you this album is going to be sparse elemental minimalist the tight pop packages to use your indelible phrase which i love the t pps of riana's earlier career not as not going to feature as much here this is like a little down dirty a little garage rock a little like basement tapes a little bit rough around the edges hard sounds and third maybe an extra musical kind of theme. This is a version of Rihanna that is large and in charge, unapologetic, full

steam ahead, never looking back. Yeah, I think consideration is such a great album opener because it tells you like these are the three things you're going to hear throughout this record. And for all the attention and talk of her collaborations, the first voice other than hers that we hear

is Siza. It's not a man. It's not like a male producer. It's not Drake, the beleaguered love interest, you know, the convenient mirror for all of our desires that are projected upon her, right? It is about this woman with whom she's often singing in unison, both first trading off and then singing in unison. So should we dig a little deeper into this track? Let's do it. Okay. Let's listen again to the very, very beginning of this track.

this chunky, thick, like, backbeat, gritty. Like, when you hear, when you first heard that, like, what does it tell you about what's about to come? It tells me it's going to have an edge to it. It's going to be, like, there's not a lot of harmonic information here. And what I mean by that is there's no, like, guitar chords. There's no piano chords. There's no, like, strings here.

any these are you know these all bomp bomp bomp bomp bump bamp bamp bamp right of like her dance era exactly there's a little less to orient you harmonically it's really what there's a lot of is like rhythmic information that's the very first thing you hear is a drum and as you say it's like a very particular kind of drum it's a sharp drum that has been like gated which means that it it doesn't ring out at all like you could hit a drum and it would sort of you know naturally sort of slowly decay as the vibrations faded away. But this is a sound where you strike the drum and then before it can fade away, you just chop it off.

So it gives it this, yeah, this stark kind of intense timbre, I think. And the pace is clear that we're going to like slip into a groove here. Oh yeah. This is maybe an album to listen to in a more intimate space. Not like you wouldn't be dancing to this track, but you're probably, dancing alone with one other person and not necessarily out in the club on a dance floor. So the next thing I want to ask you about that happens in this song is when we start to hear Rihanna's vocal line, she's doing something that I don't think I've heard her do before.

Talk to me about the melody there because her voice is not only doing incredible things and how she manipulates it or what the tone is, but just on the notes. Like, this isn't your usual Rihanna stretching out a single note to its ultimate effect. What you're asking is a very difficult question because I think the way that, like, melody works on us is somewhat, you know, parsable, but also kind of ineffable in certain ways. That said, there is something about the, there's like an intensity to the way she's singing and what she's singing. But then there's also these moments of melody that are like very kind of simple and even sort of beautiful. And especially lines like the melody when she's saying, what does she say?

She says somebody, something break it on down for me. I do advise that you run it on back. Run it on back when you're breaking it down for me. So like a moment when she's. Look, she got us to do it. We're running it on back. that moment she's saying running on back, break it on down for me,

it's like that's also a very kind of just like lovely belcanto melody in a way. It's like very kind of simple and beautiful and you could easily imagine having sort of a different kind of lyric there like something from a 1930s musical like, oh dear, you're so pretty,

I want to buy you flowers or something. I guess to say it just feels like a very just like limpid classic melody. But then the lyrics she's giving us are like just and the way she's singing in that drumbeat we've been talking about being in the background. It gives it this like kind of uncanny sense of like, oh, that's like a really nice melody. But like, whoa, that force and that intensity. It's not what I expected at all. Yes, yes. Well, and sort of this marriage of like an aesthetically pure, classical, almost flex against the attitude, the grit.

And I think lyrically, it really matters that she ends on, I've got to do things my own way, darling. And that moment where she says that, I got to do things my own way. Like, that is really cool because she's actually saying, I have to do things my own way. She's like kind of introducing this new kind of rhythmic syncopation, do things my own way. Like that's not, we haven't heard that rhythm before. So it's like she's telling us she's got to do things her own way. And even the rhythm of that line is telling us that she will. And that's really, really effective to listen to.

Like every time she hits that for me, I'm like, yes. And I have to do things my own way too, Nate. Yes. Why don't you respect me? Will you ever let me grow? So this is her first album with Jay Z's Rock Nation. She's under her own banner and imprint. And the attitude is clear.

She's going to do things her own way. And whether or not we're ready to recognize her genius, it's going to be there. And she sees it. Yeah. Wow. And to that point, she's really embracing her power in every sense. This is one of my favorite moments from the song,

where after Siza's verse, we hear them sing. in unison. So we've been in this slinky, both beautiful but gritty interchange of these two women's voices and it feels like there are these long interconnected phrases that then suddenly get chopped up by these handclaps that say,

let me cover your shit in glitter. I can make it gold. What can I add, Gina? You need to own your own musicalogical prodigious abilities here. You just, I can't say it any better. Thank you, Nate. I really appreciate that.

And I also think that as we come out of that hand-clapping moment, there's an arc that happens in that little break that starts with, let me cover your shit in glitter. And that ends with, give my reflection a break. Yeah. So this dual recognition of this mightest touch that Rihanna has had, that her participation is, in any track has the chance for it to go gold or go platinum.

And yet, as she's grappling with that persona, she's looking for her own self and is going to tell us in this album who exactly she is as an artist, regardless of how we've interacted with her on a red carpet, on a meme, or anywhere else. Wow. So stripped down musically and sort of stripped down psychically as well? Maybe.

Or certainly, like, she, in charge here. So you've heard consideration. Now you're in the zone. You've probably been smoking a joint while you're listening to that song. No comment. And you're ready. And if you haven't, the second track addresses this directly.

So the next song I want to talk about is track number seven needed me. I was good on my own. That's the way you was. That's the way it was. You was good under love for a fateful. Didn't love Shit what the fuck you

Complaining for Filling jetting up You used to trip off that shit I was kicking to you Didn't they tell you I give it to you But baby Don't get it

Twist You was just another nigga on the hill list Trying to fix you And they tell you that I was a savage Fuck your white horse And a carriage Didn't they tell you

She was a savage Oh man Gina this song This song So we are laughing listening to this because it's so good. It's so good. It's like that feeling, yeah, laughing not because of anything, not because of any of the content, just because like what reaction can you have in the face of utter perfection other perfection

other than just just just just, just amusement, just joy, just laughing out of joy of the beauty of something so perfectly. created, whether it's a Mozart Symphony or a Stephen Sondheim lyric or, you know, a Jesse Norman Aria, like, this is up there. This is in the Pantheon. I have a very personal relationship to this song, too. I remember when my partner Whitney and I drove from New York City to New Hampshire, which is like a five-and-a-half-hour drive. And she would have to verify this. whether I'm exaggerating, but I'm pretty sure we'd listen to this song on repeat for like five hours of that drive. Like just literally it would stop and we would play it again. Then we would look at each other and be like, do you want to, should we listen to something else?

And we would kind of be like, no, I think we just need to let it. And we just listen to it again. And it's every time you would hear something new in it, something different, something you hadn't heard before. Yes. This is like we need, you know, in 1973, the NASA, put a record in the Voyager spacecraft and sent it out into the far reaches of the galaxy. We need to get this song in space, like, immediately. So we're going to talk about a couple of things in this song.

We're going to talk about the tone that's set by the opening production. We're going to talk about the lyrics. And we're going to talk about how once again Rihanna destroys us on a single syllable. Yeah. Great. So in terms of the production, I want you to help me describe what's happening in the opening before her vocal comes in. There's something about that shuddery quality that I think immediately gives the sense of urgency, excitedness, anxiety. Like my heart is already pounding.

Yeah, it's very unsettling in a way and also very captivating. It's a sound, it's hard to say what the origin of the sound is actually. Is it a voice? Is it a synthesizer? Is it some acoustic instrument? It's so hard to say because whatever that original sound is has been so transformed, so diced up and processed that it's almost unrecognizable, which is also unsettling in a way. Something that you can almost put your finger on, but you can't quite. And it's been chopped up in this way where what might have been a single uninterrupted. tone, la has been sort of pumped in and out from a maximum volume to a no volume. So it's like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. That creates a sort of sense of rhythm and beat, but not a beat with any precision because it's rough around the edges. So it's not this kind of metronomic, like tick, tick, tick, tick. It's a little, it's fuzzy, it's hard to put your finger on. And yet it's also very effective. and really grabs you from the beginning.

So already, but before, right, before anything else has started in the song, you're both, like, intrigued and a little uncomfortable. And I have to say not to overly dwell on this, but that fuzziness to me also plays on the themes of intoxication that are throughout this album, that that feeling of being a little too drunk,

or maybe, in this case, mixing your good weed and your white wine and having this sort of swirl and the emotions that can come within that swirl. I think that that starts to evoke that really well, which sets us up for some of the things that are happening in the lyrics of the song. So where I really want to focus is on the pre-chorus. Oh, man, hard to hit pause on this one. know yeah i mean i'm hearing a lot here like you know something else that strikes me is that she's constantly going back and forth between these kind of rapid fire machine gun melodies these little

like bursts of of of of of lyrical and melodic intensity you know often accompanied by some some withering line that if anyone ever said to me i would just want to crawl in a hole and die and never emerge for the rest of my life try to fix your inner issues with the bad bitch Like, oh my God, I've been called out so hard. I cannot live in this world anymore. Right. And yet she just, but then it's just like on to the next, you know, devastating line. And then just when you are sort of expecting her to settle into that kind of real long,

ratat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-then she'll switch it up, go into the chorus. It's just one long word, basically, or two words, needed me. Needy-e, just like stretched out in something called molysma. Which is a beautiful word that actually comes from the Greek root melly, meaning honey, and refers to singing multiple musical pitches over a single syllable. In this case, the syllable is just the knee of Needed Me. And it becomes this snake-like kind of descending melodic line. And all those triplets, right?

Yeah. Like, I started trying to picture what would be happening on sheet music here. And all I could think is just the curl of smoke coming off of Rihanna's joint as she unspools this knee. Gina, take me there. I love it. The confidence, the flex. Yeah. And part of the power in that, what's it called, malisma?

Melisma. Is that we, the one part you skipped over is we had this ratat-da-dun. You know, had some fun on the run, though, I'll give it to you. Used to trip off that shit I was kicking to you. And then the beat hits, and we slowly hear, baby, don't get it twisted. You were just another person on my hit list. Trying to fix your inner issues with a bad bitch. I love the rapper level swag and the articulation that just matches in each of these phrases.

Didn't they tell you I was a savage? Fuck your white horse in your carriage. But you never could imagine. And never told you you could have it. So this pre-chorus is really setting up the full attitude of this song. This is like a Jay-Z Big Pimpin type of flex of who is Rihanna in this situation, in this interpersonal situation. She's someone who is happy to have a sexual relationship with this person.

But she's not looking for much more. And anyone who thinks otherwise, this is. is not her seductive, inviting persona from Umbrella. This isn't her lightly flirting with Drake and indulging in an on-again, off-again, sense of romance amid whatever it might be happening in their friendship. This is very clearly, you was just another word I'm not going to say on a hit list. In another song, these lyrics would be talking about someone getting killed or destroyed. The victim here is the...

It's the person who caught feelings, who didn't understand the context in which they were operating. Yeah, or I might even say the victim is the like gender industrial complex of like, you know, the white horse in a carriage to me. That is a metaphor for like every gendered expectation of femininity that like a woman is supposed to want from, you know, the happily ever after or whatever. Like, she's saying not only no to this person, but like no to all of that.

Like, I'm a savage. I mean, this song, wow, the more I think about it, I think this song was an important step in my sort of feminist journey or something because I think part of, now I'm thinking about, part of what so arrested me about this song, the reason why Whitney and I had to play it, you know, say I listen to this 60 times in a row,

Like, maybe what drew me to it was not only all these musically captivating features we've been talking about, but this, honestly, like, a whole different, something I've maybe never heard from a female pop singer before a repudiation of the gendered norms of what a pop singer needs to be. Like, I don't know. I'm clearly working through some things. Why don't you take over for a sec, Gina? Well, and let's talk about the chorus. Okay. Then there's this taunt of not only did you need me, you needed me, me-e-e-e-ee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-eded-e-e-ded-e-ee did me. Right.

And just drops that like a ton of bricks on us, and the combination of the virtuosity of how she can stretch that syllable, the use of her voice, our alternation between personae, lands. with like the level of recognition that you experienced while listening to this track on repeat. And I think is once again sort of this like I can see her finger in the air twirling a piece of hair or like letting the smoke just continue to curl off her join as she says. And I'm not going to stop this one word or this one syllable until you really get it. We're in the swirl. We are. We're in her swirl. Not only are we in her swirl.

there's another audience for this dialogue she's having the song. It's not only this lover who's come back to say, I have romantic feelings for you. I was looking for more. It's also us who has so voraciously consumed Rihanna for over a decade and that we come back again and she says, you needed me. You that music industry needed me.

You, Nate, or Gina listening to this track on repeat, that Rihanna is deep in our cultural fabric and this decade would not mean the same thing without her. And yet, maybe we were just someone on a hit list. Maybe we were trying to fix our inner issues with the bad bitch. That's deep, Gina. I got to process that for a second.

But it does make me think how maybe another theme of this album is taking the tropes of pop music, of romantic love, and turning them on their head, not ignoring them, but using them as a vehicle to send some deeper messages. About money and about power and about gender constructs. Yes, and when I think of the title of this album, which has always seemed kind of inscrutable to me, anti. Now it starts to make a little sense, actually. This is what you are hearing is the anti.

to the antidote to the antidote. Or playing against type. Yeah. Going back to what we were saying in consideration about give my reflection a break, grapple with me, the artist, and recognize that you needed me. So we alluded to a couple other tracks, but there is so much more in this album that we can talk about. We could probably do an episode for every track on this album. Love on the Brain.

think deserves special mention for the way that she once again defies our expectations in this sort of waltzy or six eight traditional sounding piece with surf guitar and motown and falsetto. There's just a million more things and a million more single notes, single notes and single syllables that she deploys once again with just so much finesse and flex. Yeah. And that's what good artists do. They create whole universes out of tiny moments. Well, and it's one of the reasons that we love to close read, right?

Is to really try and get at what are those little moments and why do they operate so effectively on us? So, Nate, how was your time revisiting Antai just on a mood level, affectively? Re-listening to Ante gave me a new appreciation for how the album has the, this thematic continuity through it that I maybe wasn't so aware of before. I was like, oh, wow, what a great collection of, like, songs that I really enjoy. But talking about it with you, and especially talking about it in light of, like, the larger arc of Rihanna's career, I'm even more in sort of standing back in awe of the record because it is this, like, very coherent statement about her past and her future in a way that just makes me enjoy it even more. I couldn't have said it better.

So for her last album to have been such an important musical step forward, such a definitive statement about who she is as an artist, the expectations for R9 have been wildly high. And so I hope that this at least is a nice guide for your listening to hear what we're about to hear from her next. Gina, thank you so much for this Rihanna party. I learned a lot about an artist that I thought I already knew a lot about, and I'm really excited to dig into this new record. Same here. Can't wait. So as you prepare to dive deep into Rihanna's back catalog, we want to leave you with some parting words from people who love her and know her music well.

How am I experiencing the weight for R9? As my father would say, with great skill and difficulty, I miss her. a lot, but I also realize that the things that we consume come from people and those people have to be ready and willing and in a good place in order to produce the things that we want. I love to pretend to be mad that Rihanna hasn't really seen up them in this long. I think it's really funny to make jokes in her Instagram comments or make funny tweets about it. But in reality, this is kind of how long albums take. She's been giving us so much good music back to back to back year after year that we just forgot how good we had it.

I'm probably the only person on earth who isn't waiting in bated breath for this Rihanna album to drop because I understand that she does everything on her own time and in her own accord and we can't change that. So I won't even try to do that. But whenever she drops, I will be ready and I will be excited because her last project, I believe, was her best project, her most holistic project. My love of Rihanna and her music and her public persona is less about the music specifically and more about what the music conveys about who she is as a person, about what she is selling. me as the product that she is. I'm curious to see if this next project will fulfill all the rumors that have been circulating for the last few years. Some say that it's going to be a reggae and dance hall-infused album with more Caribbean sounds.

There's been rumors that she's flirting with Afro-pop as well and maybe collaborating with a few West African artists. So that I will be anxious to hear. My initial experience of R9 will be twofold. For the first, like, hour, hour and a half after the album comes out, I will be frantically texting everyone I know, attempting to tweet about it, and trying to read all the insightful analyses that I'm sure Black Twitter is about to pull out in record time. Then I'm going to dance.

It's a reggae album. It's new Rihanna music. I'm going to dance. Like, there is no tomorrow. I don't know. I'll probably get a nice big glass of wine in her honor. Listen to it with my headphones on really loud. And enjoy myself until I fall asleep.

I don't think that there's much to do because I don't think that she would want us to do anything other than be ourselves. To enjoy the music in the way that is most comfortable for us. Switched-on Pop is produced by me, Nate Sloan, and Charlie Harding. Gina Delvac was our host extraordinaire today, and thanks to to everyone who sent in a voicemail that's Zoe Haylock, newswriter at vulture.com, Kate Young, film and culture critic, and Evie Ane, a music writer who joined us last for our episode about Beyonce and The Lion King. Huge thanks, too, to Gautum Shrikaschen,

our engineer who stepped in because Brandon McFarland was off getting married huge. Congrats, branded Mazelot. And Nate, if I can intrude one last time, a couple thanks from me to Megan Lubin for stewarding me through this process with immense grace and talent and to Jordan Bailey for some of her great suggestions

as I researched my part of this episode. Liz Kelly Nelson and Nashak Kerwa are the show's executive producers and Bridget Armstrong is our producer. You can find our episodes wherever you get podcasts. We're proud members of the Vox Media Network. and we'll be back in another week with a brand new episode. Until then, thanks for listening. Attention, Spotify.

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