Loud
has the misfortune of following
Good Girl Gone Bad
, one of the best pop albums of its decade, and
Rated R
, one of the most fascinating pop albums of the same time frame. That said, there's enough quality content to maintain
Rihanna
's visibility until her next truly eventful release. (This album, coming less than a year after
, did not have much buildup.) The predatory
StarGate
/
Sandy Vee
-produced dance-pop (
"S&M,"
"Only Girl [In the World]"
) is what works best here. Though neither one can touch
"Rude Boy,"
they do efficiently balance
's playful and sinister sides. One song that sounds nothing like anything else in
's past is
"Skin,"
a contender for anti-gravity slow jam of 2010 -- a match for
Trey Songz
's
"Red Lipstick"
and
Usher
"Mars vs Venus."
~ Andy Kellman