But like many a pop star before her, she has mostly obscured her accent in her songs, ending up with a singing voice that emanates from someplace strange in its universality-a world of nearly Midwestern flat A’s and vocal-fry I’s and Eliza Doolittle dropped R’s. It is infinitely adaptable Robyn Fenty herself is from Barbados, and in some interviews and behind-the-scenes videos, her Bajan accent flavors her conversation.
But the second Lindemann opens her mouth on “Pretty Girl” it becomes pretty clear who her larger inspiration is-she is singing in Rihanna’s voice, or maybe more accurately, Rihanna Voice. ” As influences, she has cited people like Lana Del Rey and BANKS, and her lone-wolf image feels filtered through Lorde. Last year, an 18-year-old Texan named Maggie Lindemann broke through with a vogueishly dark hit called “ Pretty Girl. Once you do, it will be difficult to hear Bieber’s puppyish original as anything other than a glorified reference track that never found its proper home. Or imagine Justin Bieber’s “ Sorry ” sung by Rihanna, with the breathy verses and the reedy, pleading chorus. Pick any major contemporary dance-pop song in the ether, the sort that loudly greets you when you push open the big glass doors of a boutique clothing store-“ Lean On ,” by Major Lazer, for example, with its needling and vaguely militant chorus chant by the Danish singer-songwriter MØ-and then close your eyes and imagine it sung by Rihanna Diplo, who wrote the song, sure did.
Once you realize that Rihanna is the most influential vocal stylist of pop’s last decade, it becomes almost impossible to escape her. My ears perked up most recently at the beginning of Lorde’s “ Green Light ”: Between the the lightly taunting way Lorde clips the word “bite” and the growling dip to “I hear sounds in my mind,” Rihanna’s ambient influence creeps in, like blunt smoke curling under a closed door.
RIHANNA SLEDGEHAMMER WHO IS SINGING FREE
Even-toned, husky but nasal, tinged with island breezes but essentially free of regional markers-that describes a whole lot of pop songs now, by a whole lot of people. It is indisputably the aspect of her art that gets the least critical attention.Īnd yet listen to radio, when Rihanna isn’t on it-which, granted, isn’t too often-and you will hear molecules of her vocal style swarming around everywhere. She “ doesn’t have the range ,” as the deathless meme had it. When people write about Robyn Rihanna Fenty’s singing, they often use words like “ flat ” or “ thin ” or “ limitations ”-something that suggests her voice is the secret defect hiding in her otherwise-brilliant plumage, the limp disguised by the swagger.
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