“Umbrella”—Rihanna

Rob celebrates pop icon Rihanna while looking back at her smash hit “Umbrella.” While combing through Rihanna’s expansive career, Rob also discusses whether Jay-Z’s guest verse on “Umbrella” is the worst of his career. Later, Brittany Spano joins the show to answer the difficult question of what song is Rihanna’s best, and much more. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Brittany Spano Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Additional Production Support: Olivia Crerie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This is Bill Simmons. I am thrilled to announce our newest YouTube channel. It's called Ringer Movies. If you're a fan of our movie coverage here at The Ringer, then you're in luck because every episode of the rewatchables and the big picture, now on YouTube.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  Like Bill said, Ringer Movies will feature full episodes of my show, The Big Picture, the rewatchables, as well as special live episodes, deep dives into movie history and a bunch of other fun stuff featuring other movie-loving Ringer personalities. Search Ringer Movies on YouTube and experience the joy. Chris Ryan impersonating Wayne Jenkins on camera.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  I'm pro-football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.

• 0:59Speaker 00

  Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.

• 1:11Speaker 03

  I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.

• 1:31Speaker 04

  Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects.

• 1:58Speaker 03

  Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at Caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot. The Home Depot has everything you need to launch your holiday season in style. Upgrade your yard with this year's hottest holiday decor, including the showstopping towering Santa. Oh, I like that one. And his impressive reindeer, both 8.5 feet and both designed with incredible detail that stands out day or night. When you want decor that delivers impact, The Home Depot has it. Make your home Santa's favorite stop with the holiday decor you want, all waiting for you at The Home Depot.

• 2:34Speaker 05

  One time I'm standing in line at Taco Bell, right? With like six other dudes and they got a TV monitor facing the line that's showing us security camera footage of the line, just to intimidate or perhaps demoralize potential Taco Bell patrons. This is like 2002 and I'm standing there waiting to buy my Mexican pizza or whatever. And I'm staring at this security monitor and I am startled to discover that. Who is that behind me? There's a terrifying, hulking, stupefied weirdo looming directly behind me in line. Don't turn around. He's like eight feet tall and galactically disheveled.

• 3:15Speaker 05

  He got this giant, bushy, unkempt beard with raccoons wrestling in it. He's wearing an arbitrary shotgun blast barrage of denim and flannel. He looks like a bear that just staggered through a car wash. He looks like Totoro in a terrible gritty Zack Snyder directed live action reboot of my friend Totoro. And I'm freaked out like, who is this foul, feeble, desultory beast lurking behind me? And yeah, it turns out it's me, obviously. It's me. I am the foul, desultory beast looming behind me. I am car wash bear. I am Zack Snyder Totoro. I have startled myself.

• 3:58Speaker 05

  I have startled myself with the teetering wreck of myself. I have perhaps let myself go physically and spiritually. I am often unaware, even now, I am often unaware of how I look, how I come across to people. Both my aura and my physical presence. I am six foot four and medium large and entirely harmless, but you don't know that. You, a stranger, don't know the harmless part. When you encounter me vibing on the sidewalk or standing in line at the post office or sitting next to you at the parent meeting. To you, a stranger, I most likely look like a rejected teenage mutant ninja turtles villain or something.

• 4:41Speaker 05

  Moreover, on account of working from home for 12 years and counting, I am entirely unsocialized. I am catastrophically unaccustomed to being in public or interacting with other humans. I do not excel at small talk or really talk of any kind. I went on a big work trip recently and I botched 200 consecutive hug or handshake greetings with my coworkers. I guessed wrong. I biffed it 200 straight times. That is every bit as impressive and improbable a streak as Cal Ripken Jr.'s streak of 2,632 consecutive played games. And worse yet, inevitably, I'm either listening to loud music via headphones or I have somehow

• 5:25Speaker 05

  even louder music stuck in my head and I am concentrating on that music real hard, too hard, visibly too hard. And I am thus radiating unnerving intensity with an unclear source or focus. What I am saying is that if you were walking down the street and you saw me, if you saw Car Wash Bear rumbling toward you in the opposite direction, you would not like it. You would be unnerved. You would be, perhaps justifiably, outright panicked. And so, I would like to take this moment to formally apologize to anyone unfortunate

• 6:06Speaker 05

  enough to pass me on the street in New York City between the years 2006 and 2011 while I was walking around listening to "Bed" by J. Holiday and vibing way too hard.

• 6:32Speaker 05

  Jay Holiday. Capital J dot Holiday, born in Washington DC. Highly skilled wearer of hats. From his 2007 debut album, Back of My Lack. This song is called Bed. Right off the rip, let me say that the substantial, amorous, Victoria's Secret type boudoir ass content of this song is immaterial to my abiding love for and obsession with this song. Okay, it's not immaterial, but I love slash am obsessed with this song, primarily for its astounding radiance, its exuberance, its horniness, but also its rampant goofiness. The joy in this man's voice.

• 7:16Speaker 05

  There is a winsome, joyous silliness to his galactic horniness. Jay Holiday is deftly plucking each word, each descending note in the phrase perfume, spray it there, put our love in the air. Out of the air, as if each note is an errant eyelash. He is delicately removing from the rosy cheeks of his beloved and then gently blowing off his fingertip. Roll with it.

• 7:54Speaker 05

  Or at least I ill-advisedly imagined that Jay Holiday is doing this cute errant eyelash thing as I rampage down Houston Street, vibing way too hard to this song on my iPod. Look out, make way for gritty Totoro. Don't make eye contact. Bed was my favorite song on earth for five years. Coincidentally, these were my five years living in New York. If you lived there from 2006 to 2011, I probably startled and unnerved you as we passed on the street in what, the Village, Lower Manhattan, Fort Greene, Brooklyn Heights and Carol Gardens primarily. A little Williamsburg, but not too much Williamsburg. Yeah, but other places too.

• 8:37Speaker 05

  I got around, I got around to all the other boroughs. Okay, not Staten Island, but all the other ones. I loved this song. I put "Bed" by Jay Holiday on repeat and I walked to work. I walked home from work. I walked to some medium cool indie rock show. I walked home from some medium cool indie rock show. The silliness, the silliness that lovingly overpowers the horniness.

• 9:11Speaker 05

  That is ridiculous. "Rub my back like you do right there, uh-uh, right there, uh," is an absurd series of syllables to deploy in the first verse of your breakout song, but Jay Holiday is undeterred. Jay Holiday is gonna sing the bejesus out of this song in all its softcore ludicrous glory. The old singing the word "stop" and the beat stops trick, revelatory when Jay Holiday does it. The majestic pole vault leap up to the word "cute" here, transformative when Jay Holiday does it.

• 10:04Speaker 05

  And maybe especially the graceful descending crystal staircase of "oh, oh, oh," there. Also revelatory and transformative. The almost childlike playfulness, the childlike simplicity of this song, the luxuriant repetition. We are winding up to the chorus now. We are certainly going to take our time getting there.

• 10:42Speaker 05

  You get it. You get it. And here I come, Car Wash Bear, Scourge of the sidewalks, iPod earbuds crammed into my ears, getting way too into this song and picking up speed as I terrorize my fellow New York City pedestrians, go lumping down Houston, go lumping down Court Street, go lumping through Prospect Park, go lumping through Central Park, go lumping across 125th Street, go lumping down Queens Boulevard. I love this song unreasonably. Mid 2000s, this is peak iTunes era, right? Your iTunes collection, your MP3s, everything meticulously labeled, all my song titles painstakingly retyped in all lowercase.

• 11:26Speaker 05

  It's eccentric. I'm expressing my personality. Hundreds of hours spent on this activity. I obsessed over my most played songs, right? My top 25 most played iTunes songs. My play counts were exceedingly accurate. If I happen to listen to one of my favorite songs on YouTube or on CD or at a party or something, I would manually log that play on my iTunes later. My shit was pristine. And Bed was my most played song for years. My top 25 is like a bunch of Wolf Parade, a bunch of Say Anything, those are bands, and Bed at the top. We'll talk about those bands later, maybe. Chorus.

• 12:22Speaker 05

  And finally, we hit upon the true revolutionary aspect of Bed, which is Jay Holliday's ecstatic, pleading, unashamed, majestically goofy repetition of Bed, Bed, Bed, I'mma put you to bed, bed, bed. This should not work. This should sound dumb. It does not work on paper. It does not work in theory. It is even more ridiculous than the ridiculous back rubbing thing, but it lulls you into a trance. Does it not? Bed, bed, bed. It is both stupefying and electrifying. I could listen to Jay Holiday just sing the word bed for hours, days, weeks.

• 13:05Speaker 05

  According to my iTunes play count, I did. Is this song the future? R and B wise, pop wise, slow jam wise? Or is it more the past? Bed has ultra smooth seventies Quiet Storm energy and it has ludicrous quasi swaggering Drake type late 2000s energy. It is somehow both the past and the future. It is Jay Holiday's first top five hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Top five songs in the Billboard Hot 100 on October 6th, 2007. Number five, Bed. Number four, Fergie. Big girls don't cry. Sure. Number three, Timbaland and Keri Hilsen, The Way I Are. No, thank you.

• 13:48Speaker 05

  Number two, Kanye West, Stronger. Yeah. And number one, Soulja Boy. Crank that parentheses, Soulja Boy. Absolutely. 2007. To quote Frank Sinatra, it was a very good year. Frank was talking about another year, but nonetheless, I regret to inform you that Bed was also Jay Holiday's last top five hit. I went to see Jay Holiday live in New York City at an in-store appearance at a Lower Manhattan Music and Electronics Store. I believe at J and R Music World down near Wall Street in 2009, and he was wearing a jet black baseball cap very skillfully.

• 14:30Speaker 05

  And the crowd was modest, but enthusiastic, and so was I. The second Jay Holiday record came out in 2009 and is called Round Two. And I like this song called It's Yours very much. Didn't crack my iTunes Top 25, but apparently not much did, other than Wolf Parade.

• 15:05Speaker 05

  And there's an echo of "Bed" here, of course. The echo of "Bed's" many echoes. The gauzy, sumptuous repetition. "It is yours, it is yours, it is yours, it is yours." But there is some extra intangible bonus quality to the repetition of "Bed", to the exquisite cheeseball hypnosis of "Bed, bed, bed, I'mma put you to bed, bed, bed." And when you follow Jay Holiday on Instagram now, he is thriving. And Jay Holiday posts triumphant video of himself performing at, for example, the 2024 I Love R&B Festival out in Los Angeles. Most likely, he will be performing "Bed"

• 15:49Speaker 05

  with his trademark exuberance. "He ain't trying to hit all the high notes anymore, but neither am I." And anyway, the high notes were never what made "Bed" my absolute favorite song on earth for a solid half decade. "Watch the sunlight peek over the horizon."

• 16:21Speaker 05

  And then the climactic line. Triumphantly hornball and profoundly sweet all at once.

• 16:39Speaker 05

  Pretty good song, in my opinion. Sorry if I passed you on the sidewalk at Bowery and Prince with a disconcertingly animated look on my face. This is my jam. But once again, the true legacy of "Bed", the aftershock it sent out into the world. It's the "Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh." Repetition isn't old. It's maybe the oldest pop song trick. Exquisite cheeseball repetition of the "Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh" variety? That's a different story. And like it or not, given that "Bed" was co-written and co-produced by Carlos McKinney, better known as Los de Mistro, and Terrius Nash, otherwise known as Terrius Adamu-Ya-Yestiel Diamond,

• 17:23Speaker 05

  and better known as Simply The Dream, the story of "Bed" is also another guy's story. It's also the Dream's story. Right up front, The Dream is a complicated, fraught, possibly upsetting figure here in January 2025. He has recently been accused of terrible things. He is not the highest-profile rap/R&B/pop superstar, recently publicly accused of terrible things. He is perhaps not the most challenging "separate the art from the artist" pop-cultural figure at the moment. But The Dream is tremendously challenging to me personally, because this person's voice, The Dream's own singing voice and his writing voice filtered through many of the biggest pop stars on Earth.

• 18:08Speaker 05

  This person defined the back half of the 2000s for me, which I largely spent walking around New York City scaring people while vibing too hard to him. I loved The Dream, and I loved the music he made, and I still do. And I love it precisely for its goofiness and frivolity. And I still hear that goofiness and frivolity now. And if we're painting the whole beautiful but also ugly picture here today, I'd at least like to try to get you to hear what I love about it too.

• 18:52Speaker 05

  And so here he is. It's nine in the morning, I'm horny, you horny, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. That is almost a haiku. I checked, it's a haiku if you remove one and a half "oo-oo's." This song is called "Love Songs," that's love, L-U-V. It is written, and this time also sung, by the singer, songwriter, and producer known professionally as The Dream, from his 2007 debut solo album, Love/Hate. Even here, on his debut solo album, you can already tell that "oo-oo, ooh, ooh, ooh" type repetition is this guy's whole deal.

• 19:35Speaker 05

  The hyphen Dream, I don't know what the deal is with the hyphen, and I don't intend to find out. He was born Terius Young-Dell Nash. In Rockingham, North Carolina in 1977. As a little kid, he moved with his mother to Atlanta. His mother passed away when he was 15, which would impact, he says, the songs he would write from that moment forward. In 2010, Terrius told New York Magazine, quote, "I've always had a soft spot for women because of my mom. Just their power. Man's biggest enemy is a woman who has it in for them. I just like being around them, watching, soaking up the information, being cursed out, being put out." End quote. Terrius gets an early break when he lands a co-writer credit

• 20:18Speaker 05

  on the 2002 album Pandemonium exclamation point from the noted turn-of-the-century boy band B2K, featuring Omarion and Lil Fiz and two other guys. Specifically, along with his future collaborator, Christopher Tricky Stewart, Terrius Nash is one of 11 credited songwriters on a song called "Everything."

• 20:55Speaker 05

  And that's a lovely and mellifluous chorus to the B2K song "Everything." Though if you're trying to guess, if you're making a feeble attempt to isolate Terrius Nash's contribution to any particular track, even a track with 10 other songwriters, my inclination anyway is to zero in on the goofiest part of the song, which in this case would be the part where the dudes in B2K sing mellifluously about having phone trouble.

• 21:33Speaker 05

  It's pretty goofy. Pretty The Dream-esque. Sounds like somebody needs to swing by J&R Music World down by Wall Street. They sell chargers and batteries and stuff, presumably. Or they did in 2002. Terrius Nash gets an even bigger break in 2003, when, once again alongside Christopher Tricky Stewart, Terrius is one of seven credited songwriters on "Me Against the Music" by Britney Spears. Let's find out how many words Britney can sing super fast while still sounding mellifluous.

• 22:15Speaker 05

  That's why she's the best. But 2007 is when the dream goes supernova. Or when his ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh aesthetics go supernova. Jay Holiday's "Bad" is a bigger hit chart-wise than anything on The Dream's Love/Hate album. But I love this album very much, and I love it more the more preposterous it gets. This song is called "Falsetto." The chorus of "Falsetto" is a marvel of restraint and sophistication.

• 22:59Speaker 05

  Amazing, restrained, sophisticated, preposterous. The Dream will later assert, in a song with the title "You Don't Want Me" to say out loud, that quote, "I'll never be a pop star, I'm too raw," end quote. But I would argue that the rawness isn't the issue, it's the preposterousness. The lead single off this Love/Hate album is called either "Shoddy as a ten" or "Shoddy as the shit", depending on who's listening, I'm sorry I had to say that one out loud. But it's a classic in one of my favorite pop song subgenres. Songs that name a whole bunch of women real fast.

• 23:50Speaker 05

  Fantastic. Other songs in the Songs That Name a Whole Bunch of Women Real Fast subgenre include "Freakalik" by Petey Pablo, "Tired of Sex" by Weezer, 88 Lines About 44 Women, and Mambo Number Five. But even here, amidst the rundown of Keisha and Sonya and Tanya and Monique, you get the trademark syllables. You get "O-O-O-O" action. If we're looking for the song on this Love/Hate album that best predicted the future, the beautiful and ugly parts of the future of R&B and pop and rap, I would go with Nicki. N I K K I Nikki for the catchiness, but also the grievance, the indignation,

• 24:33Speaker 05

  the bitchy self pity that will soon infect the Kanye Wests and Drakes of the world. But it's still there in the background, the best part. Uh, uh, uh, uh, hey, hey, hey.

• 24:58Speaker 05

  The Dream made three straight A++ solo albums. Love slash Hate in 2007, Love vs. Money in 2009, and Love King in 2010. And then he made, you know, a bunch of other albums. The Dream was also sampled on the best remix of the late 2000s, which is of course the remix of Throw It in the Bag by Fabolous. That remix is absolutely majestic and I was gonna play it for you. But I think we've given this person enough airtime. In June 2024, The New York Times reported that The Dream, Terrius Yasiel Diamond, is being accused of rape and battery in a lawsuit filed by a former protege named Shanaz Mangro. Terrius denies these charges, telling The New York Times that they are,

• 25:43Speaker 05

  quote, "untrue and defamatory," end quote. That case is ongoing. Also in 2014, he was arrested and charged with felony assault and strangulation, reckless endangerment, and child endangerment. That case was later dismissed. It is ordinarily my impulse to avoid even quite prominent artists, singers, songwriters, producers, and superstars facing these sorts of accusations. But here in January 2025, given the barrage of accusations made against Sean "Diddy" Combs, with the Diddy saga growing uglier and more convoluted by the day, it is harder than ever to wall off the biggest and best pop songs from the potential and actual awfulness of many of the people who helped make them.

• 26:28Speaker 05

  The Dream is a legit superstar hitmaker. He's helped make extremely giant hit songs by Mariah Carey, Justin Bieber,

• 26:37Speaker 05

  And Kanye West, Megan Thee Stallion, also Beyonce. The Dream with Tricky Stewart co-wrote and co-produced Beyonce's single Ladies, Put a Ring on It in 2008, and The Dream has been credited on every Beyonce record since, up to and including Beyonce's Cowboy Carter in 2024, which means that in two weeks or so, The Dream might be honored at the Grammys for helping make the Album of the Year. Now Beyonce's Cowboy Carter will not win Album of the Year at the Grammys. Taylor Swift will win again, but ah, well, nevertheless, and all of that. Plus somehow, we haven't even mentioned the song that actually legitimately first made The Dream famous.

• 27:22Speaker 05

  2007 was his year because of his Love/Hate album and because of Bed by Jay Holliday. But mostly 2007 was his year, not so much because of his voice, but because of hers.

• 27:50Speaker 05

  My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 14th episode of 60 Songs That Explained the 90s Coal in the 2000s. And this week, we are discussing Umbrella by Rihanna from her 2007 album, Good Girl Gone Bad. Umbrella was produced by Christopher Tricky Stewart and Thaddeus Kukurel, and co-written by those two guys, plus perhaps most prominently, The Dream. All those A A As are very The Dream coded. And also Sean Carter, better known as Jay-Z, who in December alongside Sean Diddy Combs, was accused of rape in a civil suit. Jay-Z has vehemently denied those charges. That lawsuit is ongoing. Umbrella is an absolutely transcendent and all-time great pop song,

• 28:34Speaker 05

  and it is very frustrating that it requires these disclaimers. It is maddening to know that when Rihanna first sung this song, she couldn't have known how much she would have to transcend. You want to get Jay-Z out of the way right now? Sure you do. The song sure does.

• 29:08Speaker 05

  Umbrella starts with a guest verse from Jay-Z. That's a fact. And Umbrella improves as it goes along. That's an opinion. That is also a fact. It's mostly the vocal tone that grates for me here. No cloud in his eye, like he's rapping with a clothespin on his nose. I hear Jay-Z's first line on Umbrella and I tune him out. Honestly, I have never really paid attention to anything he says here. I always thought it was, "We fly higher than weather and cheap rides are better." That's not what he says. He says, "In G5s are better." Why would he say, "Cheap rides are better?" That doesn't sound like Jay-Z at all. Matter of fact, rude question for you.

• 29:51Speaker 05

  What is Jay-Z's all-time worst guest verse? He's legitimately, factually, one of the greatest rappers of all time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, what's Jay-Z's single worst performance on someone else's song? Hmm, I feel like Kanye West's "Monster" is the sentimental favorite here. Sentimental least favorite. Jay-Z's monster verse where he mostly just lists monsters. Sasquatch, Godzilla, King Kong, lot of this. No, thank you. People seem to dislike Jay-Z's verse on Justin Timberlake's "Suit and Tie." And to be honest, I totally forget what Jay-Z says on "Suit and Tie" and I don't feel like listening to "Suit and Tie" again. No, thank you.

• 30:32Speaker 05

  I wouldn't say that Jay-Z exactly covers himself in glory on Beyonce's "Drunk in Love." Now, does he? Uh, "Your breast is is or my breath is." No, thank you. You know a dark horse candidate for worst Jay-Z guest verse? His contribution to the 2011 Rihanna song, "Talk That Talk."

• 31:09Speaker 05

  Oh, shut up and stop laughing. That is gross. Jay-Z, not particularly improving Rihanna songs since 2007. I'm calling it, "Talk That Talk" is the worst Jay-Z guest verse until I think of a worse one. He's more tolerable on "Umbrella," which is incredible, given that he calls himself Rain Man and calls Rihanna "Little Miss Sunshine."

• 31:47Speaker 05

  Great question. Where are you at, Rihanna? Rihanna, please come save us from all these other people. I got so indignant about that guest verse that I almost forgot to do an ad break. Excuse me for a second.

• 32:05Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Boars Head. You know what I love about football season? It's the football, but also the football-watching food. And nothing hits like a Boars Head sandwich when I'm watching a game. Really, any game day sandwich better with Boars Head. Philly cheesesteak, layer up buttery slider rolls with Boars Head London Broil Roast Beef, American White Cheese, and picante provolone. Delicious. Then add roasted onions, peppers, and Boars Head pub-style horseradish sauce. I love horseradish. And you've got the ultimate game day cheesesteak. They've also got a whole lineup of premium meats, cheeses, hummus, and dips, condiments, and more to serve up on game day. Head to your local Boars Head deli counter to shop now. For game day sandwich inspiration and more, visit boarshead.com. Boars Head, committed to craft since 1905.

• 32:49Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Viori. When it comes to clothes that score high in both comfort and style, Viori is my MVP. Sunday performance joggers, oh yeah. They have the perfect, I could watch a game then go out to dinner vibe. And the Meta pant, that's my number one, I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at viori.com/simmons and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions.

• 33:17Speaker 05

  Goodness gracious. You know who we haven't talked enough about yet? Rihanna. That's who. I am sorry about that. I apologize to you and to Rihanna. Robin Rihanna Fenty was born in St. Michael, Barbados on February 22nd, 1988. Her father ran a garment warehouse. Her mother was an accountant. Rihanna has talked often in interviews about her rocky relationship with her father. Her father struggles with drugs and alcohol. In her father's history of domestic abuse. As a kid, Rihanna struggled with terrible headaches. In 2007, she told Entertainment Weekly, quote, "I had to go through a lot of CAT scans." They even thought it was a tumor because it was that intense, end quote. But she says that they went away when her parents divorced.

• 34:02Speaker 05

  She grew up wanting to be a pop star. Per Rolling Stone, at around 15, she won a beauty pageant and also won a talent show by singing Mariah Carey's "Hero." Actually, where I can, I'd prefer to let Rihanna tell you about herself. If for no other reason than I vastly prefer her voice to my own, obviously. Here she is talking to MTV in 2006.

• 34:26Speaker 06

  You know, it's a small island, so you know. I prefer R&B and hip-hop, reggae. My influences are Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Benny Houston. I always used to sing in the shower. I used to sing at home. Neighbors would complain because I used to be singing so loudly, but...

• 34:50Speaker 05

  Rihanna's speaking voice is more melodic than most other people's singing voices. That's another opinion. That's also a fact. Young Rihanna formed a girl group in Barbados with two classmates, and they got an audition with big shot veteran music producer Evan Rogers, who was on vacation in Barbados. And as Evan told Entertainment Weekly, quote, "The minute Rihanna walked into the room, it was like the other two girls didn't exist. She carried herself like a star when she was 15," end quote. Rude but fair. For this audition, Rihanna sang "Emotion." She sang the Destiny's Child version of the 1975 Samantha sang hit "Emotion", written by Robin and Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees.

• 35:35Speaker 05

  "It's just emotion taking me..." Her voice is better. Sorry. Rihanna's got a four-song demo. Evan Rogers brings her to New York City to help shop it. And Rihanna auditions as a 16-year-old for Jay-Z for Def Jam Records. She was nervous to meet a celebrity, let alone audition for one. But it went well. It went almost too well. Once again, this will sound better in Rihanna's voice. Talking to Tyra Banks in 2005, here is Rihanna recounting what Jay-Z told her.

• 36:08Speaker 06

  He said, um, there are two ways to leave here. Either through the door with the deal signed or through this window. And we're on the 29th floor.

• 36:18Speaker 06

  So he was like, where's the pen?

• 36:21Speaker 05

  So that's not great. A less disquieting thing that Rihanna says Jay-Z told her during this audition. It was that Def Jam signs artists, not songs. Rihanna auditioned in part by singing the song that would become her first big hit single. And as Jay-Z himself put it, talking to MTV News around that time, he says, quote, "I was like, that song is too big for her. When a song is that big, it's hard to come back from." End quote. It is very fun to imagine a time when anyone thought this song was too big for Rihanna. No offense to it.

• 37:10Speaker 05

  Rihanna's debut single and her first big hit single is called "Ponder Replay." It appears in her 2005 debut album, Music of the Sun. "Ponder Replay," in fact, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, beaten out only by Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together." That makes sense. That's okay. You know how many top 10 hits Rihanna has had? Total 32. You know how many number one songs Rihanna has had? 14. Yeah, it turns out "Ponder Replay" was not too big for Rihanna. Again, no offense.

• 37:58Speaker 05

  Shake it till the moon becomes the sun. That's a fantastic line. Ponder Replay is a great, fun, propulsive, insidious, doggedly upbeat, globally minded, peak mid 2000 song that would be a career highlight for plenty of respectable pop stars. And yet it barely sneaks into Rihanna's like, top 20. That's more opinion than fact, but you get me. So there's a tension here. There's a fun little dichotomy between the way Rihanna was often publicly perceived in 2005, when her debut album came out, and the way Rihanna is often publicly perceived now. Specifically, Rihanna is often publicly perceived now as the master of the universe.

• 38:42Speaker 05

  Thanks in large part to Fenty, her beauty and fashion empire. Rihanna is literally a billionaire, according to Forbes. She did the Super Bowl halftime show while pregnant. She has, this bears repeating, 14 number one songs and 32 top 10 songs. She is a star of stage and screen. She starred in, for example, the 2012 action film Battleship, based on the children's game with the red and white pegs in the gray boats battleship. Remember when Rihanna pointed the giant battleship turret at the alien? And said, mahalo, mother, and then blew the alien up? It sounded better when she said it. She is Rihanna, is what I'm saying. Rihanna is Rihanna. I know you know what I mean.

• 39:27Speaker 05

  I find it genuinely difficult to listen to Rihanna's first two albums and imagine her as a mere pop star contender. As not yet a sure thing, as not yet the surest thing. Another fun little dichotomy between Rihanna then and Rihanna now. Rihanna's first two albums were released less than eight months apart. Her debut, Music of the Sun, came out on August 29th, 2005. Her sophomore album, A Girl Like Me, came out April 10th, 2006. In fact, Rihanna started her career by putting out seven albums in eight years.

• 40:08Speaker 05

  Between 2005 and 2012, she released an album every year except 2008. This, too, is in sharp contrast to the way Rihanna operates now. Rihanna's last album, Anti, came out in 2016, and she is very delightfully in absolutely no hurry to follow it up. Remember in June 2024, when she triggered a panicked news cycle by saying she was starting over on her new album? Hilarious, incredible. Another remarkable thing about early Rihanna is that, as she mellifluously told MTV News, she prefers R&B and hip-hop and reggae.

• 40:48Speaker 05

  What separates Music of the Sun from the other big pop albums of 2005? Mariah Carey's The Emancipation of Mimi, Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor, even Kanye's late registration, is Rihanna's overwhelming focus on Caribbean music. She is a young singer, a teenager from Barbados, making a pop record with guest verses from, well, not Jay-Z, who mercifully does not appear. Rihanna's guests instead include Vibes Cartel, Cardinal Official, and Elephant Man. Nobody else could have made this exact album in 2005. You can imagine Madonna or like Gwen Stefani trying to make this album, but why would

• 41:32Speaker 05

  you do that to yourself?

• 41:48Speaker 05

  That song is called "If It's Lovin' That You Want," the other big single from Music of the Sun, albeit a more modest hit, merely a top 40 hit, number 36. This first record, it's not Rihanna's best work, and it's certainly not her biggest, but it feels tremendously and winsomely true to her, or true to the 17-year-old her who released it. She is not going to be simply an aspiring young star from Barbados for very much longer, so I suppose we should enjoy it while we can.

• 42:33Speaker 05

  That's Rihanna's cover of "You Don't Love Me," parentheses, "No, no, no." Originally a huge hit for the Jamaican singer Dawn Pen in 1994. Young Rihanna's voice is not necessarily a turbocharged, octave-scaling diva canon in the grand tradition of her biggest influences, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Beyonce. But there's a fluidity, there's a bite, there's a pleasantly coexisting sweetness and swagger to Rihanna's voice immediately. And for reasons of both personality and geography, at this scale, there's simply no other pop star that sounds quite like her. You can imagine a few of these songs working great for, say, Destiny's Child back in 1999.

• 43:16Speaker 05

  But there's really only one person they're gonna work for now.

• 43:38Speaker 05

  That song is called "That La La La." I feel ridiculous saying that song title out loud. Once again, I apologize. On this Music of the Sun record, I also really dig this song called "Let Me," which has more of your straightforward, American, hot 97, conquering pop buoyancy and rap bravado bombast to it, reminiscent of Beyonce or perhaps A. Marie. But for me, mostly, it's just that Rihanna's voice and the flute riff just really get along.

• 44:21Speaker 05

  What I think this first Rihanna record does prove is that Def Jam signed an artist, not a song. So, good job. And then, seven months and change later, more new Rihanna music. What a time to be alive.

• 44:50Speaker 05

  That song is called "Break It Off", from Rihanna's second album, "A Girl Like Me", released in 2006. And that's Sean Paul providing encouragement. And even the subtle but quite striking curve in Rihanna's voice right at the end there. "Set it off, boy." I need to stop singing, I'm sorry. Rihanna already has this way of conveying both outrageous grace and immeasurable power, even when she's singing songs about wanting to be yours and wanting you to let her do things for you and whatnot. There is a soft power to both Rihanna's singing and speaking that's gonna start getting harder and more powerful real quick. Pretty soon, the real question will be, is this song big enough for Rihanna?

• 45:33Speaker 05

  In the meantime, anybody in the mood for a monster power ballad?

• 45:38Speaker 06

  (singing) I don't wanna do this anymore. I don't wanna be the reason why. Every time I walk out the door, I see him die a little more inside.

• 45:54Speaker 05

  Here we have "Unfaithful", which proves that Rihanna's voice does not have to abruptly jump octaves to convey tremendous riveting emotional catharsis. Because, see, now I really wanna hear the other half of this chorus, just for the way she rips into "I don't wanna hurt him anymore." Sorry, sorry, sorry.

• 46:30Speaker 05

  This is not necessarily my favorite facet of Rihanna, the stormy minor key piano ballad Rihanna, but already this specific version of Rihanna can also have a top 10 hit. Unfaithful hit number six. Myself, I might be a little more partial to a song like "Kisses Don't Lie", for the crunchiness, the slight grouchiness, the bracing humidity of the organ and the electric guitar, while Rihanna's voice pole vaults into some killer high notes.

• 47:11Speaker 05

  But we are all kidding ourselves here, I suppose, if we discuss the 2006 Rihanna album, A Girl Like Me, without acknowledging her first giant bonkers number one song, which is, of course, called SOS.

• 47:39Speaker 05

  And this is a fantastic, gargantuan, undeniable jam, SOS, undiminished by the fact that it exists in the proud, endless lineage of huge pop songs driven by a gargantuan, undeniable sample of another pop song. In this case, of course, Tainted Love by Soft Cell back in 1981, which, of course, Tainted Love itself was first recorded by northern soul giant and Cincinnati native Gloria Jones in 1965. This is how upper-echelon mainstream pop works. The hugeness and, often, the delightful obviousness, the colossal brazen samples, the interpolations, the audacious echoes, the familiarity.

• 48:21Speaker 05

  Each new chart-topping pop smash, preferably, you know the song before you even hear the song. You know what I mean? And SOS is a major mile marker on Rihanna's path to becoming Rihanna. SOS is one of the last instances where the song's hugeness and Rihanna's hugeness are remotely aligned. To my mind, going forward, you will hear Rihanna first and the song itself second. Her reputation, her imperial majesty, will precede her from here on out. And then a year passes. Barely a year, 13 months, April 10, 2006, to May 31, 2007. I'm sorry, but I can't quite get over this.

• 49:05Speaker 05

  The nearly decade-long era where we just casually expected a new Rihanna album every year. It's like science fiction now, but like, science fiction set in the past. But anyway, let's tee up a couple more rad, colossal, brazen samples, shall we?

• 49:40Speaker 05

  Please don't stop the, please don't stop the music. Sorry, we got Michael Jackson whooping in the background there and everything. I dig it that as with Ponder Replay, we are once again directly addressing the DJ. But also, we're sampling Thriller now. It gets no more brazen and colossal than sampling Thriller. The song is called "Don't Stop the Music" and of course, it samples Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Something." Although, not to be pedantic or whatever, but "Wanna Be Startin' Something," of course, very colossally and brazenly, interpolates Manu de Bongo's 1972 hit Soul Makasah. Because this is how pop music works. Rihanna's third album, released in 2007, is called "Good Girl Gone Bad."

• 50:25Speaker 05

  And this too is how pop music works. The teenage pop music prodigy, on let's say, her third album, she rebels, she toughens up, she darkens, she rejects her goody-goody image. I was listening to "Bangers" the other day. The 2013 Miley Cyrus Ultra Rebellion album "Bangers," with a Z, that almost caused a global moral panic. And that's coming later chronologically, but nonetheless, this is how pop music works. In 2007, in Entertainment Weekly, under the headline "Caribbean Queen," or you're supposed to pronounce that Caribbean Queen, I suppose, that's another huge, famous pop song. That's how headlines work. Rihanna says, quote, "Good Girl Gone Bad is an expression of where I'm at in my life

• 51:10Speaker 05

  and my career. It's like, this is me, this is what I'm doing. I don't care if you like it or not. That's a bad girl's attitude." End quote. She also says, quote, "I got really rebellious. I was being forced into a particular innocent image and I had to break away from it." End quote. And finally, with regards to her new short, jet-black asymmetrical hairstyle, Rihanna says, quote, "I always wanted to cut it, but I was never allowed. Now, I don't give a damn. I think every teenager has a point in their life when they go into their own world and shut out everybody's opinion. That's what I'm doing." End quote. This song is called "Breaking Dishes."

• 52:10Speaker 05

  The way Rihanna sings the words "police lights" really does it for me. I almost cut her off before she sang "I'mma fight a man tonight", but the song is the song. It's a great song. So it's the one called "Shut Up and Drive", in which we tee up, you guessed it, another colossal brazen pop song sample.

• 52:46Speaker 05

  "If you can, baby, boy, then we can..." No, sorry. We are, of course, delightfully and audaciously interpolating "Blue Monday" by New Order Now.

• 53:01Speaker 05

  Subtlety is not the vibe, generally, on this, the time-honored rebellious third album. We want to be as loud and huge and confrontational and undeniable as possible. And thus, it is time to unveil our most brazen and colossal and undeniable and shameless sample yet. And of course, I am referring to our sample of GarageBand's Vintage Funk Kit 03.

• 53:40Speaker 05

  And who amongst us doesn't have fond childhood memories of perhaps cranking up the radio in the super 80s wood-paneled family station wagon to hear GarageBand's Vintage Funk Kit 03 dropped into a rock block right between "Beat It" by Michael Jackson and "Blue Monday" by New Order. It was right there. This drum loop was just sitting there on the Apple Music software program GarageBand. I'm defining GarageBand, just in case my parents are still listening. And the knock against using this drum loop is that absolutely anybody could have used this drum loop. And the argument for using this drum loop is that, well, nobody else did.

• 54:35Speaker 05

  The snare on that drum loop is really something. The super satisfying snare crack, like snapping a redwood tree in half. And here we have "Umbrella." And I do remember distinctly sitting at my desk at my music editor job in New York City, watching the "Umbrella" video on my computer for the first time, and thus hearing "Umbrella" for the first time. And I was just like, "Well, yep, that is actually, literally what I thought, verbatim. Welp, yep." And I stand by that, honestly. Excellent analysis by me. I don't mind telling you, Rihanna is a highest echelon superstar from this point forward,

• 55:19Speaker 05

  in my humble, fact-based opinion. And I think I knew right here, on the second verse, with the ever-so-slight and yet gargantuan flutter of Rihanna's voice on the words "part" and "cards."

• 55:49Speaker 05

  And those words that Rihanna just sung there, those words are dumb. Those words should sound dumb. They don't work on paper or in theory. "When the war has took its parts, when the world has dealt its cards, if the hand is hard," there is a clunkiness to these words, a clunkiness that exists only for Rihanna to ignore when she sings these words. And this is how pop music works. The warp speed with which preposterous transubstantiates into eternal greatness. Because also, the two-note melody that's been banging around in your skull this whole time.

• 56:32Speaker 05

  Deceptive simplicity of that melody. That melody too simple really to be called a riff and yet it's perfect. And also the super heavy ascending bassline at the end there. Yeah.

• 56:45Speaker 05

  That bolsters Rihanna as she sings the word because as though because is the one and only word of the Lord.

• 57:09Speaker 05

  Now that it's raining more than ever. Sorry. Rihanna does truly incredible things with the word because on umbrella. Does she not? This is a song that improves as it goes along for other non-JZ related reasons. Umbrella escalates. It intensifies. Incredible things happening with the word poor and more as well.

• 57:47Speaker 05

  But on the other hand, all this granular detail, all this fixation on individual words, riffs, vocal flutters, maybe we're overthinking it. We meaning me, I'm overthinking it. Try this. Do me a favor. Imagine the Rihanna song Umbrella where everything about it is exactly the same. Even Jay-Z. Except that when the chorus hits, she sings, sorry in advance, you can stand under my umbrella and stops. And the redwood snapping snare is still going, the two note melody, the escalating bass heavy synth bluster, all of that's still going. The chorus is rumbling along, but Rihanna stops singing after every line and she doesn't

• 58:29Speaker 05

  start singing again until, sorry, you can stand under my umbrella. And then she stops again and so forth. Is the song umbrella still umbrella if Rihanna doesn't give the word umbrella 10 syllables? It isn't the same song, is it? The world we live in today isn't quite the same, is it?

• 59:10Speaker 05

  And it's just reverb. It's just Rihanna providing her own manual reverb. Rihanna is the voice and Rihanna is the Grand Canyon echoing the voice. The Dream, talking to Billboard 2017, says, quote, "The Ella part was a play on reverb. Back in the day, we couldn't afford the good reverb program, so I started repeating the phrases to make it sound like it," end quote. But enough about him, enough about all hymns, matter of fact. The Dream came up with a cool vocal tic that served him well elsewhere, but that vocal tic needed Rihanna. It needed Rihanna's voice, needed the cataclysmic force of Rihanna's personality that would make her a superstar and make The Dream a superstar whisperer.

• 59:55Speaker 05

  I keep wanting to say, "He made it a hotline, she made it a hot song," but that doesn't quite capture it. The Dream helped write a great song, but only Rihanna could turn that song into a career. Umbrella spent seven weeks at number one. Song of the summer of 2007. Rihanna's Rihanna now. In December of 2007, still 2007, song's been out for like nine months, The Observer interviews Rihanna and asks her, "Are you sick of singing Umbrella?" And she says, quote, "No, and thank God. I don't think I'll ever tire of it because it means so much to me. Every time I hear the first bars, it feels brand new. I do get tired of singing my other songs," end quote. That's funny. That's hilarious.

• 1:00:40Speaker 05

  "I do get tired of singing my other songs." Outstanding. I'm stalling now, don't mind me. Can I tell you my all-time favorite Rihanna quote to date? I took the liberty of committing this to memory. Rolling Stone puts Rihanna on the cover in 2011 and she's shooting the video for her single "California King Bed," where she's cavorting on a bed with a male model named Nathan. Who Rihanna picked personally for this video after seeing pictures of him on the internet. And the Rolling Stone reporter watches as Rihanna and Nathan meet in real life. And Rihanna shakes Nathan's hand and says, quote, "Hi, I'm Rihanna. Nice to meet you. No boners," end quote. And they shoot the video.

• 1:01:24Speaker 05

  "Hi, I'm Rihanna. Nice to meet you. No boners." Unbelievable. Yeah, I'm calling an audible. I had this whole agonizing spiel planned about the next two years or so in the public life of Rihanna, but I've talked enough about shit I don't want to talk about. And Rihanna doesn't deserve to have her story defined by men who have done, or at least been accused of doing, terrible things. And also, I haven't reveled in Rihanna's physical voice nearly enough. I will limit my remarks to only two post-Umbrella Rihanna songs. The first one is called "Work." The juice, the spin Rihanna puts on the word "wake" here immediately. Look out.

• 1:02:23Speaker 05

  "Work," of course, appears on Rihanna's 2016 album, "Anti." And listen, I want a new Rihanna album as bad as anybody, but it is nonetheless very funny to me that the aggressively hypothetical next Rihanna album is now being held over our heads like "The Winds of Winter" or something. Rihanna, the George R.R. Martin of pop. She has no pages. Never mind the patois, the reveling in that barrage of syllables throughout "Work." It's a cool echo for me, a through line, all the way back to Rihanna's earliest albums. The deep immersion in reggae that plenty of pop stars have attempted, but none have effortlessly embodied the way she can. My second and last post-Umbrella Rihanna song is "We Found Love",

• 1:03:08Speaker 05

  specifically for this part, this melody.

• 1:03:30Speaker 05

  We Found Love from 2011's Talk That Talk. We Found Love, written and produced by Calvin Harris. We could lay down some context here. Sure, the EDM boom of the late 2000s and early 2010s and the demand for massive pop stars to sing massive hooks while massive EDM bombast is transpiring all around them. The way Rihanna's voice specifically was perfect for this moment. Her voice that does not lose its charisma, its force, its singularity, no matter how concussive the bass gets or how outlandish the drop is. But my love for this song, it's simpler than that for me. It requires no context. It's just the graceful descending crystal staircase of the way Rihanna sings.

• 1:04:15Speaker 05

  Sorry, last time. Cause the way I'm feeling, I just can't deny. Listen to it again. Remember everything you know about Rihanna artistically and personally, and then forget all of it.

• 1:04:47Speaker 05

  And then, if you're me, anyway, you put in your earbuds, put the song on replay and joyfully rumble on down the street without any concern for anyone you might frighten as you pass by.

• 1:05:00Speaker 06

  Shaq here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvana 100% online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr. Shaq. Thank you, Mr. Carvana guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you, Mr. Shaq. Hey, have you always been so big, tall and handsome? Not always. I was 6'10" once. Seven days to love it or return it, Mr. Shaq. Not that I would. You never do. No, I never do. So buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven day return policy at carvana.com.

• 1:05:33Speaker 05

  Our guest today, we are delighted to welcome back Brittany Spanos. She is a senior writer at Rolling Stone. She is an adjunct instructor at NYU. She is, dare I say, a Rihanna scholar. Brittany, welcome. So when did you first hear Rihanna? When did she enter your life? When did you accept Rihanna as your personal Lord and Savior?

• 1:05:54Speaker 06

  I heard her pretty early on with Ponder Replay. I, you know, I've watched MTV constantly and, you know, listening to the radio all the time. So as soon as Ponder Replay came out, it was like pretty much on, you know, on MTV constantly. It was, I think, TRL still existed at that time, or maybe it didn't. Some, maybe it was VH1 Countdown, like, you know, it's just like a video that was, was on a lot. So, yeah, I was a big fan pretty immediately. And when Girl Like Me came out, too, the song SOS, I was obsessed with. So she was someone that, like, I pretty much immediately loved. And I feel like everyone, you know, this was like, probably like around middle school for me.

• 1:06:37Speaker 06

  So it was like everyone I knew loved her and was obsessed with her. So she was kind of like, she was like an immediate cool girl. Like, people just, I feel like everyone in my life immediately was like, yeah, Rihanna is amazing.

• 1:06:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, Rolling Stone did a list a few years back of the 100 greatest debut singles of all time. And you put, you wrote about Ponder Replay on there. Like, what made that song great? What made it the ideal introduction to her? And how was she immediately a cool girl for everyone in middle school?

• 1:07:05Speaker 06

  I mean, I think it was a little bit of the mixture of style, but also like, you know, a song that was so connected to who she is. She's from Barbados. It was a song that was like, kind of this like great sort of like dance hall Caribbean sound to it. You know, she still had that, you know, she was a teen, so she did have that teeny bopper-ness to her that still felt like accessible. It didn't feel like she was trying to be something like much older than what she was and, or someone much older than she, what she was. So, yeah, I mean, her style is always great. Like, I remember in that video, like, she had these, like, I think they were like low-rise- Cargos or something that was like so like trendy at the time and

• 1:07:45Speaker 05

  Very mid 2000s, yeah.

• 1:07:47Speaker 06

  Yeah. So even before she kind of had her big like style revolution, she was still really cool and fashionable and like on point. So everyone kind of just like wanted to like have the same sort of like makeup as her and same like clothes and dress like her and like, you know, it was just kind of, it was just like immediate, like really fun, cool, dancy music that felt kind of clubby and not like the other like teeny bopper songs.

• 1:08:13Speaker 05

  And SOS, obviously that was her first big hit or first number one, but that one really did it for you as well.

• 1:08:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, it's just a great pop song. I was listening to it earlier and I haven't listened to it in a while, surprisingly, because it's so good. And obviously, there's so many great Rihanna songs. I feel like there's so much of hers, her discography to return to constantly. So that one kind of falls by the wayside in a way that I'm like, I need to rectify that because it's such a perfect pop song. It's an incredible beat. The chorus, like, I mean, it's just like, it was such a big, like, I, I think sort of the precursor to Umbrella where it's like her first big like, I am a pop star. I can make a big pop hit and it will be stuck in your head forever.

• 1:08:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, I, not to make everything about eras, right? But I always like Umbrella is the start of the second phase of Rihanna. And so I'm really interested in like the first phase, like the debuts, you know, before Rihanna becomes Rihanna, at least in my mind, these first couple albums. When she is a teenager and she's from Barbados and there's so much reggae happening, you know, like these two, those first two albums feel distinct for me from the rest of her catalog. Does that make sense?

• 1:09:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, you know, I think she was still finding her voice. Like, I think this was a time where every label and every, you know, every facet of the music industry was really pumping out pop princesses, you know, and I, I think there was, this was a great moment for the R and B pop princess. And it was kind of hard to see what could stick. I think everyone was sort of looking for that next Beyonce moment and looking for that artist that could really like be that incredible kind of like R and B hip hop, pop crossover type of star. And so there was a lot, you know, there's a lot of really great. Great artists at this moment, and I think everyone was really trying to find their their niche, really trying to find their audience, really trying to become the like, the one that really stands

• 1:10:06Speaker 06

  out and sticks out. So those first two albums are great Rihanna moments because they are like super poppy, but still kind of have that like dance hall, clubby music vibe to them. But it's still sort of, you know, those are a lot of those songs probably could have been done by anyone and kind of still like very, you know, like not in a bad way, but like just in the sense of like, this was a moment where they were really trying to like, figure out where she fit into this ecosystem of of the of the kind of pop time of, I mean, great singles, obviously, those singles are kind of what stands out. And like, helped to bring her a little bit further along than I think a lot of her peers at the time. But, but yeah, I mean, tho- those albums were

• 1:10:50Speaker 06

  still, it's funny to like, go back to them because Rihanna, after that moment is so like, unique and so like, completely opposite of everyone else at any given moment, or like, the person who's defining what's going to happen next. And at that moment, she's still kind of like, feels like almost a little timid in comparison to, you know,

• 1:11:11Speaker 05

  In comparison, yeah, absolutely.

• 1:11:15Speaker 06

  Not to other people, but timid in the Rihanna.

• 1:11:19Speaker 05

  Of course, yeah, timid relative to herself later. Absolutely. I agree with you completely. Like, I can imagine other pop stars like A Marie or somebody like singing, doing SOS, but not Umbrella, you know, and not anything after Umbrella. After that, like, it has to be Rihanna.

• 1:11:36Speaker 06

  Totally singular.

• 1:11:37Speaker 05

  What you mean. Yeah. What did you think when you first heard Umbrella? Did you recognize it immediately? Like, I think you're still in middle school at this point, like, as a turning point, like, she's really, now she's really Rihanna, you know, as we know and love her now.

• 1:11:52Speaker 06

  It's so funny because that video always still really, and I think it's with artists like of the of this time, it's like so much the video plus the song you kind of have to talk about because it's like, kind of one in the same. And I think that video like still kind of gives me chills because it does feel like this like, reintroduction, like this imperial phase of Rihanna is really kicking off because that video is so huge. She's like such a presence in it. It's like, I mean, just like her dancing under, like with the, like the umbrella choreography. Under like the sparklers and um, you know, her like paint, her body painted silver like it's just like such an incredible moment. And you know, I, I think that, you know, I, I don't, I don't think I had like the sort of

• 1:12:35Speaker 06

  the idea of like what this would mean in the long term for her, but it did feel like, oh yeah, like Rihanna is that is that girl like she is like the like one of the best pop stars like this name brand like she deserves that singular name and we are only going to to like be talking about her for probably the rest of the year. Um, and so, and for the rest of, you know, decades to come. But yeah.

• 1:13:00Speaker 05

  Time, yeah.

• 1:13:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, for the rest of time, we'll be thinking about Rihanna every day.

• 1:13:06Speaker 06

  For many years. So, yeah, it's, I mean, that song just got, it gives me chills. Like it's so perfect. It's so catchy. But that video I think was the real sort of like it felt so different than anything else she had put out at that point because it felt like expensive. It felt like even like

• 1:13:21Speaker 05

  It did. I know what you mean.

• 1:13:23Speaker 06

  It just felt like that real sort of like

• 1:13:25Speaker 05

  Sparks, you know?

• 1:13:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, the sparks and yeah, like the fashion in it, like everything. It just felt like a really like expensive pop star moment.

• 1:13:34Speaker 05

  I wanted to talk to you about the fashion piece of it because obviously she's an icon, you know, she's a billionaire, you know, is Fenty her company arguably more influential, more indicative of her greatness than any one song she's ever done?

• 1:13:49Speaker 06

  No, I mean, I think it, it can only exist. I mean, she's, you know, there have been a lot of pop stars prior to this moment in time where every pop star has a beauty brand and a fashion brand, but you know, like everyone's, every, everyone's tried for decades to kind of make those things happen. I mean, there are artists and movie stars and models who just completely pivot. And just completely make that their thing after a while.

• 1:14:17Speaker 06

  And you know, she has pivoted for the most part, but I don't think that any of for I mean, for better for worse, she's pivoted. You know, I don't think that anything about Fenty as a beauty brand or a fashion brand would work. If it weren't Rihanna, like, I don't think I think a lot of that authenticity of herself and like of her own sort of renegadeness in terms of style is the only thing that makes it work. But I think it's also like such a testament to her how much people beg for music. And because they love all of the music that she put out so much, even just like leaving it on anti like

• 1:14:57Speaker 06

  that album alone kind of being like this, like, like almost goodbye in a way to music. I mean, I hopefully she does make new music.

• 1:15:05Speaker 05

  Absolutely, it is.

• 1:15:06Speaker 06

  You know, it's those companies are billion billion dollar companies that she's put that she has and

• 1:15:13Speaker 06

  the fact that those are already such big names in fashion and in beauty, especially in beauty. And the fact that people are still begging for music, I'm, you know, we're Fenty every day, like, like I'm still begging for any Rihanna music. So yeah, it's, it's kind of surreal that that's still such a thing because it's been years now.

• 1:15:32Speaker 05

  Do you think that a new Rihanna album could ever live up to the Rihanna album in your head? Like, I want a new Rihanna album as much as anybody, but it is very funny to me that occasionally she's like, oh, I'm thinking of starting over, you know, and everybody freaks out, right? Like, I, it's, it's very funny to me how it feels like this is never gonna happen. That feels like the perfect end to the Rihanna discography is her just threatening us with new music, but never doing it. I think that would be, that would be the real boss move at this point, I think, is to just never put out another album.

• 1:16:04Speaker 06

  I, I don't know. I feel like it's always gonna be, people are gonna be disappointed by anything all the time. But also like, there's a part of me that like feels like with Rihanna, because she is so she's always kind of left field in a way, like, I mean, every single time that she sort of does one thing and her next album is something totally different, or she has a single that's like, you're like, how can it top this one? And then all of a sudden she like, you know, you're like, Okay, I guess she did like, you know, it's like, I guess like that's um, her best single of all time. Like, okay. And so, you know, I think she could end up having like another great album if she did want to return. I would hope that she would make more singles at least. I think that's like, kind of where I'm at.

• 1:16:44Speaker 06

  In the Rihanna wishlist is like, I'm like, I would love for her to do a few more great hits because she was such uh, you know, a, a leader in that, you know, in the 21st century canon of like, having a great string of of top 10 hits, even on literally the album that Umbrella's on, like Good Girl Gone Bad, there's like, what, like eight singles and they all were hits like? I mean, it's just really incredible. Um, so yeah, I think I would love for her to make some more singles, more than anything.

• 1:17:18Speaker 05

  This is such a ludicrously broad question, but like, how would you define, you know, her style? I just have no vernacular to even talk about this. But you know, what is, what is the style that Rihanna brought, you know, both to pop music and to fashion, you know, to beauty as a whole? How would you summarize, you know, what she's brought?

• 1:17:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think like something about her style and like outside of the red carpet style, which is its own thing, but I think like her street style is so important to it. And it's, I think she just was such like a trendsetter and like trying like weird experimental things like, um, you know, what was it like she like, I think she was the, one of the first people who did like the, the heels with like, with like athleisure, you know, like that was such a big thing, like her outfits felt, they, you know, were in the same way that like the Umbrella video felt expensive, like her outfits were expensive, they felt expensive because you could tell she was only wearing designer clothes. But there was an accessibility to how she styled herself and was styled in that, you know, you can almost like, and

• 1:18:19Speaker 06

  This is again off the red carpets, but like more so when you'd see pictures of her on the street or on the beach or at a club or going out. It felt like, oh, I can like, maybe like imitate and like have my Rihanna moment. At a club and like dress like her or I'm gonna, you know, get tattoos like her. It just felt like kind of cool girl, you know, like especially like 20 something, like cool girl going out was so her per vibe.

• 1:18:47Speaker 05

  I I've only seen her live once. It was around the Rated R tour, which is now forever ago. You've seen her way more recently. I think of the Diamond Ball.

• 1:18:54Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:18:55Speaker 05

  For starters, like, how would you describe the Rihanna live experience?

• 1:18:59Speaker 06

  I would say I've seen her twice. I saw her at, or actually three times. I saw her with her tour with Eminem, which was their their co-headlining stadium tour. Really fun, actually. It was a really good tour. Weird in retrospect that that existed, but it's so funny. I saw her at the VMAs the year that she got the her, the, what was it? The Video Vanguard Award? And she did like multiple performances throughout the night. That was really, really fun. And then, yeah, I saw her at the Diamond Ball, but she does, I think, still annually her like charity gala. And she did like a surprise performance with Pharrell with that song. What was it? Lemon?

• 1:19:43Speaker 05

  I really dig that song.

• 1:19:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, she did like a surprise performance, which was so fun. And it's like, there's a looseness now she performed. She's not like the most enthusiastic dancer. She seems to mostly kind of hate it.

• 1:19:57Speaker 06

  You know, she's not like a, she's, she's, I think she's a great singer. I don't, she's not like, you know, a belter. Though she's, though, towards the, towards anti, she started to really show off a lot more in the way that every pop artist kind of grows and matures their voice over decades of touring. But, you know, she That was never her thing.

• 1:20:16Speaker 05

  Love on the brain.

• 1:20:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, love on the brain, higher. Like, you know, I think it was her.

• 1:20:22Speaker 05

  Higher, I love higher.

• 1:20:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, like her skill was in her looseness, like just the way she carries herself, like even at the Super Bowl performance, there's just like this like real presence that she has, this real like, you know, really kind of all consuming type of like coolness that she embodies that's sort of like hard to pinpoint, hard to emulate, hard to like really find in anyone else, you know?

• 1:20:47Speaker 06

  And so it's just like, yeah, like watching like performance, I didn't go to the anti tour, but I remember seeing like videos of her just kind of like, just kind of like grinding on stage, like just kind of like moving her body and just kind of singing and feeling the song and like, it was like, yeah, like this is like exactly what you want. Like you want to feel like she's doing what you're doing in the audience too. But yeah, I mean, like the Eminem tour was fun when I did see like sort of like the, that was the only real like full on tour of hers that I had seen, um, or like full on concert of hers. But yeah, I mean, she was like just such, she's such a fun time. Like her songs are just like so big and fun and dancy. And so it's so much like a facilitation for the audience themselves to like really have the best time in the, in, in the crowd.

• 1:21:31Speaker 05

  You sort of mentioned she has so many hit songs that it's almost impossible to like remember them all at any one time. Like what are the Rihanna songs, performances, whatever, that, you know, don't get enough love? Like what makes your personal Rihanna top five at this point?

• 1:21:48Speaker 06

  Personal top five. I love Stay. I'm a really big Stay fan.

• 1:21:57Speaker 06

  I think that is a great ballad, a great karaoke song, which is often my like determination for a top five with any artist is if I enjoy doing a karaoke.

• 1:22:08Speaker 05

  That's an important vector, absolutely.

• 1:22:11Speaker 06

  Love that song. Um, you know, this one is one that does get a lot of.

• 1:22:17Speaker 06

  Attention, I guess, but like I think We Found Love is one of the greatest songs of the 2010s. Like, I think it is so important to that sort of like EDM revival moment that was happening, that sort of like Calvin Harris, Zed, Skrillex, kind of like, like moment where DJs were pop stars. Um, and Calvin Harris and Rihanna were such a great pairing on that. So I love We Found Love. And I, that song like makes me feel like I can like lift a car when I hear it. Um, so excited I get.

• 1:22:51Speaker 05

  I know what you mean.

• 1:22:52Speaker 06

  It's actually really hard. I love Unfaithful. That's a really, really good one.

• 1:22:57Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:23:00Speaker 05

  Earlier. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:03Speaker 06

  I really love Disturbia.

• 1:23:05Speaker 05

  Ooh, we don't talk enough about Disturbia.

• 1:23:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, Disturbia is a great one. Um, and Consideration from Anti, I think is such a great opening track. It's SZA, like, I mean, this was like, it's just a really, really great song. Yeah, it's kind of hard because I feel like my brain is like popping up so many like Rihanna songs right now, like when I'm trying to think of it.

• 1:23:26Speaker 05

  That's what she does, do you? Yeah.

• 1:23:29Speaker 06

  But she has.

• 1:23:29Speaker 05

  That's close enough.

• 1:23:30Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:23:34Speaker 05

  I think, I remember you noted on Twitter once that Rihanna, Kurt Cobain and Olivia Rodrigo have the same birthday. And I was, and I was wondering what you think the universe is trying to tell us in having orchestrated that for us.

• 1:23:49Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, they're Pisces. Um, and I like that Olivia calls herself a spicy, spicy Pisces was, um, her like, her, her description of it. And I feel like that's a good way of describing all three because I think that when people think of Pisces, they think only of them being emotional, um, and like, kind of like sad boy, sad girl vibes. But like Pisces are pretty, they kind of love the spotlight a lot.

• 1:24:19Speaker 06

  More than people give them credit. I feel like every Pisces I know is really good at at commanding a room. And they're really good at sort of like telling a great story or like really getting people kind of like engaged with them. There's like a mystery about them that people like really want to unlock. Um, and I think all three of them have that in their own ways. Obviously, you know, there are like massive differences in how they deliver that and like what their music, you know.

• 1:24:47Speaker 06

  But like, you know, there's like this like thing, there's like aura about all three of those people like that really kind of feels like, you know, captivating and feels like it's almost like leading a movement or something like, you know, it's like leading this whole thing. And so, and you know, I would say that Rihanna and Kurt and Olivia, like in each of their times of debuting, sort of just like created a new kind of youth culture for people and really spoke to people in this like important way. Um, and yeah, but I don't know, Pisces less sad. I mean, they're still like sad boy, sad girl vibes, but they do love

• 1:25:22Speaker 05

  Pretty sad.

• 1:25:22Speaker 06

  Stage more than people. And they, they, their sad, their sad boy, sad girl vibes come out in the music in a, in a big way. Cause Rihanna has some great, I mean, great breakup songs.

• 1:25:37Speaker 05

  Absolutely. When you do stay at karaoke, do you have to arrange, like find somebody to do the other part? Like this is, this is explicitly a duet. Like how important is that? Finding the right duet partner?

• 1:25:49Speaker 06

  I do love doing a duet, so it is more fun to do it with someone else, but I will do both parts if I need to. So.

• 1:25:57Speaker 05

  You've done both parts. Now that I'd really love to see. Do you like?

• 1:26:01Speaker 06

  But I do love to do a duet.

• 1:26:02Speaker 05

  Turn to one side and then the other. Yeah. Okay.

• 1:26:04Speaker 06

  Oh, I just keep going. I'm like, this is a solo song, actually.

• 1:26:10Speaker 06

  You're gonna, don't, don't ask for my, my Mickey Echo. I am both.

• 1:26:16Speaker 05

  Sure, sure.

• 1:26:17Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:26:18Speaker 05

  You're both. You contain multitudes. I mentioned Olivia Rodrigo, like SZA, like Rihanna's in a weird place right now because she's kind of a contemporary of pop stars. Like she's still a present tense, like she could put out an album, but she's also a massive influence, obviously, on everyone, even someone like Tyler. You know, when you hear, where, where do you hear her influence now in new music coming out now?

• 1:26:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it, I mean, I think everyone sort of aspires to having that level of kind of chart dominance generally, like just in the essence of it, like people want to have that kind of Rihanna level of like pop dominance. And so I think people kind of try to like, really think of making those albums that really kind of contain those types of singles on them. And then, you know, kind of have like the six to eight back to back hits on them. But I think in terms of her music, like, you know, I think her, her personality and like that looseness, that freeness of who she was and like,

• 1:27:22Speaker 06

  you know, the fact that she can so authentically move between like a really great, like hard rap song into like a super pop princessy type of moment to, um, you know, a big EDM song into like an R and B ballad. Um, and still made it all feel like Rihanna, I think everyone still is like, I think everyone's goal is to be able to like move so flexibly and freely between that. I think a great pop star is really trying to make their personality so strong in how they deliver it. And so in terms of like their presence and their style, but also like their actual musicality, that they can like achieve that type of,

• 1:28:01Speaker 06

  like looseness and, and flexibility and like nimbleness and, and delivery that Rihanna has. But yeah, I mean, it's like, I, I think that, you know, there's always going to be that, that sort of influence of that kind of like dance hall pop of her early years that will always be there. And I think Rihanna is going to be such a touchstone for, for any artist that's trying to achieve that.

• 1:28:24Speaker 06

  But yeah, I think it's really that kind of like presence and that kind of coolness and looseness and, and relatability that Rihanna has that people want more than anything.

• 1:28:33Speaker 05

  All right. Well, Brittany, this has been fantastic. I will sing Stay at Karaoke with you anytime.

• 1:28:38Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 1:28:39Speaker 05

  If you'll have me. But thank you so much for talking. This has been awesome.

• 1:28:41Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 1:28:48Speaker 05

  Thanks very much to our guest this week, Brittany Spanos. Thanks to our producers Jonathan Kerma and Justin Sayles. Thanks to Olivia Creary for additional production help. Thanks to Juliana Ress for fact checking. And thanks very much to you for listening. And now, please, let's all go listen to Umbrella by Rihanna. We'll see you next week.

• 1:29:10Speaker 04

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

• 1:29:25Speaker 06

  Sam's Club is the club for every holiday club. Guess who's joining the club this season? Walmart Plus. Yep, Sam's Club Plus membership now comes with Walmart Plus at no extra cost. Two memberships, one great price. Just 120 bucks a year can save you time and over $700. Want to get in on the membership duo of the century? Visit sam'sclub.com. Come join us. Sam's Club. Annual plan only. Auto renews. T and C apply. Estimate based on average combined Walmart Plus and Sam's Club Plus savings among members of both for one plus year versus non-member or club member pricing slash fees. Excludes membership fees. See Walmart Plus terms and Sam's Club terms for more info.