When Rihanna hit the earth running in 2005, she devoted many her music towards various styles. A blending of styles gave her a fairly distinct sound, set her up, and provided her with something to aspire towards in the second record, which came pretty quickly after her first, despite her continual touring. Of course, her first record was commercially quite successful, so naturally you’d expect similar material to litter the 2nd album – and yes it does, just about all comes with some very memorable moments.
The album opener, “SOS” is a second exploitation of Soft Cell’s 1981 rendition of Ed Cobb's “Tainted Love.” Of all the cover versions that seek to replicate the prosperity of Soft Cell’s, Rihanna’s is among the better ones. Why? Because it’s not really a bastardised version seeking to claim success on the exact same song structure. “SOS” usually is a good combination of Rihanna’s “Pon De Replay” like rhythms, and Soft Cell’s synth-pop clamour of chords, where the lyrics are actually shifted to suit the theme, and for that reason makes for a superb album initiator.
Music from the Sun (2005) experimented with demonstrate the influence of Rihanna’s musical heritage on the Caribbean, but fell as a result of poor song writing from Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken. “Kisses Don’t Lie” is the best genuine angst driven love song. Sure, it’s nothing new, but it’s still a reasonably catchy cue, which blends both reggae syncopation and R&B.
One problem that immediately pops into your head when listening could be that the first four tracks are the most effective, but everything just falls behind. Whoever decide to put the four best songs first was obviously a moron. If the singles were evenly distributed over perhaps once every three tracks it would give the listener a lot more incentive to hold on listenin’. But without getting too negative, the songs which do fall can offer their moments. Such as “A Million Miles Away,” featuring its calming combination of piano, Rihanna, and emotion, along with the similarly love driven tabs on “Final Goodbye.” Then there is the reggae oriented tracks which taint the center section in the album, causeing this to be album in several ways, more reggae influenced then her earlier effort. The songs aren’t amazing, but show an improved progression from your two major songwriters, Sturken and Rogers.
The other two great instalments came from here are obviously, “Unfaithful,” and “We Ride.” While the vocal performance on Unfaithful may become a bit irritating, it’s still definitely worth the listen, even so the lyrics don’t really take into account the emotion, whoever thought Rihanna would ever consider herself a murderer? Then there is the road-trippin’ roll-off part of We Ride and that is certainly second best to “SOS.”
Like Music in the Sun, this album ends pretty badly. "A total anti-climax" is the thing that “If It’s Lovin’ That You Want” should have already been called. But I suppose albums in this way don't exactly have to help keep up the pace at this kind of late stage on the disc. It’s tough to pinpoint why the album kicks a unique goals, and easily lets other through irresponsibly. There are many reasons why the album could possibly be interpreted as bad, a sizable a lot that might be attributed to proficiency from her. What ever the reasons why, A Girl Like Me, is still quite a good pop album, which certainly creates better listening then her first album.
Track List
- S.O.S. (Rescue Me)
- Kisses Don't Lie
- Unfaithful
- We Ride
- Dem Haters
- Final Goodbye
- Break It Off
- Crazy Little Thing Called Love
- Selfish Girl
- P.S. (I'm Still Not Over You)
- A Girl Like Me
- A Million Miles Away
- If It's Lovin' That You Want (Part 2)
- Who Ya Gonna Run To?
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