Fresh Out the Oven: 'We Found Love' by Rihanna

Rihanna just released the first single off her upcoming 6th studio album (due out November 22) this morning on Ryan Seacrest's radio show.  The song 'We Found Love' is another club banger produced by the European hit maker Clavin Harris who I have featured here on the blog before.  First of all, I just want to address the whole time-line of this whole thing.  Her previous album 'Loud' will have been out exactly one year and ten days by the time her upcoming album will be released.  Yes, that is great in terms of getting new music and never have to be without new hits from the "Rihanna reign", but she just isn't allowing herself time to breathe and develop her sound.  Yes, I love the whole European dance/house music thing that's taking the world by storm, but I just want Rihanna to slow down and see who she really is.  Needless to say we've heard just about everything we can from her, but I don't feel like I really know who she is as an artist.

The other problem that I have with this song is that it is very simplistic.  It feels like a left over European club track that was written five years ago and nobody wanted.  Then Rihanna picked it up, recorded her vocals and said "Let's release this!"  I just feel like it isn't nearly as strong of a track as Rihanna should have released.  The thing that bugs me the most about the song though is that it doesn't go anywhere musically.  Throughout the entire song I am waiting for the big swell and the earsplitting and gut churning bridge of the song that could blow us away; but it never comes.  The song is just repeated over and over again.  Nothing special at all.  Another thing is that Rihanna's voice is feeble on the song.  She just sounds so bored with the song so I'm really not sure what's going on here.  Let's hope the album is ten times better than this one.

Don't get me wrong; I love the song, but it's just the simplicity of it that's eating me up.  If it had a bigger swell like in 'Only Girl' (remember the big symbol crash?) then I might be so enthused in it, but this just isn't the case.  I've had the song on repeat for about the last half hour and I am really diggin' it.  It's sure to be a hit on the radio, but I just have many conflicting emotions about the song at the moment.