Shut Up And Die

Okay, I think I need to make a confession. One that may make me somewhat unpopular here on the interweb. But I have to say it -- I can't stand Rihanna. That's right -- despite the fact that the entire world has been sucking at her teet for every single bit of pop crap that might dribble out, I just want to punch her in the face.

This confession was so much harder to publish after being intimidated a few weeks back by Cristin's "Ode To Rihanna", as I like to call it. That is easily one of my least favorite Rihanna songs (I have tried several times to listen to it the whole way through and simply can't do it) and yet there it is, at the top of the charts, along with everything else she even farts on.

I even had so much trouble attempting to find a truly bad picture of this girl that I had to settle for a doctored one that mocks a facial flaw so obvious (her "fivehead") that it seems pointless to even mention it. Either there is a team of chimps that has been trained by DefJam Records to constantly prowl the internet for unattractive photos of Rihanna and somehow remove them, or she actually looks that good all the time. How irritating.

I didn't always harbour such a dislike for her -- I absolutely loved "Pon De Replay", her first song, even when it seemed like it was destined to be a one-hit wonder. And anyone who claims they didn't think "S.O.S. (Rescue Me)" was a fantastic party song is most likely a terrible liar, and at least this I know Cristin would probably agree with.

But then came a few painful songs, including the absolutely awful "Unfaithful". I generally think that any song I know I could improve upon must be complete crap, and the vocals a recording of someone murdering an old cat. And most importantly, I saw Rihanna in concert -- for someone who was just establishing herself as an artist, I was pretty sure she could have made a little more of an effort to a) sing live and b) at least PRETEND to be somewhat humble, a.k.a. not look at everyone around her, including the audience, like we were a stale collection of turds.

I also think everything from this new album is kind of generic crap, including "Umbrella" (annoying), "Shut Up And Drive" (painfully stupid), "Take A Bow" (whiny), and that song with Ne-Yo which sounds like every other song that Ne-Yo has ever done. I almost wanted to like "Don't Stop The Music", and might have succeeded if it weren't for the already unoriginal and overused "mama say mama sa mama coo sa" which makes me want to slap various songwriters silly.

And so, you can imagine my annoyance this week when I realized that I might genuinely like her new one "Disturbia". I still have no idea what she's talking about and I'm afraid to look up the lyrics in fear of suddenly hating it, but it now resides on my current iPod playlist, and will remain there until I either get tired of it or find a reason to despise it along with everything else she's done lately.

Rant over.