Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 11/17/2011 at 5:44 PM Reviews

The Popdust Files: bonus tracks, rihanna, talk that talk, track-by-track reviews

Bonus Track #3: “Fool In Love”

Sounds Like: The first verse of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” (you know, “Mama, just killed a man…”–it quotes that line almost verbatim, so there’s no way it’s not on purpose), with synths panning left to right, which quickly grows acoustic guitars and a beat and turns into Britney Spears’ “Criminal,” then grows even bigger beats and an electric guitar solo, then a twinned electric guitar solo, then a fadeout. That was a really long sentence, but we needed all that length because of how much is going on here.

Pros: As you can see, this song is completely fucking ridiculous, and mostly in a good way. It’s both timely and ballsy to quote Queen that extensively, it’s smart to evoke “Criminal” that much when your song’s this much of an improvement, the pitter-skitter-slap drum loop’s less obvious than it needs to be, and it’s a Rihanna song with a guitar solo. Twinned guitars, even, which generally don’t end up in Cons.

Cons: This song is completely fucking ridiculous, and juuuust a little in an arbitrary, so-bad-it’s-good way. It’s also got the same problem as “Drunk on Love”–it doesn’t build from soft to loud so much as loud to LOUD. We’ve said it before, and we keep having to say it: dynamic variation is not a bad thing.

Single-Worthy: Even if it weren’t a bonus track, we’d say this one is almost certainly going to stay tucked away on the album. But then again, we’d have said the same of “Criminal.” It’s not totally implausible.

Hard-R Lyric: “He adores me, he’s my biggest man.” (We should also point out that Rihanna’s talking to her parents.)

POPDUST SAYS:
[starreview tpl=16]