Clive Caines Cultural Contributor
Being labelled a pop sensation is an epithet readily bestowed on the undeserving but the sustained level of Rihanna’s success leaves no doubt that we are dealing with the real thing.
For a female artist her record sales ensure that she commands the level of power that enables her to compete on an equal footing with her male counter parts.
Boasting three world wide number 1 albums, personal earnings exceeding £150 million and total control of her career and image it is easy to see why she’s talked in the same terms as the likes of Beyonce, Lady GaGa and Madonna.
All of this success doesn’t seem to provide grounds for arguing that all is not well for Rihanna, yet anyone taking a wider view than just paying attention to the praise and the clamour would be aware that there is some disquiet around the direction of her career: ‘A Sorry State: Pop Marketing & Rihanna’s Unapologetic’ reads the headline of Jude Rodgers’s review of Rihanna’s latest album for the Quietus.
The concerns raised in Rodgers’ review were enough to have the article trending on Twitter and saw The Independent use the headline ‘UNAPOLOGETIC RIHANNA IS MUSIC’S HARBINGER OF DOOM’ when inviting its readers to comment online.
Similarly The Irishtimes.com ‘comments’ section entreated others to join the debate surrounding the marketing of ‘Unapologetic’ with a lead entitled, ‘Provocation for Profit? Assault as a Marketing Accessory?’ The Quietus on Rihanna.’
Rihanna on Diamonds. Photo courtesy blogs.centrictv.com
In part the disquiet stems from the fact that the album contains a duet between Rihanna and Chris Brown entitled ‘Nobody’s business’. That the rekindling of Rihanna’s relationship with Brown has already filled many column inches both online, in newspapers and magazines suggest there are plenty who are concerned about the message this sends.
But this is nothing in comparison to the concern behind the message sent out by both Rihanna and Chris Brown with their apparent willingness to use domestic violence to push their latest releases. As can be expected Rodgers is most critical of the provocation for profit strategy when reviewing ‘Nobody’s business’:
“The contents of Unapologetic are effectively trolling the public. The incident between Rihanna and Brown, and the wider issue it represents, is being reduced to a series of shock-tactic soundbites (with a few lines neatly sampled from Michael Jackson’s ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’). It’s nobody’s business, they sing, but we’ll tell you all about it anyway, wind you up in the process, and get good publicity material from an issue as trifling as – oh – physical violence against a woman.”
Rodgers makes it clear that she doesn’t want to comment on anyone’s private life, a position I agree with especially when it comes to telling celebrities how they should conduct themselves.
But on the issue of domestic violence it seems to me that we all have a part to play in making this a public issue rather than just going along with the nobody’s business approach.
Rihanna and Chris Brown make up. Photo courtesy rvalien.wordpress.com
I’d also say that while playing the bad boy role has its attractions, men need to get with the postmodern view that all roles are not fixed and therefore interchangeable so they should not allow themselves to be trapped in old redundant stereotypes.
To a certain extent Rodgers, quite rightly, points the finger at us the public when she says Unapologetic is effectively an act of trolling. It is us the public that have used the Internet to drag discourse down to a matter of insult and point scoring.
It is us the public who appear to have an undiminished appetite for sensationalism even if it means serious matters are trivialised. We cannot blame Rihanna for deciding that provocation can be profitable when our behaviour confirms this to be the case.
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