6. 'A Girl Like Me' (2007)
The first album that really positioned Rihanna as a future global superstar in the making with a score of moderate and catchy hits that took Rihanna from the realm of being a one-hit-wonder into being a proper popstar. The album emerged with two major hits on its hands that proved to be big across the globe in the form of two very different and yet strangely equal smash hits that made people finally sit up and pay attention to Ms Fenty. The first is electropop thumper 'SOS' which became a template for party tunes for the next few years with its infectious sledgehammer beats and the sexy, sensual transformation of Rihanna from a party girl into a seductive siren, as evidenced by the memorable video. 'SOS' is perhaps the first of Rihanna's singles that aimed at the dancefloor but eschewed her reggae and dancehall roots in favour of a strong R&B/dance sound which complimented her strong vocals well. The second smash single was a complete U-turn from the sensual 'SOS' - 'Unfaithful' was and still is a remarkable single in many respects as it deals with a popular musical topic (infidelity) but portrays it from the idea of a woman cheating and makes her both sympathetic and likeable. In music, infidelity is usually reserved for bad boys and the women who love them, the women either heartbroken over their wandering men or defiantly breaking up with them; in 'Unfaithful', the musical point-of-view changes and stops portraying the female singer as the victim and instead as the perpetrator. Rihanna becomes both protagonist and the 'bad girl', cheating on her boyfriend with a more exciting lover, making it an interesting song to say the least and a surprisingly feminist one at that as it both promotes female agency and humanises the adulterous woman archetype in the media. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp4UwPZfRis However, a lot of the album is filler with generic reggae and dancehall that has not aged well and which falls flat in the face of its two biggest singles. The album showed promise and in its two lead cuts, unwittingly showed the two sides of Rihanna that would become her template - aggressive, confident and in control of her sexuality and agency, and then the vulnerable, heartbroken, achingly human side. Unfortunately, despite a fair bit of solid production, the album falls flat in terms of Rihanna's overall discography. It's decent enough, but not really one for the ages, which is a shame given that it gave her two of her strongest, most memorable singles to date.