Music In Ya Ear!: Rihanna – “Only Girl (In The World)”

Tastefully posing nude in a field somewhere, Rihanna covers herself with a red rose dress for the single cover of “Only Girl (In the World).” Whoever the photographer is, he or she really did a great job and even managed to make Rihanna’s longer red hair look GOOD. Red is a favorite color of ours and it’s just as LOUD as can be.

On “Only Girl (In The World)”, the “Don’t Stop The Music’ to the 9th power” first single from Rihanna‘s forthcoming fifth album “Loud”, the Barbadian pop star opts to leave behind the dark and serious bent of her mostly drab previous album ‘Rated R’ for a return trip to the dance floor.

Twirling about in the strobe-light bedazzled of production unit Stargate‘s delirious trance/ house euphoria, “Girl” sees Rihanna ordering the latest object of her affection to “make me feel like I’m the only girl in the world/ Like I’m the only one that you’ll ever love”, the combination of her open-throat belt of these lines with the backing beat’s dramatically stabbing synth showcasing what can arguably be deemed her strongest pop diva moment yet.

But even in it’s surefire bid at keeping Rihanna’s name at or around the top of the single charts for the next couple of months, the track isn’t the most progressive move she could’ve taken, disappointingly positioning her as only the latest big-named American pop star (following in the lines of Usher, Akon, Christina Aguilera, Kelly Rowland, Kelis, and so many others) to turn to the generic Euro-cheese sound for an easy win.

Acceptable (for now)… I will have to listen to it a few times until it sticks, but if rocking the club crowd is going to be Loud‘s main focus (and not, sadly, the full-on reggae/dancehall – tinged pop detour we were hoping for in the light of “Rude Boy”‘s success), we’re going to expect the rest of the album to have Rihanna seeking some new, dynamic way to be the queen of the Ibiza scene.

The album is expected sometime in November.

Check out the song below…