With a collection of videos on Youtube breaking records, we look back and pick Rihanna’s 5 artistic best.
5. “Rehab” (Good Girl Gone Bad), 2007
Director: Anthony Mandler
Rihanna was well into her 7th single on Good Girl Gone Bad. At this point, she was a worldwide superstar. Blogs were running rampant with photos of her latest fashion stylings and her image as a femme fatale was set. The video is simple but takes all these elements to declare that Rihanna was sultry, and not just sultry – sultry with Justin Timberlake. A dark and tormented song with a sunny California back-drop – this video would set the tone for much of her future visual work.
4. “Stay” (Unapologetic), 2012
Director: Sophie Muller
Soft and graceful are the first two things that come to mind when describing this piece. There isn’t much of a storyline in the video. It’s just the singer soaking in a bathtub, but it works. It captures the melancholy and longing of the record. “Stay” is unlike any of the songs in Rihanna’s singles catalog, and so is the video. Considering the whirlwind the singer has experienced in 7 years, the video captures Rihanna in the most compromising position of all: being still.
3. “Man Down” (Loud), 2010
Director: Anthony Mandler
This was a stand out track on Loud. It was a straight-up story in a song with a clear visual narrative, ie. “I just shot a man in Central Station.” Shot in Jamaica, the reggae-tinged record, got a deserving visual. The storyline was great, yes. Though, it’s the shots of Rihanna walking around the Jamaican streets drinking out of coconuts with long-red-silky hair that bring together the edgy Rihanna of today with the sunny Rihanna we first met. That’s cool.
2. “Disturbia” (Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded), 2008
Director: Anthony Mandler
“Disturbia,” at first listen, is a glam-pop record and nothing else. The video full of cages, chains, and convulsing dancers turned into a lot more. This work with Anthony Mandler allowed Rihanna to play around with dark and occult themes. By the time the Rated R era came about it wasn’t all that left-field.
1. “We Found Love” (Talk That Talk), 2011
Director: Melina Matsoukas
Yes, it was a big deal – the car scene. That particular sequence created conversations on social media outlets on whether she was exploiting the infamous February night in 2009. This might have been the artist’s way of saying she was past it and in an act of defiance, or bravery (or both), hired a Chris Brown doppelgänger. The video depicts a turbulent relationship on its demise using a quick shot-to-shot method. With its over-the-top bathtub scenes, drug use, and fight scenes this video is what it looks like when passion and excess meet. If anything, from what we can see, that’s what describes Rihanna perfectly.
