Tweet
Why I (still) Love Rihanna's Umbrella
Dorian Lynskey
July 16, 2007 8:10 AM
And so we enter the ninth week of the long and glorious reign of Rihanna's Umbrella, the undisputed song of the summer - indeed, the year. Traditionally, the long-running number one is a blight on the airwaves. I've never met anyone who owns a copy of Bryan Adams' Everything I Do (I Do It For You) (16 weeks, 1991), Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You (10 weeks, 1992) or Wet Wet Wet's version of Love Is All Around (15 weeks, 1994), but someone must have been buying the buggers.
But last year, Gnarls Barkley's curiously addictive Crazy deserved every one of its nine weeks at the top and I reckon the same is true of Umbrella. They are both bona fide, the-nation-has-spoken hits which still sound fresh and unpredictable. I wouldn't object too strongly if something (specifically Amerie's Gotta Work, though I'm open to suggestions) dislodged it in the near future, but until then, here are nine reasons to celebrate the song of the summer.
1. It's such an improbable R&B summer smash. Neither laidback and fuzzy nor upbeat and exuberant, it's more like a rock power ballad stripped down to drums, voice, and thundercloud synths. Plus - and more on this later - it's about rain, for crying out loud. Who writes a summer song about rain?
2. It overcomes the worst introduction imaginable in the shape of Jay-Z's inept, stumblebum rap, a blatant branding exercise to attract urban radio. Amusingly, Jay refers to himself as Rain Man. Is he trying to tell us something? Ten minutes to Wapner!
3. It reworks one of the oldest, sappiest sentiments in pop. From Lean On Me to You Got a Friend to, er, the theme from Friends, I'll-be-there-for-you-when-times-get-tough has been done to death, but the umbrella is such a simple, brilliant metaphor, and the delivery so proudly unsentimental, that it sounds brand new. I admit I caught the video on VH1 while in a hotel eight time zones away, jetlagged and homesick, and almost burst into tears.
4. Rihanna's voice. Like fellow modern divas Ciara and Cassie, Rihanna's all about dispassionate poise and restraint. Subjected to the hyperactive larynx of a technically stronger singer like Christina Aguilera or Beyonce (it was first offered to Akon and Mary J Blige), Umbrella would have suffered death by melisma. Instead, it's tough, clean and unshowy - just as it should be.
5. The way she pronounces Umbrella with four syllables, which makes it seem implausibly exotic. One of pop's gifts is the ability to make humdrum words sound deliciously strange. Also, when she riffs on "ella" she sounds half like a playful kid and half like a malfunctioning robot.
6. The sun-through-the-clouds middle eight. And the bit where it goes all sturm-und-drang before returning to the chorus gives me goosebumps.
7. The little details, like the splashy hi-hat sound on the first beat of each bar, or the subtle double-tracked vocals on certain words of the chorus. When you've heard it 100 times, this stuff matters.
8. She really is quite nice to look at.
9. The weather. Unless Jay-Z (who is the CEO of Rihanna's label) is more powerful than I imagined, he couldn't have predicted the great British non-summer of 2007. This is one of those rare and wonderful occasions when external events fill a song with unintended significance. When future clip shows remember 2007, the music playing over shots of sodden Wimbledon spectators and filth-caked Glastonbury-goers will have to be Umbrella, the greatest unsummery summer anthem there ever was.
What do you think? Are you heartily sick of Umbrella by now? Is there abetter candidate for song of the summer?
Dorian Lynskey
July 16, 2007 8:10 AM
And so we enter the ninth week of the long and glorious reign of Rihanna's Umbrella, the undisputed song of the summer - indeed, the year. Traditionally, the long-running number one is a blight on the airwaves. I've never met anyone who owns a copy of Bryan Adams' Everything I Do (I Do It For You) (16 weeks, 1991), Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You (10 weeks, 1992) or Wet Wet Wet's version of Love Is All Around (15 weeks, 1994), but someone must have been buying the buggers.
But last year, Gnarls Barkley's curiously addictive Crazy deserved every one of its nine weeks at the top and I reckon the same is true of Umbrella. They are both bona fide, the-nation-has-spoken hits which still sound fresh and unpredictable. I wouldn't object too strongly if something (specifically Amerie's Gotta Work, though I'm open to suggestions) dislodged it in the near future, but until then, here are nine reasons to celebrate the song of the summer.
1. It's such an improbable R&B summer smash. Neither laidback and fuzzy nor upbeat and exuberant, it's more like a rock power ballad stripped down to drums, voice, and thundercloud synths. Plus - and more on this later - it's about rain, for crying out loud. Who writes a summer song about rain?
2. It overcomes the worst introduction imaginable in the shape of Jay-Z's inept, stumblebum rap, a blatant branding exercise to attract urban radio. Amusingly, Jay refers to himself as Rain Man. Is he trying to tell us something? Ten minutes to Wapner!
3. It reworks one of the oldest, sappiest sentiments in pop. From Lean On Me to You Got a Friend to, er, the theme from Friends, I'll-be-there-for-you-when-times-get-tough has been done to death, but the umbrella is such a simple, brilliant metaphor, and the delivery so proudly unsentimental, that it sounds brand new. I admit I caught the video on VH1 while in a hotel eight time zones away, jetlagged and homesick, and almost burst into tears.
4. Rihanna's voice. Like fellow modern divas Ciara and Cassie, Rihanna's all about dispassionate poise and restraint. Subjected to the hyperactive larynx of a technically stronger singer like Christina Aguilera or Beyonce (it was first offered to Akon and Mary J Blige), Umbrella would have suffered death by melisma. Instead, it's tough, clean and unshowy - just as it should be.
5. The way she pronounces Umbrella with four syllables, which makes it seem implausibly exotic. One of pop's gifts is the ability to make humdrum words sound deliciously strange. Also, when she riffs on "ella" she sounds half like a playful kid and half like a malfunctioning robot.
6. The sun-through-the-clouds middle eight. And the bit where it goes all sturm-und-drang before returning to the chorus gives me goosebumps.
7. The little details, like the splashy hi-hat sound on the first beat of each bar, or the subtle double-tracked vocals on certain words of the chorus. When you've heard it 100 times, this stuff matters.
8. She really is quite nice to look at.
9. The weather. Unless Jay-Z (who is the CEO of Rihanna's label) is more powerful than I imagined, he couldn't have predicted the great British non-summer of 2007. This is one of those rare and wonderful occasions when external events fill a song with unintended significance. When future clip shows remember 2007, the music playing over shots of sodden Wimbledon spectators and filth-caked Glastonbury-goers will have to be Umbrella, the greatest unsummery summer anthem there ever was.
What do you think? Are you heartily sick of Umbrella by now? Is there abetter candidate for song of the summer?
Comment