“We are pretty chockablock in terms

of gigs”

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IF you thought the good girl couldn’t go bad again, then Ri Ri’s seventh album, Unapologetic will prove you wrong.

The Bajan babe has already scored a number one with one of the singles from the album, the incredibly dull, Diamonds. But with a song featuring the man who battered her, Chris Brown, and another called Love Without Tradegy/Mother Mary, is Rihanna sparking controversy rather than popularity?

One of star’s best collaborations was with Eminem in 2010 with Love The Way You Lie, so you could only expect their single Numb to be just as hard-hitting and emo-tional. But with Numb you’re left feeling just like its title. With Ri-hanna saying “numb” more times than she famously repeated “Um-brella”, the song is more of an an-noyance than a cracker.

But the more disturbing song on this album is Ri Ri’s duet with her ex Chris Brown, Nobody’s Business. Singing “You’ll always be mine, sing it to the world / Al-ways be my boy, I’ll always be your girl”, it seems that although Chris beat her to a pulp, Rihanna seems to have forgiven him and doesn’t care who knows it.

But saying “I wanna be your baby” and “A life with you I want” are just pure cries of desperation and don’t make easy listening. The only light-hearted thing about this song is the backing music, which has quite a disco-esque tempo.

Just when you thought Rihanna

couldn’t suck up to Chris Brown anymore, Love Without Tragedy/Mother Mary is another chance for her to ‘talk’ to the Yeah 3x singer. Singing “Who knew the course of this one drive / Injured us fatally” is a chilling reminder of the night Chris beat her in his car on the eve of the Grammy Awards in Fe b r u -ary 2009.

The alarming thing about these lyrics is that although their relationship was ‘injured’, Rihan-na was the one to get the physical brunt of it, not both of them. Like Nobody’s Business, this track has a late 70s/80s-feel about it, and subtly mimics the sound that The Police were known for.

The pop star shines most when she embraces her roots and sings with emphasis on her Bajan ac-cent. This is explicit in No Love Al-lowed, which has a relaxing reggae feel and chilled vibe. If you liked Man Down, then you’re bound to like this.

The standout track on the Unapologetic album, and probably the only one that’s worth giving more than one listen to, is Jump. Sampling Ginuwine’s classic Pony, the song features a few nice drops into a dubstep-like episode and some decent deep bass. Phresh Out The Runway has a similar vibe too.

Rihanna has released too many songs too often and this album indicates she may be burning out. What she needs to do, for the sake of our ears, is take some time out and concentrate on making her next LP a bit more special.

Just don’t make it any time soon, Ri Ri.

Alt-J’s Joe Newman REX FEATURES

as well. Four guys that coincidently got on really well musically as well as writing songs. I wasn’t a great stu-dent to be fair.”

Their debut album An Awesome Wave sky-rocketed them to victory for the £20,000 Mercury Prize win earlier this month.

Coming from obscurity to one of the most surprising successes of the year, the band, who were the book-ies’ favourite from the beginning, surpassed the Maccabees, rapper Plan B and even BBC Sound 2012 winners Ben Howard and Lianne La Havas.

“The standard was naturally high. They picked 12 artists who have written exceptional albums. So when we won we were super bowled over, it was bizarre.”

Alt-J weren’t intimidated when they attended their first awards ceremony, as they even befriended some of the well-known stars.

“Everyone was really nice, we met the Maccabees for the first time and they were lovely.

“So basically no one was a d***,” jokes Joe.

However, when Joe was asked if he was starstruck by any of the stars at the awards, he initially answered by saying ‘Yes I saw Jessie Ware and..’ but he stopped mid-sentence to say: “I wasn’t starstruck.

“In the Mercury Awards there is a lot of waiting around and it’s quite unglamorous.

“You see everyone arrive and eve-ryone is coming off tour. It’s not as starstriking as you would expect.” Singles such as Breezeblocks with 3.8m views helped their new album

soar up the charts. Joe takes us through his advice to

students hoping to make it in the in-dustry.

“If you’re enjoying what you’re do-ing and you’re excited by what you’re writing, that’s a great start. I wouldn’t advise anyone to just send an album to a label. As long as you are enjoying what you’re doing, that’s the main thing.

“The music industry will find you, if you’re doing something they can attach a barrier to.”

With that said, there is only enough time for the ‘nicest boys in polite rock’ to quickly run us through with their upcoming tours, before we bid them goodbye.

“We are pretty chockablock in terms of gigs. We are in Europe at the moment and then we go straight to America, Hong Kong, then back to London for a week, and then back to America. Everyday is a working day.”

By Hannah Crompton

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