Anti - Rihanna

Rihanna, the Barbadian singer, is not somebody who I thought held particular acclaim with critics, so to discover she had placed an album highly in a lot of top 10/20 best albums of 2016 was interesting; it was almost enough to make me happy to listen to the album, almost.

I have biases against Rihanna, I’ve never liked a thing she’s done, I’ve always seen her as superfluous to music and I’ve been pretty convinced she’s only popular because of her looks.

So listening to Anti I had to overcome these biases, after all this was a highly placed album on some well-regarded lists. However I failed, I simply didn’t feel much for this album.


The album cover of Rihanna's 8th studio album.


The highs of the album aren’t bad, songs like Kiss It Better, Desperado and Woo were all perfectly good songs, I couldn’t even complain about them, but the rest of the album drags itself miles behind these three songs.

The pop hits of 2016 like Work were pitiful and I couldn’t see much worth in about half the album.

The poorest part of the album however was when Rihanna tried to do a Tame Impala impression on Same Ol Mistakes, and suddenly it became apparent why I haven’t seen her on any ‘best of’ albums before.


The singer. Photo Credit: Getty Images



However I’m also still weary of myself because this album is competent and gifted and I’m just deaf to it’s charms due to years of overplaying and oversaturation of Rihanna.


At the same time maybe I’m being unfair to myself. If that is the case this is easily the worst album I’ve actively listened to in 2016.



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