ANTI

Rihanna - ANTI
Critic Score
Based on 38 reviews
2016 Ratings: #665 / 1004
Year End Rank: #19
User Score
2016 Rank: #170
Liked by 384 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
AllMusic

By the end of Anti, Rihanna may not arrive at any definitive conclusions about her art but she's allowed herself to be unguarded and anti-commercial, resulting in her most compelling record to date.

91
Entertainment Weekly

Anti proves Rihanna should play by her own rules more often.

83
A.V. Club

Anti’s tracks combine to create a picture of Rihanna at her most relatable and enthralling.

80
Exclaim!

ANTI is perhaps her most complete and confident record to date. Where she manages to take things from here anyone's guess.

80
The Independent

This is Rihanna at her most strikingly self-assured and it’s wondrous.

80
NOW Magazine

Not every song is as outstanding as the next, but at points, Anti is incredibly satisfying and sufficiently distinct from her other efforts – very much worth the wait and the bizarre roll out.

80
Mojo
It's confusing, with flaky endings and mood swings, and an utterly compelling mix of not caring at all and desperately caring.
80
Uncut
One of the most coherent and surprising big-ticket pop albums in years.
80
Clash

While Rihanna has put out great records throughout her career, the focus has always been on singles, and as such full-length listens can feel disjointed. ‘ANTI’ is one that you can vibe to from beginning to end.

80
Rolling Stone
After more than a decade as a superstar of the singles chart, Rihanna has become an album artist.
80
Tiny Mix Tapes

ANTI is folk music played in a video-drome circularly projecting a 360° image of sprawling, semi-wilderness on fire as a compassionate, loving apocalypse.

80
The Arts Desk
This is far from a "fuck you" to audiences: there's plenty here that fans should be very happy with, but at the same time it feels like a step forwards into fascinating new territory.
77
Pitchfork

ANTI is a rich and conflicted pop record, at its most interesting when it’s at its most idiosyncratic. It’s not crammed with bloodthirsty, dance-oriented jams and feels distinctly smaller, more inward-facing than her previous records, as if it were intended as a kind of spiritual stock-taking, a moment of reckoning for both Rihanna and her fans.

75
Consequence of Sound

Anti takes risks and disregards convention in a way that only a true superstar like Rihanna could pull off.

75
The Young Folks
She exuberates confidence as a singer, which she seemed to hide in her previous singles. It has a complete sound from front to back that’s beyond exceptional for what is expected from the singer out of Barbados.
75
Pretty Much Amazing
Like anything else Rihanna has ever done, it is a strangely compelling musical artifact in its own right. The finished product is just as bizarre as the journey to its release.
72
HipHopDX

The sound is nowhere nearly as innovative as it could have been. This is Rihanna, and we all know she knows how to push envelopes, but this barely made it to the post office.

70
The Sydney Morning Herald

A carefully sequenced album rather than a collection of hook-stuffed attempts at singles. For exactly that reason, it's a considerably more pleasant listening experience than, say, her 2011 album Loud.

70
The 405
After a three year album hiatus, Rih has rendered her most profoundly authentic and effortless act of rebellion yet – she’s making the music she wants to make without a singular fuck.
70
Billboard
Indeed, the end product reveals that no matter how blessed we think Rihanna is, there's something darker lurking beneath. As the album art denotes: heavy lies the crown.
70
FLOOD Magazine

There’s a mission for musical cred here on her highly anticipated eighth album Anti.

70
SPIN

ANTI is Rihanna’s first aesthetically personal album, and throughout its disorderly roaming, it remains revelatory in a strict sense; it’s a musical step sideways but an artistic step up.

70
The Line of Best Fit

Rihanna is still shedding some of her “Don’t Stop the Music” skin, which makes Anti a fascinating, if a bit rocky, portrait of a supreme pop talent on the possible precipice of a bold career turn.

70
Sputnikmusic

After 7 painful years of servicing commercial interests, Rihanna sounds like a brand new person; nuanced, dynamic, and focused, Anti is Rihanna stripping herself of commercial obligations, finally taking flight.

70
Crack Magazine

Despite its missteps, ANTI never sounds fake. It’s driven by undertones and nuance – rather than undergoing a full reinvention, Rihanna has placed herself at a vantage point where she can flirt with a number of styles and sounds, reminding us that she never promised to be anything at all.

60
Evening Standard
It’s mostly daring stuff, but that makes the retro soul of the closing ballads, which feature her best singing, feel like an afterthought.
60
Q Magazine
It's an intriguing scrapbook of ideas and frequently enjoyable, but could use a banger or tow.
60
The Telegraph

It is Rihanna without hits ... It is more an exercise in rebranding, transforming the hit girl into a serious artist.

60
The Guardian

Sometimes you get the frustrating sense that strong ideas are being deliberately short-circuited in the pursuit of a slightly self-conscious weirdness.

60
Time Out London

‘Anti’ features no crowd-pleasing dance-pop hits like ‘We Found Love’, preferring a murky blend of electronica, R&B and acoustic pop that clings rigidly to midtempo.

60
NME
It’s not quite the revelatory departure we might have hoped for, and has the rich but unfocused feel of something worked on perhaps too long with obsessive fervour, but it’s also subtle and interesting; an intriguing soundtrack to an era of change.
50
Slant Magazine
The ultimate impression the album leaves isn't just that of an artist who failed to follow through on her vision, but who never bothered to conceive one in the first place.
50
Drowned in Sound
The pivot works, it’s just in need of some fine-tuning. In the meantime, you’re now very much aware that the ‘old Rihanna’ is no more. Shame, I miss her already.
40
God Is in the TV

As a whole, Anti is a frustrating listen. It feels scrappy and unfinished – underwritten, under-produced and under-performed.

40
The Needle Drop

Pop and R&B singing sensation Rihanna returns with ANTI.

40
The Observer

This collection of 13 songs ... draws back from the haunted rococo conceptualising of the teasers and offers up a product curiously divorced from its marketing; a star apparently chucking a wooden clog into the song machine.

40
PopMatters

Sadly, with Anti the intent and promise is more admirable than the end result. There’s a certain dreary joylessness to it that saps any energy the songs might possess.

40
The Irish Times
What the world wants from Rihanna, essentially smash hits delivered with a knowing middle finger, has been replaced here by a record that is both strangely coy and worryingly half-hearted.
exception
74

easily the best rihanna has given us yet. there was some really dark and heavy production on this LP that was matched very well with rihanna's voice. some songs were really well done, went hard and are well rounded. but after track 9 this album lags a bit. the tracks get to be slower and more upbeat, very different compared to the first half. none of them are too bad, but they dont match the pretty articulate first half. not amazing, but a solid listen that gives rihanna a more refreshing ... read more

Milosummers
81

I think it’s really cohesive sonically but lacks standout tracks to me other than ‘Work’ of course. I remember not really caring for it before but re-listening this morning, it’s grown on me a lot.

Case
85

Haven't heard this in full in a few years but this is still great. I neeeeeed new music though lmao

charlottebrig
80

Rihanna's only truly great album.

landon_reviews
75

With some of Rihanna’s best songs and production to date (and even a Tame Impala cover), ANTI is truly a crazy listening experience.

_Lumael
100

01. Consideration 10/10
02. James Joint 7/10
03. Kiss It Better 10/10
04. Work 10/10
05. Desperado 10/10
06. Woo 8/10
07. Needed Me 10/10
08. Yeah, I Said It 10/10
09. Same Ol' Mistakes 10/10
10. Never Ending 7/10
11. Love On The Brain 10/10
12. Higher 10/10
13. Close To You 10/10
14. Goodnight Gotham10/10
15. Pose 10/10
16. Sex With Me 10/10

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Track List

1Consideration
2:41
feat. SZA
88
2James Joint
1:12
75
3Kiss It Better
4:13
90
4Work
3:39
feat. Drake
73
5Desperado
3:06
84
6Woo
3:55
77
7Needed Me
3:11
86
8Yeah, I Said It
2:12
76
9Same Ol’ Mistakes
6:37
87
10Never Ending
3:22
77
11Love on the Brain
3:43
92
12Higher
2:00
85
13Close to You
3:57
82
Total Length: 43 minutes
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Added on: November 26, 2015