--- description: The singer is back with a strong point of view title: Rihanna’s ‘Anti’ Goes Against the Grain image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Rihanna’s _Anti_ Goes Against the Grain  by [Nolan Feeney](/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Feb 11, 2016 11:56 AM CUT  by [Nolan Feeney](/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Feb 11, 2016 11:56 AM CUT The great irony of Rihanna’s long-awaited album Anti, which arrived Jan. 27 after months of delays and false starts, is this: for most of her career, Rihanna albums really weren’t something people hungered for. They were hodgepodges of tracks from top hitmakers, and they arrived like clockwork: she released an unheard-of seven albums from 2005 to 2012\. Prolificacy paid off–she has as many No. 1 singles to her name as Michael Jackson–but left her unfulfilled. “A lot of my songs … don’t feel like me,” she told MTV last year. “I want to make songs that are timeless.” Anti doesn’t have many likely radio hits, but it does have, at last, a strong point of view: these hazy, left-field tunes indulge her personal tastes while exploring how lonely life at the top can be. Making “timeless” songs here means time traveling: on the stellar “Kiss It Better,” she pleads for intimacy over a guitar solo straight out of the ’80s; later she channels old-school soul on “Higher,” a whiskey-soaked come-hither with a stirring vocal performance. The lack of uptempo dance-pop may alienate some diehards, but by throwing out everything you think you know about a Rihanna album, she shows the rest of us why we’d want one in the first place. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4217069/rihannas-anti-goes-against-the-grain/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4217069/rihannas-anti-goes-against-the-grain/"},"headline":"Rihanna’s Anti Goes Against the Grain","datePublished":"2016-02-11T11:56:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T14:59:31.264Z","description":"The singer is back with a strong point of view","url":"https://time.com/4217069/rihannas-anti-goes-against-the-grain/","keywords":["Music","Rihanna"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nolan Feeney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4217069/rihannas-anti-goes-against-the-grain/","name":"Rihanna’s Anti Goes Against the Grain"}}]}] ```