ANTI at 10: Rihanna’s Riskiest Record Still Wins the Trade

ANTI is Rihanna’s eighth album, and it drops the hit-chasing formula that built her career. The 16-track, 51-minute version runs long, with no obvious single waiting to storm radio. Instead she stretches across moods, genres and tempos, betting that a mature, personal record beats another run of chart bait.

ANTI in Numbers

• Artist: Rihanna
• Album: ANTI (2016)
• Tracks: 16
• Length: 51 minutes
• Metacritic: 73/100

Consideration Through Work

Consideration opens the record with a firm, clear break from her old sound, short and sharp at 2:41. James Joint barely registers as more than a short pause before Kiss It Better lands, a slow-burn standout built on guitar and a high, thin vocal line. Work follows, the album’s biggest commercial swing, all loose flowing cadence and moody restraint. Desperado and Woo keep the tempo loose without matching the peaks around them.

Needed Me to Higher

Needed Me is blunt and cold, one of the record’s best vocal performances. Yeah, I Said It and Same Ol’ Mistakes drift by on atmosphere rather than hooks, the latter stretching to 6:37 without fully earning its length. Never Ending is a brief piano turn, more transition than song. Then Love on the Brain arrives, a ballad built on old soul chords that ranks among the strongest things Rihanna has ever recorded. Higher closes that stretch in just two minutes, raw and rough by design.

Close to You and the Finish

Close to You is spare and aching, another standout in a back half that trades hooks for feeling. Goodnight Gotham is a strange, brief piece. Pose and Sex With Me close things out on a lighter, looser note, closer to old Rihanna than anything else here.

It is not a smooth album.

The Case for ANTI

ANTI is uneven on purpose. It refuses easy singles, and that refusal costs it some momentum in the middle stretch, where Yeah, I Said It and Same Ol’ Mistakes lose energy. But when it connects — Kiss It Better, Work, Love on the Brain, Close to You, Consideration — it hits harder than anything safer could. Critics praised the record as a bold turn that traded radio-ready hits for a more personal sound, even as some found its shifting styles and lack of obvious singles uneven.

That’s the record. ANTI trades safety for risk, and mostly wins that trade. It is not even, but balance was never the goal.

2016 albums · album review · ANTI · R&B · Rihanna