Still in her teens, the industrious Barbadian Rihanna herewith chalks up her third album. Good Girl Gone Bad will do little to challenge those who feel her anonymous voice and insubstantial lyrics are glossed over by all that lipstick, powder and paint. It’s primarily a feisty pop-dance collection, high on style and rock bottom on originality, even to the point of recycling her own previous work.
The title-track, with Jay-Z, steals from ‘So Sick’. The soulful ‘Hate That I Love You', a duet with Ne-Yo, is the prettier twin of ‘Irreplaceable’, while the dated ‘Push Up On Me’ owes a debt to Giorgio Moroder. The ghost of Michael Jackson’s ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Something’ is all over the techno ‘Don’t Stop The Music’. But the best track is the pouting Timbaland-produced ‘Lemme Get That’ which sounds like a pure pop hit. ‘Say It’ is a sassy slow burner, ‘Push Up On Me’ has a beat as infectious as measles, and ‘Shut Up And Drive’ has nifty melodies plus lumps hacked from Blue Order’s ‘Blue Monday’. ‘Umbrella’ is already a deserved hit, but ‘Question Existing’ has a menacing backing for a song trying to deliver a message, if only you could tell what it is.
Although Rihanna tries to hit too many different targets on this album, the beats are up and the lyrics are vacuous enough to guarantee a few more hit singles before anybody finds out. Truly, this is music for the ringtone generation.