Archive December 4, 2011 Music

Talk That Talk Album Review Part 2

A reader of last week’s Talk that Talk track by track album review asked me: “but feldspar, what did you think about the album itself.” Going track by track is an easy and convenient way to organize thoughts about an album – it imposes a hard structure that often eludes the standard album review. However this was not an album review format I’d pull out for any old album.

Many reviews of Rihanna, both the album and individual songs, like to suggest improvements at the artist. Take the last sentence of Lindsay Zoladz’s Pitchfork review, “Rihanna’s obviously going for sexy here, but her music’s at its most alluring when she’s blissed out in her own reverie, not taking the time to spell it all out for us.” Pitchfork’s review and argument here is a good one, but irrespective of that: it’s really difficult to pin any of the musical decisions on an album like this to a particular artist. Well some decisions are easy: Jay-Z’s verse on “Talk That Talk” is torpid, and that’s Jay-Z’s fault. But which of the four writers on “Cockiness,” Bangladesh, Rihanna, or two mystery names without wikipedia pages, deserves the blame for whatever happens during the chorus of that song?

And, as it’s difficult as it is to point to artistic impulse behind the songs on Talk That Talk, it’s equally difficult for me to pin the album to a unitary artistic vision on the whole. So while I appreciate the sort of analysis that can articulate what it likes and doesn’t like about Rihanna, I rarely think it’s the right move to expand that criticism into statements about themes or aims that permeate the album. The truth is that if there’s alot of, for example, “sexy” on Talk That Talk, that “sexy” can’t be said to be coming from or going to the same place.

For these reasons, I don’t really care about Rihanna albums as albums. As I’ve done with her previous records, I’ll probably just listen to the songs I like off Talk That Talk (those being, if you want a quick playlist, “You da One,” “We Found Love,” “Roc Me Out,” and “Watch n’ Learn”) and assume that I’m not missing out on any great insights that span the fifteen tracks.

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1

BunniesAreNom on December 4, 2011 at 7:35 pm
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I disagree! I think that you can definitely talk about Rihanna’s album as a whole just as you would any other artist or group, whose release only happens with the work of hundreds of individuals. Rihanna is a brand, an icon. If you were talking about Robyn Fenti specifically, than it is fair to say that you can’t comment on her entire production because it wasn’t produced only by her. Critics take into account that every pop icon is supported by other artists, and it is perfectly legitimate to comment on an album, each of which is a carefully selected collection of the artist’s work.
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  feldspar on December 4, 2011 at 11:23 pm
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  I guess I’m not trying to say that it’s impossible to write about the album because Rihanna is a nebulous figure and more identifiably the creation of a team than one individual talent. My point is more that, on Team Rihanna, on this album, there doesn’t seem to a be a single, controlling artistic voice. There’s more just a mess of ideas and directions, with the one thin theme being Rihanna singing on each song. I don’t really see any “careful selection” at all. In this way, isolating intentionality over the whole of the album, ie making the type of claim that the Pitchfork reviewer is making, seems fruitless to me.
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jesse on December 6, 2011 at 2:43 pm
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I wonder if the disunity of the album is a choice that “Team Rihanna” made? I imagine that most listeners will only be exposed to it one song at a time, even if they do venture beyond “We Found Love” and its incredible video. So maybe, aware of this fact, the creators chose to think of it as just a series of singles, not defined by their positions in a larger work?
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feldspar on December 6, 2011 at 4:40 pm
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Yeah I think it’s likely that Rihanna and the administration behind this album probably had the approach you described. Which then leaves the question: given that the album is best described as “a series of singles,” is there any better format for review than talking about each track in isolation from the others? I don’t think there is.
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  feldspar on December 6, 2011 at 4:41 pm
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  that’s re jesse
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  HuckleKat on December 6, 2011 at 7:12 pm
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  I agree with you – it reminds me of Lupe Fiasco’s last album, Lasers, which received tepid reviews despite having at least a few decent singles that reached a broader audience than Lupe had in the past.
  But this is the problem with most modern albums, I think – the fact that so many of them experience intentional or unintentional leaks or release the ‘best’ songs as singles beforehand. In the past, an artist would release a ‘single’ as just that – a single, maybe with a B-side. When CD’s were at their peak, the single fell in popularity because it was so cheap to release an entire album, and now it is returning as more people purchase ‘single’ songs from iTunes and the like. It’s a bit disappointing because we see so few ‘complete’ albums, especially concerning pop artists like Rihanna.
  My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was an example of how compelling an album can be – there are songs on it that I don’t necessarily ‘like’, but when they come on, I can’t help but listen to them. On Talk That Talk, I always just skip to We Found Love and then maybe keep listening after that.
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    feldspar on December 7, 2011 at 12:40 pm
    
    Yeah this is often my listening habit with these sorts of albums as well: pick my favorite track and play it from there until I get bored. Albums are still around tho though! Writing this comment and your post have inspired my end-of-the-year ranking list (which I was going to write inevitably) to be focused on the albums I’ve listened to as full albums this year. I’m gonna think more about this in that post.

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