The blueprint for 21st-century pop domination.
ANTI
Rihanna
55
When Rihanna unleashed ANTI on the world, it quickly became clear that this wasn’t the Rihanna we’d come to know. Having left her long-time label and tossed her own hit-factory formula—which she had polished to perfection since her 2005 debut—out the window, she was free from expectation, free to cultivate her own mystique and free to rethink what a modern pop blockbuster could sound like.
“ANTI was the first time I took my time making an album. [It] for sure is my top favourite album I’ve ever made.”
Rihanna
The evolution starts with her bigger, bolder voice—from her whisky-coated wails on the late-night voicemail that is “Higher” to breathing smoke on her cover of Tame Impala’s “New Person, Same Old Mistakes”. She proudly celebrates her Caribbean heritage on “Work”; she presents women with yet another kiss-off anthem with “Needed Me” and flaunts her erotic side on “Sex With Me”. She also mines and updates genres by going full ’50s doo-wop on “Love on the Brain” and channelling Prince for the velvety ’80s power-pop ballad “Kiss It Better”. Yet it all feels thoroughly modern and thoroughly distinct—the blueprint for 21st-century pop domination.