Rihanna – Wait Your Turn / Te Amo / Hard reviews. (from Rated R)

EDIT: peep the full Rated R album review HERE!

Thankyou to everyone for reading my review of Rihanna’s first single “Russian Roulette”, from her forthcoming album Rated R. Together, you guys have made it the most popular post out of all of the posts on my blog!  So I really appreciate that.  If you get a moment, please also take a look and a listen to my new album, Quiet Storm, available on this post here.

So since my review of “Russian Roulette” seems to have gone down well, I thought that I would review the other songs that we now have from Rated R, which are: “Wait Your Turn”, “Te Amo” and the recently-leaked “Hard”.

Wait Your Turn

Before “Russian Roulette” was officially released on Rihanna’s website, there was a metallic “R” (her new logo, as you can see in her album cover above) and a countdown timer bearing the message “The Wait Is Ova”; that message is this song’s main refrain.  Although the production of the song is suitably dark and the lyrics are tough, the song takes a while to stick in the listener’s mind, especially as the chorus seems somewhat weak.  Out of all the songs we’ve heard from Rated R so far, this is the weakest track, despite the fact it is the first one we have a video for:

The plus sides to this song: Rihanna embodies swagger, which comes across in both the dark, grainy video with her strutting through various shadowy landscapes in fashionable outfits, and in the thick island accent she employs on the verses: “I pitch wit a grenaaayaaaade”! The electric guitar in the background amplifies the song’s confidence.  Overall, it’s not awful, but still far from Rihanna’s best, and falls short as a declaration that she is ‘back’ – if anything, it plays more like a buzz single than a confident statement of intent.

Te Amo

This song was the first track to be leaked from Rated R, though nobody knew this at the time; it only became apparent when the album’s tracklisting included this title.  Of course, it’s possible that the song may have been remixed or improved with additional production / vocals, but the song as we have it currently is an undulating, mid-tempo ballad (if there can be such a thing).  Rihanna sings about a female friend who tries to express her love for her while they dance together; however, Rihanna is happy to have a friendship but wants nothing more.  Nevertheless, their dance is depicted with a sense of romance and longing, and the sadness in her voice when she sings “‘Te amo’, somebody tell me what she said, don’t it mean ‘I love you’?” is palpable.

The setting of a dancefloor “underneath the candelabra”, followed by seemingly walking along the beach gives the song an exotic setting to match with its use of Spanish phrasing.  Production wise, this track could have easily fit within Good Girl Gone Bad, but nevertheless it carries itself well and along with “Russian Roulette”, displays Rihanna’s more vulnerable side, which contrasts with…

Hard

The most recently-leaked of the Rated R tracks, this song really does go hard!  The most urban of the Rated R tracks (and it features a rap from Young Jeezy), it once again embodies swagger and non-stick confidence.  “Meet me at the top top top, it’s gettin’ lonely”… Rihanna sees herself as a “lion”, a fierce defender of her crown as a survivor (hmm, of what? Chris Brown and domestic violence? Bloggers and haters (who are picked up on in the lyrics)? General negativity and envy?) and as a superstar.  The clashing drums and sinister trumpets give the song a menacing, dense backbeat over which Rihanna yells what sounds like a call to arms.  It’s a very confrontational song in its production, vocal delivery (none of the light fluff of “Shut Up And Drive” here!) and lyrics: the opening lyric in one way says it all: “They can say whatever, I can do whatever, no pain is forever, yep, you know this”.

Out of the three songs, “Hard” is probably the best of the bunch, and I’ve heard some people saying that it should have been the first single.  I think that a video for this track has to happen, as Rihanna’s dark fashionista style and haughty pout would suit the message of the song perfectly; it’s easy for me to imagine the video for “Wait Your Turn” suiting this track much better.

Nevertheless, both “Hard” and “Te Amo”, like “Russian Roulette”, are promising indicators of an album which shows not only a growing maturity but also a hardening and darkening of Rihanna’s persona and style (only “Wait Your Turn” is a bit of a disappointment). Whether this is a result of just being older and more experienced in the music industry, having survived her turbulent relationship and subsequent media hoopla in the past year, or worshipping Satan (!!!!!!!!!!! I had to LOL when I read that story!  But you never know…), it seems like Rated R will be a cohesive work and an evolution from Good Girl Gone Bad.  Whether the new album has the hit factor that its predecessor contained is debatable – Good Girl Gone Bad was an album chock full of production-savvy uptempos and attitude-laced bangers that might prove hard to top – but what’s evident is that Rihanna’s not afraid to do something different from the other big females in the game, and she’s not afraid to take it to a darker place, as evidenced by the “Wait Your Turn” video.  I eagerly await the album, and when it leaks, you know that you’ll be able to catch my review of it right here soon after!  Thanks for your support, keep it locked kids 🙂