We Found Love - Rihanna

I am very impressed by the new music video for Rihanna's latest song 'We Found Love'. Rihanna is a extremely successful artist, who has become a worldwide star and one of the biggest female artists of the last ten years. Her music videos are usually very successful, propelling the song to even greater heights, such as the 'Umbrella' video which made the song a phenomenon and one of the songs of the decade. However, her videos never contain much of a message or an interesting narrative, instead focussing on her the performance of the song itself (Umbrella, Rude Boy) or using an obvious narrative that is linked to the song lyrics (Unfaithful, Hate That I Love You). However, I feel this has changed recently, with the release of firstly the 'Man Down' video and secondly the 'We Found Love' video. Both have not been without controversy, with some critics saying that Rihanna is glorifying domestic abuse, violence and drug taking. I disagree with this though, I feel that both video's are shining the light on a difficult, dark subject matter and forming it as 'art', which is showcasing how important and insightful the format of a music video is.

'We Found Love' is a captivating and cinematic video. Straight away, the narration of Agyness Deyn draws you in with her rough, northern accent, something you wouldn't expect from a R'n'B superstar. The quote used at the start is a wonderful way to start the video, building up the narrative and fascinating the audience with the polemics of good and evil in a relationship. The video then goes on, with the editing picking up speed as the song does, showcasing some beautiful cinematic imagery, filmed in Northern Ireland. The song has a very intruiging narrative, showing how love can be like a drug, with their being many dangers to it along with the good feeling that it gives. As familiar in all Rihanna video's, the essence of voyerism is still there, with the singer flaunting her beautiful looks in revealing and iconic outfits. However, at no time did I feel this was a sexually driven video, which Rihanna has perviously done in the past (S&M), and I was just overly impressed by the variety of shots, range of editing and the engaging narrative which shows many different ideas and representations. I am very impressed by the video, mainly because it isn't just a normal conventional pop video to visualise a 'electro-pop' song, instead Rihanna, and the creative team behind it, produce a video with a message and real backbone. I have to agree with Rihanna, that this is her best and deepest video to date.