Rihanna is working hard, man. She's working for some sort of status and I have to applaud her. When I first heard that she was gonna release the new cut "Disturbia" from the re-release of her album "Good Girl Gone Bad," I didn't get it. I found the song to be just... weird. It's got lyrics about "no more gas in the rig" and the verses are hard to take in on the first listen, in part because of its call and response style. But after having seen the video for the single, I get it. She's trying to make her version of "Thriller."
Watch the video below.
That's some sick shit, Rihanna. Unlike so many of her contemporaries, Rihanna gets that the visual matters. Rihanna showed that she understood that when she (or her handlers, for you cynics) decided to take a sharp turn left with her image for the release of her third album. The video for "Umbrella" was her coming out ceremony and she unveiled a completely new Rihanna. The new Rihanna had a sharp, dark, edgy haircut, she wore black, a lot, and she favored tight, leather, body-fitting outfits. The "Good Girl Gone Bad" butterfly that emerged from the "Pon De Replay" cocoon was a new beast entirely. Gone were the comparisons to Beyonce that she suffered from on her last album. Rihanna now had her own style.
Now to be accurate, while I do think Rihanna gets the visual, she falls off track sometimes. I thought the "Umbrella" video was genius. The follow-up, "Shut Up and Drive," was perfect visually with its racing theme, but she didn't dance, which left the video feeling a bit lacking in energy. "Don't Stop The Music" was a disappointingly bland and unoriginal club video. It sadly suffered from little dancing as well. "Hate That I Love You" is barely worth mentioning, but at least it mimicked a retro style nicely. Same goes for "Take A Bow."
But with "Disturbia" Rihanna seems to have found her mark again. It pulls together a mish mash of the weird and odd elements of Michael Jackson's "Thriller," "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Dawn of the Dead." It's a song about paranoia, self-torture and horror and she brings all of these themes to life vividly and convincingly. She twitches, contorts her body in quirky positions and the backdrops look like scenes from your worst nightmares. Ashlee Simpson is somewhere pulling her hair out because this is the exact look and style she was going for with her "Outta My Head" video. Unlike Ashlee, I'm sure Rihanna will find some measure of success with this single.
I wonder though, shouldn't this song and video have been postponed til Halloween? Seems like a waste in the middle of the summer.
