POPTIMIST ALERT

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

YOU CAN STAND UNDER MY UM-BER-ELLA

(reposted from own lj where there is also AUDIO)

Comments

[getbacknow.livejournal.com]

Tracks screams Beyonce reject, and I think Unfaithful demonstrated that she has no voice. Why is she a popstar again?

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

But Beyonce couldn't do that track, she'd chronically oversing it and part of the reason the ought-to-be-annoying 'ella, ella, ella, ella, ah!' bit works is cus of Rihanna's accent. R seems far more pliable than B and since this only just requires singing and mostly of the technical quality that rappers employ when they deviate from the day job, her monotone is ideal.

I really like it. She's lost a lot of weight or been photoshopped, though, judging by that cover. I'd root for photoshopping were it not for the prominent breastbone. Think they should have avoided such a Beyonce-esque cover, is not good plan really but nevermind, it's good looking enough and manages a strange sort of double-take 'ooh that's classy no wait she's having a bucket of water thrown over her whilst holding a brolly, that must have cost about 2p' charm.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Haha I thought the water was a weird mountain range backdrop behind the swimming pool but it's actually just, yes, a bucket of water being thrown over her!!!!

Rihanna learn how to use umbrellas better, they are meant to stop you getting wet, no one will want to share your umbrella with you if you hold it like that.

[getbacknow.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean earlier that I would rather have had Beyonce sing it, I meant it sounded like a second-rate Beyonce track. But after listening to it a few more times, I like it more, but still I think the song would go from good to amazing if a genuinely gifted singer had been given it. Her voice can be painful to listen to at times, and if the producers had raided their closets I'm sure they could find a tuner to give someone that vocal affect for the ella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh part. Oh well, what's done is done.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

But it's completely different to the brassy retro stuff Beyoncé's doing now, which is high on funk and low on melody while this is the reverse!

And all proper popstars sound weird, I mean Britney sang as if she had a frog in her throat for seven years so what's a little nasalism.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I loved it, mostly because just when I'd disappointingly decided that there wasn't going to be a tune, along came the tune. Also the tune seemed to be played on motorcycle engines revving up.