RipFork

Artist: Rihanna

Album: Rated R

Reviewer: Embling

Tiny Mix Tapes, 2009

Writing Disorders: Idea Fever, Jargon Palsy, Scorn Disease








Dollar Words: cloying, oeuvre, orthodoxy, affectation, ubiquity, overwrought, incongruence, authorial, Sapphic, relegated, mimicry

Music Jargon: “soft-rock template,” “subculture poses,” “correspondent musical shift,” “toothless filler,” “satisfyingly old-school,” “context-less product,” “dubstep inflection”

Most Emo Phrase: “better than it has any right to be”

Hello, Embling. Nice fake name. I’m a little bummed I can’t emboss your real one on the blue ribbon I have for you. You see, the results are in. Out of a pool of hundreds of contestants, you have written the most awful music review I’ve ever read. And I’ve read a lot of music reviews, Embling. I have a lot to cover, so strap yourself in.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

“On 2007’s Good Girl Gone Bad, Rihanna proved able and willing to shirk her genre’s cloying over-reliance on sentimentality and vocal histrionics. Rated R, however, confirms that Good Girl Gone Bad was something of a lean, cohesive anomaly within the Barbados diva’s scattershot oeuvre. Recorded in the wake of the most famous domestic violence case of recent memory, Rated R practically shouts its subtext over surprisingly conventional R&B music, making it especially tempting to interpret the increased reliance on conventionality as a response to her trauma, a return to the safe arms of pop orthodoxy.”

Oh my god, where do I even begin with this gold nugget of an intro? Now I’m starting to understand why you don’t use your real name on your reviews. Dude, you’re writing about a pop star, not a 17^th-century pianist renowned on the mainland for his baroque finery.

Read some of these words you typed:

“cloying overreliance”

“pop orthodoxy”

“Scattershot oeuvre”

Do you have it out for readers who don’t hold a masters degree in BS? I count myself fairly educated and I don’t know what the hell “oeuvre” is. Hold on a second, let me look it up.

<flip><flip><flip>

Oh, here it is. I suppose it would have killed you to write “life’s work.”

I could fling about 80 other examples of how nauseating your writing is, but instead I’ll focus on how you’re mostly an asshole. After finally making it through this “review,” I couldn’t fathom how you have the gall to write such baffling, self-important rubbish about someone else’s art – an album recorded in your words, as “a response to her (Rihanna’s) trauma” of domestic abuse. Read some of this:

“she marries overwrought lines”

“a relatively unadventurous collection of songs”

“Rihanna has failed”

“Rihanna has released a flawed album”

Well, Embling, if you get punched repeatedly in the face by an angry man and have to live down the indignity of people saying you deserved it – not to mention the man getting away with just a televised apology and five years probation – I’m sure you’ll pack your chart-topping album with 5-star hits that blow Rihanna’s out of the water.

Oh, but art isn’t your domain. Yours is writing bloated prose under a pseudonym about how you think someone else’s personal testimony should have been more adventurous. Apparently you think that’s worthwhile enough. Bring on the self-importance!

“Earworms care little about incongruence, which is a matter left for the critics and theorists to scrutinize”

Oh yes, when music history is written about Rihanna, I’m sure the writers are going to pore over your review for inspiration. After all, Tiny Mix Tapes has that respectable rank of 91,832^nd on Alexa.

Embling, whatever the hell your real name is, you deserve to be made fun of. You’re screaming out to be made fun of. And in the end, it’s best that you’re made fun of because hopefully it will stop you from writing about music like it’s a slime mold. Maybe people jeering at your awful writing will cause you to pick up a guitar, barbell, book, oar, binoculars – anything other than a keyboard. You need a new hobby.

Oh, remember when I said I could mention 80 examples of how nauseating your writing is? I was telling a fib there, but take 8 as a consolation.

“the author here is — at most — secondary to the material”

“the flagrant and audacious Phil Collins mimicry of “Cold Case Love.”

“the disconnection between thematic content and form brings Barthes to mind”

“her new affectation was all but inevitable”

“one of the only songs seemingly pre-destined for ubiquity”

“both also hide their artists’ most triumphant and distinctive songs within decent, but toothless filler”

“satisfyingly old-school, a kiss off set to fingersnaps and a simple piano melody”

“its lyrics are too inarticulate to satisfy on any level”

This won’t be the first time you’re featured on this site, Embling.