craziness is like heaven: Rihanna's Latest Joints Present an Epiphany or Insanity?

craziness is like heaven
by: stuart briggs
11.30.2010

James Marshall Hendrix once said, “craziness is like heaven.” The pop culture scene can be aptly described by one word, CRAZY. “Pure, unadulterated ugliness,” a comedian once said. And along with our changing and crazy celebrities comes an even zanier media industry. Little imps which tote cameras searching for ways to promote lies and twisted tales of scandal. Again, one word, CRAZY.

Being crazy, then, can be both good and evil...right? For an artist to succeed he or she must be willing to push the envelope – to say and do things which are different, unique, and original…I suppose.

Well, in crazy times like these, we have Rihanna to save us from perdition! Ummm, no, I’m only kidding. She’s no messiah. But, Rihanna’s latest two singles, “Only Girl” and “What’s My Name?” are catchy and possess relatively nice beats. In Rihanna’s brand of music you’re hypnotized by the interplay of the beat, vibrant word play, and mainly, a karaoke type hook/chorus line. She doesn’t impress us with vocal rifts, but with pulsating rhythms, an island accent, and more expressly, some new way of perceiving the romance around or within us. Oddly enough, her special brand of music works; it resonates. Good beat + good chorus = Sold. Hook, line, and sinker! Rihanna’s chorus on “What’s My Name?” goes:

“Oh na na, what’s my name? Oh, na na, what’s my name?”

The “Na” sound (or is it a word? Idk.) has always been an extremely catchy hook. Case in point, “Na, na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, hey, goodbye.”

Yes, it’s true. Rihanna changes everything about herself constantly. She gets crazy with it too – tattoos, piercings, and oddly shaped clothing from fashion boutiques in London and Paris – and this is perhaps to bolster her much weaker vocal talent. I mean, she can sing, but let’s be honest; she’s just not in the league of Aretha Franklin, Monica, Mariah Carey, or Beyonce. At least I think. But, one really doesn’t need to sound like Beyonce to get a record deal these days anyways. That’s why we have auto-tune and other sound engineering tools. Duh!

I digress. Will save that for a later blog...

What makes Rihanna a person of interest, scrutiny, obsession, criticism & admiration is her style, her persona. Not to mention that tiny blowup between her ex-boyfriend…a one, Chris Brown – whose resurgence as a mega star is – come on, let’s say it together – CRAZY!

Getting back to the music, Rihanna’s latest two singles provide some measure of sanity. Lyrically, she is daring, to say the least. Yet, what one might appreciate, is that there is some measure of softness to her melodies. She’s actually conveying music, rather than screaming, “Baby, I’m a rock star!” as she did so ridiculously on last season’s, American Idiot, I mean Idol.

And we, the listeners, need more of this kind of music. Sing to us. Enough craziness. Amidst the sounds of violence, anger, conflict and destruction all around us, we, spiritual beings wearing human suits, must have a musical balance. Yes, we need the hard-pounding, rough, raw and rugged sounds to express the craziness of our urban existence. But then again, we need a smooth, slow, sweet voice to gently remind us of a much nicer place. Rihanna does’t completely accomplish this on her latest hits, but she’s moved an inch or two closer to a place called heaven…

In closing let me ad-live from Jay-Z– “This is death of auto-tune, ah moment of silence.” (DOA “Death of Auto-Tune”, 2009)