The cover of Rihanna’s new “Rated R” album features a severe black-and-white head shot with Ri’s hand clapped over her right eye, the left ringed by a black eye of liner. It’s impossible to look at the image without recalling the photos of the former teen-popper’s bruised face in the aftermath of her beating in February by ex-boyfriend Chris Brown. And Rihanna doesn’t want you to. The Barbadian beauty’s singing has never been in doubt. The question has always been personality: Is there a flesh-and-blood woman lurking beneath the big voice and model looks? On “Hole In My Head” - the Nokia Comes With Music version’s bonus track - Rihanna answers the question with emphatic goth-R&B and a grim theme: love gone horribly wrong.
by Mark Emge
