New Song From Rihanna.. Controversial or Not?

October 23rd, 2009 | By Toral

 So there’s been a slight bit of hype around Rihanna’s new single “Russian Roulette” mainly because of the lyrics and artwork for the single. Russian Roulette, co-written and produced by Ne-Yo has alread received negative feedback from a number of celebrities, Perez Hilton tweeted his opinion on the track by saying “Seriously depressed that I don’t like the new @Rihanna song. It’s put me in such a bad mood that I’m disappointed by it. Was expecting MORE!”. In addition to this, the artwork for the track has been labelled as “risque”, however it has been stated that the concept for the artwork had been chosen to compliment the title for her forthcoming album “Rated R”.  The lyrics have been criticized for suggesting that the theme of the song is based around suicide. Some of Rihanna’s fan base have been upset by the choice of topic of the song, however many have expressed their opinions by stating that the song is not about suicide but rather about love.

Here’s my opinion:

“Russian Roulette” has been labelled as being Rihanna’s “comeback” single, which inevitably will create a media frenzy especially after the Chris Brown fiasco. I think because Rihanna received a lot of negative attention after how she responded to the Chris Brown incident, she needed to be back in the media spot light for reasons beyond that. So releasing a “controversial” single would bring her back in to the media, not for anything to do with Chris Brown but because of her music. In my opinion, her initial reason for releasing such a bizarre single cover in comparison to her previous releases such as “Rehab” and “Live your life”, is so that the public will remember her for this rather than for being a domestic violence victim. However, this will not necessarily be a successful career move. Rihanna has previously been seen as a “Pop Icon” and someone who a lot of young girls look up to, but by creating such a controversial single cover this is highlighting the fact that she is moving away from the “squeeky clean pop image” and becoming a lot more grown up. Doing so, could possibly decrease the number of fans as many parents would feel it is inappropriate to allow their children to purchase such a CD.

The single as a whole is very “Rihanna-esqe”. In my opinion, I think she should’ve chosen something a little more upbeat as her comeback single as Russian Roulette has a slightly moody, murderous effect to it. The lyrics itself are quite advanced as she has used the game Russian Roulette as a metaphor, which in fact means that it’s not as catchy as you’d expect a comeback single to be. On a positive note, I think it is definitely one of Rihanna’s best ballads, slightly on the same lines as “Unfaithful”  which was a huge hit. So fingers crossed, hopefully this one is as successful as all her other songs.

Here’s the single, along with an image of the artwork. Let me know your opinions.