AM I SCARING YOU NOW?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yes, Rihanna, yes you really are.

This video has gone a long way to turning me round on 'Disturbia' (from "this is OK" to "this might be really really great but holy shit her EYES")...

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

This Grace Jones thing is catching!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Also it still sounds way too much like Eiffel 65 for my liking.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The bit in the 'Umbrella' video where she's naked and silver really reminded me of Grace J - glad that Rihanna has confirmed that it wasn't just my tenuous imagination.

I know what you mean about the song, there's something a bit TOO cheesy about the melody and autotune combination, even if it is super-catchy, but the video is WHOA.

[koganbot]

But the melodic sweetness plus electronic sugar glaze is exactly what helps deliver the song, since it's what makes the eeriness extra eerie ('cause it's sugar being eerie, not just the words); this is one of the songs of the year. (If it had been released last year would have landed somewhere between #8 and #15 on my singles list; right now is in my top four but we've still got five months of new material plus whatever I've missed.)

[koganbot]

I can't get the version you posted to play past 3:27, but here's the vid on YouTube.

[koganbot]

Beat is less funky and more disco than "Umbrella"'s. I wonder if this means she's aiming it especially at "club" and international audiences.

Wiki lists her as co-director of the video. (Says that the only previous one she's co-directed was "Don't Stop The Music.")

[koganbot]

(We'll see how it does in France, where so far it hasn't even charted but where the disco-y "Don't Stop The Music" peaked higher than "Umbrella" did.)

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

TS: Disturbia vs Insania

[rubberheadz-inc.livejournal.com]

Don't Stop The Music was better.
It seems like the most appropriate comparison.

[koganbot]

Yes, she is copping the NiN look.

From the YouTube thread:

luv the song, luv her, luv the video!
i luv scariness, creepiness, u name it!
i'm all goth!

Myself, I don't find the vid or song at all scary: when she tries to look hard she actually ends up looking extra cute; the whole thing seems rather guileless and a bit corny. The song lyrics aren't really about scaring us tonight, even though she asks us if she's scaring us. They're more about an inner dissatisfaction; and they're expressionist rather than being the introspection* of something like "Question Existing": "I like to think that I'm pretty normal. I laugh, I get mad, I hurt, I think I suck sometimes. When you're in the spotlight, everything seems good. Sometimes I feel like I have it worst, 'cause I have to always keep my guard up. I don't know who to trust." So in that song you've got a 19-year-old's normal "Who am I living for?" magnified by fame and fortune. Whereas a year later with "Disturbia" she's singing about what it feels like to be haunted (the title of another recent Rihanna song), being more generic than self-analytic in her imagery. That is, she's not telling us the (normal) story of what might be disturbing her (spotlight is good/spotlight is the worst/I don't know who to trust); instead she's telling a story of possession and hauntings.

*Of course, "Disturbia" and "Question Existing" are written by different people, none of whom is Rihanna, and "Disturbia" was originally slated to be recorded by co-writer Chris Brown. But presumably there's an attempt to convey some continuity in her persona; and whether the intent is there or not, lyrics help to create a persona, even when the singer doesn't write them herself.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Riri's most genuinely insane song to date is still 'Unfaithful'.

[rubberheadz-inc.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. That song definitely was a bit of a scary listen the first few times around.