If there’s any silver lining in Chris Brown’s chart failure, it’s that Rihanna’s latest album isn’t exactly burning up the charts either.
As a matter of fact, “Rated R” currently sits at #28 on the national charts. It’s sold a respectable 300,000 copies so far, and will certainly attain Gold status, but when you consider her last album spun off seven hit singles and sold 2 million copies, it’s easy to see that “Rated R” is underperforming a little bit.
The scent and taste of flop sweat becomes even more palpable when you realize that this album has been out for three weeks and it is already on it’s third video. “Hard” has obviously been selected as the attention-getter. Lyrically and musically, it’s in-your-face and aggressive…and not very good. It’s very slight from a lyrical standpoint, and aside from the label connection, there’s really no reason to use Young Jeezy on this record (except for maybe a little extra “street credibility”?). The video itself is a bit of a clusterfuck. Rihanna has definitely jumped a little too hard on the oversexed train. Electrical tape over her nipples? Probably a bit overboard. Although I had to laugh when a commenter on MTV’s site accused Ri-Ri of biting Lady Gaga’s style. Apparently, this commenter has never heard of Grace Jones.
At this point, though, I’m kind of tired of both Chris Brown and Rihanna. Granted, I was never a big fan of Chris’s music anyway, so the fact that he’s slowly sinking into oblivion doesn’t bother me too much. However, Rihanna has over time at least revealed herself as being able to put her own stamp on some irresistible pop singles. The desperation she’s been piling on lately is a huge turn-off, though.
Check out MTV.com’s article about the video here.
