13 October 2011
The unlikely roll call of women who’ve achieved notoriety by running carefree in a field of crops includes Theresa May and, while shooting the video for ‘We Found Love’, Rihanna. The latter incident was in a field in Co. Down, as you’ll recall, and involved a no-nonsense Ulster farmer (who was also, almost predictably, a DUP local councillor) asking a globally famous pop star if she wouldn’t mind putting her top back on. Go on, Ireland!
Saucy controversy aside, ‘We Found Love’ conforms to a pattern we’ve already seen with Lady Gaga: the bigger the fuss, the smaller the track. Older generations overhearing this probably all exclaimed “but it’s just the same thing repeated over and over!” in time-honoured fashion, and for once they had a point: a dramatic and memorable hook it may be, which Rihanna delivers with top-drawer gusto, but otherwise this thing is pitifully slight. Its repeated trips to the EDM build-and-drop only exacerbate my weariness. This was the sound of 2011, though, to which my response is in the spirit of a DUP-aligned Co. Down farmer asking those involved to stop or get off my land.
