Music Review: Rihanna's 'Anti'

After three and a half long years, the wait is finally over: the new Rihanna album is finally here. “Anti,” the prolific Barbadian songstress’ eighth album, arrived two weeks ago as a surprise release on Tidal, and the response thus far has been rabid. Rihanna has long been our most mysterious pop star, eschewing the empowering confidence of Beyoncé or the universal affability of Taylor Swift in favor of remaining an aloof enigma. Her past seven albums have given us little sense of what makes her tick, yet she has proven herself quite adept at consistently churning out massive hits. “Anti” is a different breed entirely. There is no “Only Girl (In the World)” here, or even a low-key jam like “Rude Boy.” “Anti” is a major creative statement that redefines Rihanna not as the chart-topper of yore, but rather as a bold maverick within the field of pop music. This is pop defiantly unconcerned with its own popularity, and its utter weirdness makes it Rihanna’s most satisfyingly complete album.

To be frank, there are no world-beating jams on “Anti.” Only one track, the Drake-assisted “Work,” could be played comfortably at a club without some sort of remix. “Work” is among the chillier of Rihanna’s already quite chilly singles, and it’s a synth-infused reverie that sounds like a dancehall song with all the air sucked out of it. She slurs over Boi-1da’s beat in a patois, repeating the titular refrain until it loses meaning. It is catchy, but lacks the vocal ability that gives the rest of the album its power. 

Rihanna’s voice has never been better, her previously reedy soprano deepened to a raspy alto capable of great heights. The way she plays with diction is not unlike Fiona Apple, using it to add a great deal of character to lyrics that in a previous incarnation she might have applied her ice-queen robotics. When she howls “This whiskey got me feelin’ pretty/so pardon if I’m impolite,” on “Higher,” a two-minute interlude that sounds like a blues track on the verge of imploding, she conveys not the confident forwardness of previous come-ons, but rather a sad desperation that enhances the rawness of the rest of the song. 

Rihanna also displays a very dexterous falsetto to great effect on the Shirelles-esque doo-wop ballad “Love on the Brain” and a note-for-note cover of Tame Impala’s “New Person, Same Mistakes.” The latter track is a pleasant highlight, with her feathery, spacey voice a beautiful compliment to Kevin Parker’s psyched-out arrangement.

“Anti”’s clear standout (and, for me, a top three Rihanna song) is the album opener “Consideration.” A collaboration with St. Louis-based singer SZA, “Consideration” is a series of rebukes to Rihanna’s haters set over a mechanized loop that sounds like funk music for automatons. The most quotable lyric, “I come riding in on a pale white horse/Handing out highs to the less fortunate,” could be the mission statement of the whole album. 

While there is an absence of the globally dominating hits that made her famous, “Anti” contains some of Rihanna’s most accomplished work to date and cements her as a trailblazer in the field of pop music. We are all more fortunate to receive her highs after such a long wait.