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A complex and fascinating portrait of a young woman's emotional process after enduring abuse.
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Rihanna may have been a good girl gone bad on her 2007 album, but on her new one, she's a good girl gone bad-ass.
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Nothing else on the album can top 'Russian Roulette,' but they certainly complement it, and make its startling conclusion feel sadly inevitable.
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Throughout this emotional maelstrom of an R&B album, Rihanna keeps finding gripping new ways to transform regret into a kind of threat.
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When Rated R ends on an unresolved chord, the sentiment carries over into Rihanna's pop persona. Let's hope that this doesn't mean she's about to back off and start working on her All for You.
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Rihanna has transformed her sound and made one of the best pop records of the year.
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It's a bleak, adamant album that's both brave and skillful.
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Whether the album seems ridiculous or spectacular (or both), Rihanna's complete immersion in the majority of the songs cannot be disputed. That is the one thing that is not up for debate.
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Despite the abundance of male influence on the record, from ex-boyfriend to songwriters to producers to mentors, Rihanna makes the sound her own, and fights back.
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Rihanna is at her most adventurous, and while we're not completely convinced that all the wailing hard rock guitars suit her, the aggression makes sense within the context of the album.
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Rated R rarely delivers Top 40 fodder. Instead, it's a raw, often unsettling portrait of an artist who is, she insists, no longer a Girl at all.
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It is very dense and maybe needed more melodies to help digest it all. Adding to that, the production at times lets her down, ranging from excellent to average, with a couple of songs that could well have worked better as skits.
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What works as therapeutic psychodrama for the singer doesn't always work quite as well as pop music, which, from the shiny surfaces, it's clear everyone here is still striving for.
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Rihanna has released a flawed album that may shrink under the weight of her biography, but it also succeeds when approached more directly, superficially.
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Based on Rated R, Rihanna's artistic aspirations are currently loftier than her abilities. Then again, her tenacity in the face of the unimaginable public humiliation this year is beyond brave.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 537 out of 645
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Mixed: 47 out of 645
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Negative: 61 out of 645
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JarvsHNov 24, 2009Her best album so far, and probably the best pop record in years.
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MIkeB.Nov 30, 2009
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Apr 30, 2012