I don't like Rehab, just to start off. I think Justin Timberlake is a great songwriter but Rehab, in the words of Alexandra Burke, "just didn't do anything for me".
And hence these are my 20 favourite Rihanna songs. Listening to some of them bring me back to my Secondary 1 & 2 days. In no alphabetical order:
"I'm breaking dishes up in here, all night. I ain't go stop until I see police lights."
Actually, this song makes Rihanna look like she's some wife waiting at home for her husband, who's out there cheating, and then she has to do the dishes and hence she starts breaking them to vent her frustration and agony. Right?
This song was not released as a single, after much deliberation. It was supposed to, until the song below cut it off.
"Disturbia. It's like the darkness is the light. Disturbia. Am I scaring you tonight?"
The hype that this song had was similar to this year's Bad Romance. I don't know, I see this song as like a "senior" of dance-pop. It is, in Rihanna's words, a song about mental anguish, and hahaha, ironically it was written by Chris Brown. Even more ironically, it was supposed to be performed at the Grammys, but it was cancelled due to the assault cause.
A #1 song in the US for 2 weeks. I still remember screen-shot-ing Billboard.com when this song topped the charts. I think it's still in my previous blog.
"Let's escape into the music. DJ, let it play. I just can't refuse it like the way you do this.
Keep on rocking to it. Please don't stop the - please don't stop the - please don't stop the music."
Keep on rocking to it. Please don't stop the - please don't stop the - please don't stop the music."
This is the very first song I heard from Good Girl Gone Bad, and it was over the speakers at HMV Heeren (which has since shifted to 313@Somerset). There's so much electronic rush that you can hear, it definitely belongs to the club. I will say I'm not a fan of the music video because the frame-flickers are very similar to that of Umbrella, and it's annoying and unnecessary.
#3 in the US and #1 in the United World Chart, which accounts for the whole world. This song was successful.
"I just wanna set you on fire so I won't have to burn alone.
Then you'll, then you'll know where I'm coming from. Fire bomb."
Then you'll, then you'll know where I'm coming from. Fire bomb."
You can feel Rihanna showing her personality more in this song, and it's not
Not a single, no chart performance.
"Once a good girl goes bad, we done forever."
Title track from the album of the same time, the message of the song is one thing (probably about not offending girls la), but the melody is another. There's a lot of impact in the song, and her voice is very nice, and I usually think her voice is just average, but for this song, she reaches all the low notes wonderfully.
Not a single, no chart performance. She did perform this song in her Good Girl Gone Bad Tour, before Hate That I Love You.
"I-I-I- I'm so hard. Yeah-yeah-yeah, I'm so hard."
In early stages, I thought this song was annoying cause of the "YEAH YEAH YEAH!" which begins the song. I did hear in a podcast interview between Rihanna and Ryan Seacrest that the song was actually titled "So Hard", but it was reduced to "Hard" by request of the songwriter or producer or someone. Like the music video when she has a mud bath. Hahahah!
Top 10 hit in the US, going to #9. Also Top 10 in Canada.
"But I just can't let you go. And I hate that I love you so."
I find Mariah Carey's H.A.T.E.U. very similar to this song. "I can't wait to hate you, make you pain like I do, still can't shake you off" and this song's "And I hate how I much I love you, I can't stand how much I need you." As usual, Ne-yo does a phenomenal vocal performance.
This song was nominated for two Grammys. At the same time, it went to #7 in the US and #6 in New Zealand. Top 10 material.
"Now I got are these photographs."
I'm assuming it's post-break-up, and Rihanna's only left with photographs of her and her ex. I don't see this being released as a single as much as I like it. Don't know why. Usually will.i.am collaborations don't become singles unless you're Fergie. The best part of this song is Rihanna's very sweetening voice in the "nothing with you... you... you..." lines.
Not a single, no chart performance.
"Come Mr DJ, song Pon De Replay. Come Mr DJ, won't you turn the music up?"
Very first single of Rihanna's career! I first heard from the movie, Bring It On: All or Nothing, and I thought SOS was nicer. Now I've gotten more used to this song, and the bridge is enjoyable. I don't miss this era of Rihanna. I miss the SOS one.
This song was #2 in the US. You want to know which song blocked it from the top spot? That's right.... We Belong Together by Mariah Carey! And I agree, We Belong Together should have, cause it was too good a song to overcome. Not bad already, for a debut single to get to #2.
"I wish you will push up on me. I wish you will light me up and say you want me, push up on me."
Second track off the third album, Good Girl Gone Bad. Alike many other songs, the bridge is best. But do I understand this song? Not really. Probably some fantasizing song like Fantasy.
"Come here, rude boy, boy, can you get it up?"
As I write this, this song is currently the #1 song in the US! Personally I prefer Hard, but never mind, so as long as Rihanna has another chart-topper, it's great news. I hate her previous #1 though - Live Your Life with T.I. It's in my iPod, but I do not listen to it. Going back, this song has many influences from Rihanna's background and the Caribbean-like flavour. And in the music video, she wears a wig of long hair, reminding me of the pre-Umbrella days. I think rude boy is actually a slang. Not supposed to be taken literally (which I did, originally).
This song is also #1 in Australia. Hope it tops more charts around the world.
"Only thing that's on my mind, is who gon run this town tonight?"
I strongly believe that the words run this town that appear in Girls' Generation's Oh! is a reference to this song. Seriously. Anyway, the music video's like a messy riot or apocalyptic destruction or something. This song's about havoc and anarchy la, I think. Jay-Z keeps rapping "we are... we are... we are.." over and over again. It amuses.
#2 in the US, blocked off by the Black Eyed Peas if I'm not wrong. However, it did win a Grammy.
There's no word "russian" and no word "roulette" in this song. Hahahah!
So I can't pull out the song line which contains the title. But it's very obvious, as you listen to the song, that a game of Russian roulette is going on. It's very dark, mysterious and at some times, scary, and by the end of the song, there's gunfire. I thought Rihanna died, but in the music video, that gunfire represents the OPPONENT dying, even though it's clear that Rihanna sings "so just pull the trigger", talking to herself.
#9 in the US, but it only did so because it was the week after Rihanna did a very no-holes-barred interview with Diane Sawyer. In the proceeding week, the song fell out of the Top 10.
"Sell me candy. Sell me love. Sell me heaven. Sell me doves. What's the charge? What's the cost?"
Is this song about drugs? No, right? Aiya it's confirm like a love song about how much a girl wants a guy la. Don't know much about this song only that the tune is nice. Only know that if I were to order these 20 songs from most favourite to least favourite, this song would be in the bottom five.
Not a single, no chart performance.
"Baby you got the keys, so shut up and drive."
This song is a metaphor for sex, as I've read. That's why this song's cleverly written with a car theme. It's the second single after Umbrella and is very rock-driven. In her live performance at her Good Girl Gone Bad tour she emulates a car ride as a dance, which is iconically funny.
#15 in the US. #4 in Australia and Ireland.
"SOS please, someone help me. It's not healthy for me to feel this."
Aha! Still my favourite song of all-time, even though I now prefer Mariah and Christina to Rihanna. This song has a lot, a lot of memories of 2007 (the song was released in 2006 though), because it was why I started discovering more about Rihanna. It has a genius sample of Tainted Love by Soft Cell, which I listened to long before this song. Even when my Rihanna fire started dying down at the beginning of last year, 2009, I still listened to this song consistently, and it winded up being my 8th most listened-to song of 2009, even though the hype of this song was two-three years prior. That's why I'm dead convinced, this is my favourite song.
#1 in the US for three weeks, it is also Rihanna's first #1 song. It was also #1 in Australia and a Top 5 hit in many many other countries.
"And she said, 'Te Amo', then she put her hand around my waist."
Sorry, little bit distracted by her parakeet hair in that fan-made single artwork. And yeah, why is this song about a girl, when it is sung by a girl? Is this a secret message that Rihanna is not straight? Anyway, it has a different sound from the other tracks in Rated R, and Weichin first told me about this song, while on the bus going home, and that's why I went to listen to it. It turns out, it was a leak, so I heard this song many months before the album was released, making this the first song from Rated R that I heard.
Not a single, no chart performance. But if I'm not wrong, because this song was leaked, it did chart in Sweden at #52. A leaked song can chart one meh??
I don't have to put a quote cause you know the words.
This song is very very very very iconic. It's tremendously iconic, it's the best song to ask a person to find out if he or she is a loser, because losers will not know that there is a song called Umbrella. Never mind if you don't remember it features Jay-Z, but it's important to know that the song does exist, and a plus point that it is by Rihanna. I remember listening to this song through its Youtube music video, and it had a very very large impact on me because it had such a deep message and a deep melody. The ella ella part did make me laugh. Yes I can still remember. Memories of 2007, one of my favourite years.
#1 in so many countries including the US. Grammy Award winner, this song.
"And I know that he knows I'm unfaithful and it kills him inside to
know that I am happy with some other guy."
know that I am happy with some other guy."
Okay, I made an error with the spelling of the above title banner, typing "FAITH" as "FATIH", so that's why I made those very obvious changes using the Photobucket edit functions. Hahahahahha! Anyway, this is definitely, as far as I can remember, the first song I heard that was Rihanna. I hated it. Thought it gave too little. But now it's a Rihanna classic to me. Liked how the audience in the Good Girl Gone Bad Tour sang the lyrics so loudly. Proudly the loudest among the setlist.
"It's just the way the game is played. It's best that you just wait your turn."
"The wait is ova" was the first line that appeared in Rihanna's revamped website last year, so I thought the album was going to be titled that way. Then when it was revealed the album is entitled Rated R, I thought the lead single was gonna be titled that way. Turns out it's just a catchphrase from this song, Wait Your Turn, which I like a lot and is my most-listened song of the December 5 - 12, 2009 week. Don't really get the exact concept of the song except that life is a gamble. Hahahahah.
It wasn't a US single, I think. It did chart in Australia and in the UK.
It wasn't a US single, I think. It did chart in Australia and in the UK.
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