Album review: Rihanna - Good girl gone bad

Forehead Fenty (aka Rihanna) is the girl we love to hate and hate to love. It's difficult to take an artist seriously when they've released 3 albums in 3 years and show little originality. But despite this, along with her having the singing voice of a Kangaroo in labour and a forehead like a Klingon on the Star Trek Enterprise, we all have a thing for Rihanna. So let's not front like we aren't interested in her third studio album release. It did spawn that mammoth hit known as "Umbrella" after all. You may have heard of it.

Where Music of the sun came off as a gimmicky attempt at a Pop 'n Reggae hybrid album and A girl like me was a direction-less mess, Good girl gone bad has a much more focused sound. The album is evenly divided up as 50% club records and 50% strummy R&B numbers. The club numbers for the most part are all highlights. "Breakin' dishes" takes the pop enthused style of "Umbrella" and steps it up a few notches. Def Jam messed up by not releasing this song as a single. The dance and techno infused "Don't stop the music" (which samples Michael Jackson's "Wanna be startin' somethin'") sounds like a track straight off of a Daft Punk record. It cuts across so many different genres and is all the more brilliant for it. It's a shame Def Jam didn't do more to push it as a single. The Timbaland produced "Sell me candy" and "Let me get that" have Rihanna tapping into her Caribbean roots. Both of them have her adopting a ragga swagger which really suits her and will go down well with those who liked the flavour of Music of the sun.

The strummy R&B numbers are equally winners, but the problem is that they all sound like songs you've heard before. "Hate that I love you" and "Good girl gone bad" sound like "Sexy love" and "Irreplaceable" respectively. Whilst "Rehab" sounds like a cross between Justin Timberlake's "What goes around...comes around" and Bubba Sparxxx's "Deliverance". These songs are decent, but far from original in terms of musical and lyrical content.

Good girl gone bad is decent on the whole, but it does yield a couple of low points. First is "Shut up and drive" and that's exactly what Rihanna can go do with this song: Shut up and drive away with this mess. The song is absolute garbage. There is nothing good about it at and I fail to understand why it was released as a second single when it does Rihanna no favours and is not a good representation of the album. The second stumble is "Question existing". The song doesn't go anywhere. Lyrically it's a mess and the beat is boring and woozy. It should have been left off of the album in favour of a remix of "Pon di replay". Because, why not.

What makes Good girl gone bad work is that Rihanna seems much more comfortable on each track than she did on anything from her previous albums. She really lets go and projects this new found confidence which works wonders. The production is also pretty stellar across the board. It's amazing what a direction-less artist with no sound of their own can be made to sound like when they're placed in the company of the right producers who know exactly what will work.

This is Rihanna's finest album. Not much a feat considering how rubbish her last two albums were, but her finest none the less. Some will still argue Rihanna is a talentless bitch and that this album is a case of being placed in the hands of the right producers at the right time. But either way, Good girl gone bad is a solid record which will guarantee Rihanna worldwide success and the inevitable fourth album.

RATING: 6 / 10

Album highlights:
■ Umbrella
■ Breakin' dishes
■ Don't stop the music ★ J's fave
■ Hate that I love you
■ Sell me candy
■ Lemme get that
■ Rehab