In her debut album ‘Music of the Sun’, even though Rihanna was only seventeen, her early image portrayed her as a Diva which gained her a lot of younger female fans and some her own age. The video to her hit single, ‘Pon De Replay’, was both narrative and performances based; set at a party where Rihanna was portrayed as the heroine who saved the night by livening up the dance floor and getting the DJ to ‘turn the music up’. This is representative of her youth, and the narrative idea associates with regular teenage life. The video to the song ‘If It’s Lovin That You Want’ - situated on a beach, possibly a reference to her Caribbean roots – again includes dancing, further creating her ‘Diva’ image. Here she is dressed in little clothing which associated with females in R&B music videos, as well as the idea of male interest. Despite this, her initial image created conveyed her as sweet and innocent, probably due to her young age. New York magazine described her early look as: ‘a cookie-cutter teen’.
Her second album, ‘A Girl Like Me’, contained music quite similar to her first album. The music video for the song ‘Unfaithful’ - a big hit from this album – has more of a narrative aspect than before, where Rihanna is in a relationship but has fallen for someone else, which links to the lyrics of the song. However, she is also shown performing in parts, and some of these scenes are included in the narrative, for example: she wears the same outfit or is in the same location. Rihanna’s image is quite simple and natural in her first two albums, sometimes wearing casual clothes. Her hair and make-up was usually made to appear natural, developing her innocent image.
In 2007 she released her third album ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’. Suggestive in the title, this album sees a huge change in Rihanna both music and image wise. It features more dance-pop music, with more up-tempo tracks than her previous two albums, enabling the editing and camera movement of her music videos to be at a much faster pace. Her style became more ‘fashion forward’, as she changed her hair to black in a short bob – was a ‘craze’ at the time – and overall she appeared to have more of an edge. The album includes hits such as; ‘Umbrella’ featuring Jay-Z, ‘Don’t Stop The Music’ ‘Shut Up And Drive’ and ‘Hate That I Love You’ featuring Ne-yo. In these songs, it is becoming a pattern that Rihanna is never portrayed as the victim in her videos or lyrics; she is shown to be strong and independent, as well as slightly rebellious, turning her into a positive role model for females. This concept became a huge selling point, as her image increased not only the amount of fans, but also the target audience, as more than just teenagers liked her. A year later this album was re-issued: ‘Good Girl Gone Bad: RELOADED’, which included ‘Take a Bow’, ‘Disturbia’ and ‘If I Never See Your Face Again’ featuring Maroon 5. This album was said to have ‘class, depth and be seriously hard-grinding.’ She underwent a major transformation from just a pretty girl with potential to a star. However, the ‘summery reggae’ of the first two albums was ‘sorely missed’.
The album ‘Rated R’ was released in 2009. It was mainly a Pop and R&R orientated album, although it included aspects of ‘Hip-Hop’ and ‘Rock’. This album included hits such as: ‘Russian Roulette’, ‘Hard’ and ‘Rude Boy’. Rolling Stones even liked this album and commented on it, saying ‘Rihanna has transformed her sound and made one of the best pop records of the year.’ Both the music and lyrics of this album had a much more dark and angry tone, which had only been associated with her music once before in the song ‘Disturbia’, suggesting that it was a glimpse into the future at what was to become of Rihanna and her music. Not only did her sound transform, her image did too. Her clothing and make-up became darker as well, generally black and sometimes involving leather and heavy eye make-up, obtaining her an even sexier image than before. Increasing this image, her clothing became more extravagant and revealing, which then showed off some of her ‘symbolic’ tattoos. Also, the darkness adds an air of mystery to her image, suggesting there is more about her than meets the eye. Additionally, she now appears more powerful, developing her image as a woman in control. Again she has undergone another change to her hair style; half blonde and half black, the top left long but the sides and part of the back shaven, this as well as the excessive styling adds to her new ‘rock’ image. It was said by New York Magazine that ‘she has the ability to shift looks so dramatically and with such ease’.
‘LOUD’ the album released in 2010, that Rihanna said was ‘her’; loud, flirty and energetic saw yet another change in both her music and her look. It featured hits such as ‘Only Girl (In The World)’, ‘What’s My Name’, ‘S&M’, ‘California King Bed’ and ‘Man Down’. This album returned to dance hall influenced sounds, it contained more Dance-pop and Up-Tempo songs, however Rihanna said she was ‘not going back, but developing her sounds’. She obtained a more stylish and risqué fashion sense, continued with the minimalistic clothing – which happened to outrage public when she appeared on the family show ‘The X Factor’ – and yet again, made drastic changes to her hair; which was dyed red and often styled in loose curls. She still had an edge, the same as in ‘Rated R’, except her image changed to the total opposite, as now she appeared softer. This album was created after her involvement and the incident with Chris Brown, even though still viewed as a strong, independent woman, this album reflects her more innocently. Whilst the last album cover only had the title and the letter ‘R’ on it, this one only featured the title, showing how notorious and strong an artist she is that she doesn’t need it. She is now associated with much brighter colours, usually red but sometimes pink, showing a different side to her as an artist.
Her sixth studio album was released in 2011, ‘Talk That Talk’. Rihanna did consider re-issuing the album LOUD, writing that ‘[t]he [Loud era] continues with more new music..’ but decided that her fans needed something ‘brand new’. This album features hits such as ‘We Found Love’ featuring Calvin Harris, ‘You Da One’ and ‘Take Care’ featuring Drake. The narrative in the video to ‘We Found Love’, is associated with her relationship with Chris Brown where she is portrayed as the victim until the end of the video. It features an actor similar to Chris Brown, like Justin Timberlake’s video ‘Cry Me A River’ which featured an actress similar in appearance to Britney Spears. She has returned to using the letter ‘R’ on the cover and this time the title is cleverly shown as a tattoo on her arm, suggestive that this album is more a part of her. This album includes much more musical genres than before, combining a variety of Hip-hop, R&B, Electro House, Electro, Dancehall and Dubstep.
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