poptimists | Compare and contrast: Amerie vs Rihanna

Amerie and Rihanna. Both beautiful RnB princesses with names that are tricky to spell. Neither as famous as Beyoncé but destined to live in her shadow. There's only one way to settle this. FIGHT!

Not sick of 'Umbrella' yet? Me neither. I don't really need to say much about this song apart from that, like Sophie Ellis Bextor's entire output, it sounds better without the accompanying video. Sweet, cool and tear-inducingly soppy. Awesome.

BUT it's not the best track on Good Girl Gone Bad at all! Hooray! 'Breakin' Dishes' is Rihanna's 'Freakum Dress'. It keeps winding up and up without ever dipping, each section better than the last. My only gripe is that they dubbed out the word 'asses'! Surely that wouldn't warrant a parental advisory? I'm not even bothering to f1r3ewall it on this review. Anyway: bolshy and mental, and probably originally meant for Bouncey.

Then there's 'Lemme Get That' - Rihanna and Timbaland rev up the dancehall, brimming with menace and strutting trumpets. POTENTIAL VIDEO: Rihanna is riding atop a carnival float in a thunderstorm and is conducting lightning out of her fingers at men who have WRONGED her. Actually it's more like she's Cleopatra riding ontop of one of those portable pyramids pulled by a million slaves with trumpets and elephants and enormous feathery headdresses. This makes me want to actually listen to the Timbaland album I bought a grillion weeks ago.

Both these tracks are outstanding, but there's plenty more above-average material: 'Please Dont Stop The Music' is dub-disco house (that would bosh up great with a happy hardcore remix) that reminds me of 1995-era Snap. 'Say It' is a lost old Charles & Eddie single with glistening waterfall noises - Rihanna's normally flat voice managing an intriguing ethereal nursery rhyme tone. The Ne-Yo collaboration is simply lovely - sweet melodies falling over each other and spilling into the next line. Any of these would have made a better single than 'Shut Up And Drive' and its awful grating 'Blue Monday' chords.

Sadly 'Rehab' is nothing like Winehouse's triumph, this is really quite dull. The 'story' reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons were they move to a self-cleaning house and Marge is so bored that she starts drinking a glass of wine IN THE AFTERNOON! NOEZ! Rih is doing her best but the song is just too flat, especially following the bombast of 'Lemme Get That'. It's hard to believe that the two are both Timbaland tracks.

It gets worse. On 'Question Existing', Rihanna is getting all paranoid about her self image. I confess I checked the sleeve notes to see if this was the obligatory self-penned track (nope). Oh god, it's awful. "I don't know who wants to date me for who I am!" Christ woman, get a grip. It's such a shame, there's a great chorus melody here and it's totally wasted. SKIP. To a Natalie Imbruglia pastiche. SKIP. To ~~MY TEARS LET ME SHOW YOU THEM~~ some mournful piano wibbling. SKIP. Oh it's the end! Man, what happened? I really liked this album the first time I listened to it and now it's made me kind of angry. Let's move on.

Because I Love It starts off really well. The intro is announcing rather than annoying and segues neatly into some your drum-n-brass Amerie-by-numbers. Next, 'Some Like It' is old-skool electro straight out of 1985 with boomerang chord changes and piano breaks worthy of Shannon. 'Make Me Believe' vamps up the minimal RnB with a well-executed Curtis Mayfield sample.

'Take Control' is the reason I bought this album. I love how the constant surf guitar riff provides an undercoating for all the different layers - the call-and-response, brass, handclap beats - I can hear all the bits and pieces in just the right places. The gap between this and 'Gotta Work' is huge - the latter has a good melody and drumbeat but that trumpet is REALLY starting to piss me off. It's always a gamble making a feature out of something so repetitive - for me it works with Curtis but not Isaac. SKIP.

'Crush' and 'Crazy Wonderful' are servicable slices of electro-plod, marred only by a couple of clumsy lyrics. But from here the album starts going downhill. Sexy sexy sexy. Warble warble warble. Slow jam central. And then the death-knell - they've tacked '1 Thing' onto the end! It really does sh1t from a great height upon all that's gone before - all that hard work Amerie has clearly put in over the last 13 tracks. I almost feel sorry for her. It seems as though Sony is shouting through a megaphone: "We have no confidence in this album, or indeed the last one!"

So which is the better album? I prefer the sweetness (and higher range) of Amerie's voice compared to Rihanna's disinterested nasal sass. However the variety of music styles on GGGB helps Rihanna avoid the slow-jam slump into which Amerie descends for the latter half of BILI. Neither album has the gobsmacking popstar arrogance of B Day (Beyoncé's personality stamps a massive 'B' all over anything she touches) despite Amerie's amazing and distinctive voice, and Rihanna's ubiquitous pervasion of the nation's consciousness for the last ten weeks. There are no crocodiles on leashes, and no 'Rites Of Spring' death-by-choreography. Both girls might as well be on Mars beaming their music across the ether.

Plus, I really don't like Rihanna's image. A brief glance at Rihanna's album inlay makes it clear exactly what area of 'bad' this good girl has 'gone' to. I'm all for young lasses embracing their sexuality but they only earn my respect if I know they've made that decision themselves, otherwise it makes me very uncomfortable - Rihanna is only 19 (Beyoncé and Amerie are 25 and 27 respectively) but has never publicly made the adolescent innocence->filth transition of Britney or Xtina. The way she is presented makes her seem like a pawn, controlled by some mystery player - Def Jam? Jay-Z? The listening public? The NON-listening public? A sexist promo video director? Amerie for the most part keeps her tights on and sensibly makes sure she's got her 5% on the credits. She keeps her personality to a minimum and chooses to focus on her (admittedly stunning) pair of legs instead of oh, I dunno, her love of lemon meringue pie, or enthusiasm for hang-gliding. I know it's a fairly useless comparison in the world of pop music but whether or not Beyoncé actually has the final say on her musical direction, album artwork or tour costumes, you know she's going to give the head of Sony a proper earful about all three first. And set her crocodiles on him if he disagrees. Pop stars being bonkers is why I am interested in pop music!

If I had to choose one of the two albums, it'd be Good Girl Gone Bad as the higher highs make up for the lower lows. But actually I'd rather listen to the Infernal album again. Man, it's totally amazing!