4 November 2010
I remember the spectacular skyscraping chorus of ‘Only Girl (In The World)’ but not much else of it. That’s me having listened to it just now, by the way, not casting my mind back to 2010. Scrunching up my face and listening another time really, really hard, the verses here could be any generic dance track with any anonymous singer. They’re just here as a formality, to usher us to the chorus.
And yes, what a chorus! Rihanna going full battleship here is an awesome sound and the sort of grandstand moment her voice and her star quality deserve. It’s just a pity that this blockbuster chorus is used for the EDM build and then also for the drop, rather than save it for one almighty explosion of pop energy. But then, Team RiRi also put those pointless parentheses into the title, so strange choices abound. Also, by now the ’00s days of Cheiron and Xenomania stuffing a pop single with a smörgåsbord of sumptuous hooks and alt-choruses are gone. It’s the post-economic-crash ’10s, baby! We gotta make do with one chorus, one hook! Sweat that asset! Thin out the soup!
