This Week On Billboard: Rihanna f. Drake – What’s My Name?

This Week On Billboard is where I unabashedly critique the current no. 1 hit on Billboard.com, the major yardstick for what's "hot" in music today. In order to simplify the review for those who don't want to read the whole article, each song is given a "!" rating, in which the finest grabs five of them. It's been gone for a while, now it's back after a 22-month hiatus.

A review of this week's number one single right after Drake works out the square root of 69






2010 has been a kind year for Rihanna, at least commercially. She started the year with “Hard”, which peaked at no. 8 on Hot 100. On February, she had a five-week stint at the top with “Rudeboy”, tying her with Diana Ross and Paula Abdul with six number one hits. She then followed that up with two more singles—“Rockstar 101” and “Te Amo”—from last year’s album Rated R that created a decent-sized splash overseas. She then released “Only Girl (In The World)” that climbed as high as no. 3 in the charts, and still has a believable chance to reach no. 1. “Love The Way You Lie”, which also ascended to no. 1, is officially Eminem’s single, but it will forever be remembered either for her performance in the chorus or Eminem’s atrocious “window pane” line, so I’m counting that as a win for her. This week on Billboard, “What’s My Name?” is top-drawer in only its third week. This may be the best of her 2010 singles, even if it gets crowned that by being less boring song in this recent success run. It’s like winning the horrible NFC West and making the playoffs with a 9-7 record.

“Rude Boy” was pleasant enough, but it proved that the law of diminishing returns could also exist in music. “Love The Way You Lie” was bogged down by Eminem’s overratedness. “Only Girl (In The World)” had a massive chorus, but couldn’t keep it up for four minutes. I wouldn’t consider “What’s My Name?” the best Rihanna single of all time, but if not for a couple of careless decisions, it would’ve been a perfect track. Whenever she and producer Stargate hooks up, it usually yields excellent results. The electronic steel drums give the production an aura of serenity, a calming effect to juxtapose the crackling snares. “What’s My Name?” also demonstrates that Rihanna is most outstanding when (a) she’s being utilized like a synthetic instrument, like the “oh na na” or the “oh ooh oh oh oh” here, or the “ella-ella-ey-ey-ey” in “Umbrella”, or (b) when she’s singing a dancehall-inspired track, in which she can thicken up her Barbadian accent, also observed in “Pon De Replay” and “Rude Boy”. Rihanna is a singer with distinguishable limitations, but when her strengths are being accentuated, she’s almost impossible to stop.

But like I said, it’s almost perfect. Drake stinks as a rapper, and it’s a secret that people aren’t catching on to yet. It’s just that the lovely hooks in his songs are cloaking his defects, which is why everyone refuses or unable to acknowledge how awful he is. He comes from the school of using clever wordplay, where Lil’ Wayne is the dean of. However, while Weezy performs them in a facetious and playful manner, usually following it up with an irrepressible cackle, Drake says them seemingly with a straight face. So when Lil’ Wayne raps an idiotic line like “you’re like a bitch with no ass, you ain’t got shit” in “A Milli”, it’s almost forgivable because it’s sort of like you’re laughing with him, like you both know it’s stupid. When Drake raps couplets such as “The square root of 69 is 8 something/Cuz I’ve been tryna work it out” like he’s proud of it, it’s a bit agitating. Plus, his usage of the auto-tune just so he can sing-song his rap verses makes him sound abrasive everywhere. It seems like the album version of the song doesn’t include an irritating Drake verse, so if you need to add “What’s My Name?” to your iPod playlist, I would recommend that version.

And then there’s the bridge, which sounds like it was shoehorned in between the second and third chorus. I don’t know what possessed Ester Dean and Tracy Hale—the songwriters of “What’s My Name?”—to add it in the single. It could’ve been that they felt like they needed to add something because the song wasn’t long enough. Or, they are convinced that they have to adhere to a strict pop song structure rule of intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus (2x)-fade, as if a single isn’t complete if it doesn’t contain a section where the melody and chord progression is slightly altered. Whatever the reason is, the bridge simply sounds out of place. If it were me writing a song for Rihanna, I would’ve just written a third verse. Worst case scenario, I would’ve told Drake to butcher another rap verse to achieve a seamless transition.

As boring as the 2010 single streak turned out to be, at least Rihanna’s back to being the zestful beam of sunlight that habitually irradiate through speakers. I was fearful that ever since the “incident” happened, she’s going to be stuck singing depressing heartbreak ballads and dampening emo dance tracks that didn’t suit her. I’m delighted that while Chris Brown continues to pout and cry in tribute performances to capture the sympathy of the public he offended, Rihanna emerged from the assault case strong. Now she is back to her confident and indestructible self that we saw in “Umbrella”, which was the irrefutable peak of her career. Although “What’s My Name?”, even without its missteps, doesn’t measure up to “Umbrella”, it’s still a good sign that she’s heading towards a more favorable direction.

(t5!) score: !!!!