“Kiss It Better,” an immediate standout, seems to us a likely bet for the next single (and, other than “Work,” which is sitting at No. You know that photo of Rihanna walking outside, at night, in sunglasses, holding a giant glass of red wine? Anti is the embodiment of that Rihanna. Each one feels like the sort of song Rihanna would want to listen to herself (not always the case with major pop artists).
Some of them cut off unexpectedly, and some of them feel unfinished. There is a cohesion to the 13 songs (three more bonus tracks will be coming tomorrow): they are slow and meditative and raw. It’s even possible to imagine that it existed in a folder on Rihanna’s computer, and that she directly uploaded the MP3s to Tidal, without anyone else ever listening to the album. This album feels extremely un-tampered with. But there is something endearing about Anti in the sense that it’s always affecting to engage with a work of art that clearly embodies the artist’s most elemental feelings at the time. Rihanna has always been a singles artist, and those of us who grew up on “Umbrella” and “Rude Boy” and “What’s My Name” are no doubt going to, in a certain way, miss that Rihanna, the one who cranked out hits as reliably as Kim Kardashian generates selfies. There are no obvious radio hits here (more on that in a second), but there is, quite unexpectedly, a cover of a six-and-a-half-minute Tame Impala song (“Same Ol’ Mistakes”). It would be perfect to listen to in the rain. This is a Sunday-afternoon album, not a Friday-night one.
If the likes of “We Found Love” and “Pour It Up” represent Rihanna’s college years, Anti is like the album representation of when you see your college friend two years after graduation and you find out she’s been living abroad and she’s speaking in a strange sort of affected whisper now and she keeps talking about “energies.” This is to say: this album is a great departure for Rihanna, an artist who has had 13 No. The tempo-save for the Drake-featuring lead single “Work”-is slow. Now that we’ve had a chance to take an initial spin through the 13-song, 44-minute album, it’s evident that these are not the sorts of songs you’re going to immediately be transferring to your gym playlist. After initially leaking (briefly) on Tidal, the whole album was made available for download, for free, on the streaming service Wednesday night. Rihanna’s Anti-after all stripes of fake-outs and Samsung-branded obstacles, and rumors rippling through Twitter-is finally here, her first album since 2012’s Unapologetic.
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