Yes, Rihanna. Well done. You can reassert your comeback by flouncing about in sexy outfits, striking sexy poses and doing things with a barbed wire that while appearing dangerous, also exude utter sexiness. It's all very "risqué"; it's all very "adult situations"; it's all very Sarah Michelle Gellar making out with Selma Blair in Cruel Intentions. But perhaps Rihanna's trying too hard? I mean this whole Rated R business just seems so...put-on. If Kanye West were here, he'd probably do a whole song-and-dance that, sure you might have an above-average urban pop record, but Amerie had the best urban pop record of all time1. She didn't have the luxury of national spectacle to draw material from either. Let's take a look at where the album meant to chronicle your rise from Busted-Up Doll to Pop Princess exactly misfires.

1 By which, he naturally meant "2009" but those vision-shredding shutter shades could confuse anybody.

Rated R distills Rihanna into two Rihannas. Moody Rihanna and Angry Rihanna. Moody Rihanna > Angry Rihanna. That's all it boils down to.

First, there's the slow-burning comeback single, "Russian Roulette." It's a song about the dangers of love and loving danger. It's about gun control. It's about Chris Brown. Obviously. Then at the end, she sings, "Pull the trigger," and there's a gunshot! Oh no! Ri-haaanaa, no! But then she pipes back up for the next tune. Phew! This establishes Moody Rihanna.

Angry Rihanna is well exemplified by "Hard." Which, is supposed to be a statement about her developing a thick coat and wising up to the ways of the world and to the nimrods who do nimroddish things. It's the type of tune (as seems to be the case with many of Angry Rihanna's outbursts) you secretly wish would've been left off the record, if only to make Rated R that much more succinct. But points to "Hard" for having a bridge whose bass seems inspired by "The Final Countdown."

We become more and more acquainted with Angry Rihanna. Upon which point we realize that she doesn't gel too well the far superior Moody Rihanna. In "Rockstar 101" she's so angry that she drops at least one f-bomb, to prove what a bad-ass rockstar she is. Zzzz. Other tracks that makes us doubt Angry Rihanna's vitriol: "Rude Boy" and "Mad House."

But Moody Rihanna is the pop star at her finest. In fact an album overflowing with Moody Rihanna's chirps would be an excellent album. One of the album's sparkliest moments comes with "Cold Case Love," which, with its slow build-up and sudden bang-crash of percussion, could've made for a better first single. Then again, nothing says Rated R like an edgy polemic about firearms. More excellent moments come with "Photographs" (despite will.i.am's bold attempt to pee all over it with vocodered hip-hop bits) and the totally misleading-sounding "Fire Bomb." There's also "Stupid In Love," which is the other side of the obviously "Chris Brown-inspired ballad" coin, of which "Roulette" was heads.

Even though the two halves of Rated R fail to mesh, it's still a strong release for the performer. Future notes for RiRi: Lay off the vocoder. Regardless, Rated R only builds on the pop star's past records. It even reinforces the idea of pop music as something that can be both commercial and emotional. Rihanna's basically encroaching Röyksoppian territory here.