Rihanna - Loud

Thanks to Rihanna’s new offering, I now know what a substance-less album sounds like. Titled ‘Loud’, THAT is all the album has going for it – volume. Listen to it at the right decibel and the noise will distract you from the lack of substance, meaning, and any real reason for existence other than as a filler for a dj’s set list. You know, that section where they need anything inane and brainless, but with a good enough beat, to keep the half-drunken twenty-somethings jiving non-rhythmically until closing time.

Where do I start with this mess? While the beats can be generously considered catchy and appealing, after five albums Rihanna’s singing, which at one time could have been considered fresh and exotic, now grates the tortured eardrums like the pained yelps of a cat under a fat man. Such quasi-singing would be excusable if the lyrics were anything but anodyne, unsophisticated and superficial. I wonder what the thinking process was to get to rhyming ‘realise’ with ‘eyes’. Or to declare, like so many who have come before Rihanna, that her money is on her mind. Good songs should read like poetry – with its nuances, subtlety, hidden messages and layered meanings. ‘Why are you standing there with your clothes on?/ Go on baby strip down and take them off’ leaves nothing to the imagination and seriously undermines the intelligence of semi-literate music listeners. (Admittedly, such basic lyrics do cater to a certain type of unrefined audience.) The only good lyrics in the entire album were Eminem’s, in a cameo appearance of Part II of ‘Love the Way You Lie’. Of course, he wrote that part.

On top of that, the actual contents of the songs do nothing more than shamelessly perpetuate the much love-to-hate misconception of hip hop and rnb as little more than hedonistic, overly-sexualised music. There’s nothing wrong with singing about sex and depravity; hey, they’re what make the world go round. But at least put some effort and creative energy into it, instead of resorting to the lowest common denominator with a song titled ‘S&M’ and lyrics like ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me.’

That said, the album could be interpreted as some kind of emancipation. Two records ago, with ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’, and the skilled and seasoned producing hand of Jay Z, this was appropriate, innovative and executed with sass and style. Now, two albums and a whole lot of courted controversy later, the concept is dated and laughable. What else does she need emancipating from? The result, then, is something that sounds like Rihanna has simply taken the woes of her disastrous personal life out on this album, which is a mess, much like her divisive public profile.

Big words, and punchy sartorial jibes aside, this album simply sucks! After two bad records, whatever appeal or talent Rihanna once had is now officially gone; replaced by the superficial facade of fiery-haired, sultry vixen. But keep in mind that, much like her music, that red weave is also fake. [Image from http://www.muumuse.com/]

Through Young Eyes - Jacquelyn Ngo

 ‘Through Young Eyes’ is an exhibition of over 30 paintings now showing at the Casula Powerhouse Museum. Their painter is Jacquelyn Ngo, a six-year-old Australian-Vietnamese girl who goes to school in Cabramatta West.

Once you get over the initial shock of Jacquelyn’s age, and that intimidating feeling of deep inadequacy makes its way back into the dark crevices of your mind, you can then begin to immerse yourself in the energy and vibrancy of these magnificent canvases. Hung in succession along the two walls of a narrow hallway on the old Powerhouse’s second floor, the van Gogh-esque works reveal the unhindered imaginative world of a carefree and vivacious child who, beyond painting what she sees, paints the way in which she sees her surroundings. By the end of my journey down the short corridor I was almost in tears by the honesty and unabashed sincerity of the paintings. The innocence, pure creativity and lack of agenda of this body of work is not only refreshing, but also allows one to experience the genuine joy of looking and being immersed in Jacquelyn’s enchanting world.

Her subjects are the everyday people and places which inhabit her life; friends, school, her apartment block, the beach, her family, herself. Yet they are bathed in a delightful pallet of intense colour and bold brushstrokes; never in any ‘realistically-painted’ setting, but rather in an imagined swirl of colours, and light, and koalas sitting on a Christmas-trees-filled beach. In a nostalgically familiar self-portrait, Jacquelyn lies daydreaming on a grassy hill, against a sky of pink and purple hues, while her Maths homework lies, neglected, by her side.

But more than being an indulgent and overblown colouring book, Jacquelyn’s body of work also express how the young artist is proud of her hybrid heritage. Many of the paintings reveal a beautifully innocent and organic fusion of Vietnamese and Australian culture. In ‘Flowering’, Jacquelyn and her mother are wearing the traditional Vietnamese ao dai as they stand in a garden which contains an Australian flag on a pole, the iconic Australian sun, and a koala in a tree.

This exhibition is heart-warming and promising in so many ways, and the Casula Powerhouse must be commended for giving such credibility and regard to the work of a young artist from the area. Jacquelyn’s paintings are not solely the product of a young girl with skills and perceptions exceeding her years. Beyond that, they represent the wealth of unfounded talent that exists in all sections of society, and which can be discovered when the surfaces of the unlikeliest of places are scratched. [Images from http://www.smh.com.au/]