Analogy time!…

[Website]
[6.60]

Dave Moore: The porno fake-guitar squeal intro suggests some 90’s meta-pulp flick centering on a softcore threesome (where is that Wild Things VHS?) but no, Rihanna is grim, grim, grim. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love for her to write the song about how being in an abusive relationship is like toying with death every day, but this song is way too literally about an actual game of Russian Roulette, with such groan-inducers as “you can see my heart beating through my chest” (no we can’t!) and “I know that I must pass this test” (no you mustn’t!) and and “it’s too late to think of the value of my life” (no it’s not!) and, and, and. I don’t necessarily expect playfulness from someone as resolutely humorless as Rihanna, but does she really not understand that there is no possible way for this not to read as a little campy? What hath Heath Ledger wrought?
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Out of the mouths of babes; after this song’s first play on my local radio station, the DJ asked a caller what they thought and they said: “It sounds like Roxette.” If only, though it is as deathly humourless. Anything Chris Brown does is going to be seen as odious in light of him being an abusive bastard, but we shouldn’t cut Rihanna and her writers slack for a dense fog of a production hiding nothing compelling whatsoever.
[5]

Chuck Eddy: The production is a stained-glass goth window, almost in the Mylene Farmer or Jeanne Mas sense. The vocal is so-what cabaret R&B that never quite engages. The words, if inspired by something newsworthy that happened in real life, feel artistically detached regardless — which is not necessarily a bad thing. The ending gunshot is a nice but unsurprising touch. The tempo’s too slow.
[7]

Kat Stevens: After a few years of phoned-in guest spots and automaton euro-dance hits, I’d almost forgotten that Rihanna was capable of the levels of emotion she once delivered on “Umbrella”. Her performance here is spine-chilling: shorn of auto-tune and nasal congestion, she sends the chorus soaring clear of the dark shadows only to return to a shivering but equally determined whisper. Both the subject matter and the predator-stalking production are a big risk for a 2009 comeback single — Rihanna could have easily played it safe with a electro’n’b copycat or something ft. Lil Wayne, and no-one would have blamed her — but luckily for us she likes games of chance. Shame about the wanky guitar solo at the beginning.
[9]

Alfred Soto: She’s singing better all the time, and someone should shoot whoever’s encouraged her. I don’t hear any vocal filigrees in this Beyoncé-esque track that match the controlled raunch of the opening guitar solo. Imagine Ri injecting herself into a contemporary “Maggot Brain.”
[5]

Martin Skidmore: The song is kind of scary, with a great killer line at the end of the second verse. I like Rihanna’s voice, and her strained tones work for the tension of the song, though the flattening on the last line of the chorus doesn’t work for me. Still, a genuinely compelling single.
[8]

Frank Kogan: Rihanna, who doesn’t have the lungs to go over the top, has found a way to do so anyway, using the part of her voice that’s a thick pool of ashes and then she’s absolutely unrelenting, “Unfaithful” even more than this. And although the Chris thing makes her seem genuinely at risk, there’s a part of me that treats this as camp and starts making wisecracks. When I hear her sing “Take the gun and count to 3,” my mind involuntarily proceeds to, “Or 4… on the floor”. But maybe that’s ’cause I’m nervous.
[8]

Anthony Easton: Slightly more problematic then the Crystals’ “He Hit me and It Felt Like A Kiss” — talks perfectly about the profound ambiguity of being in love with a boy who will do you nothing but harm; the self-awareness is what destroys one.
[8]

Alex Macpherson: Ever since her abandonment of dancehall, Rihanna has excelled most when performing increasingly dark ballads: the melodramatic “Unfaithful”, the shellshocked “Cry” and — most of all — the terrified “Haunted”, which is the most obvious precursor to “Russian Roulette”. It’s a beautifully paced and crafted single: a noirish processional in the verses, mills of God grinding slowly but surely with a straight-outta-808s tread, and a full-on theatrical set piece in the chorus. Rihanna’s stately pleading lends itself well to conveying the Victorian gothic heart that beats within — the hint of hysteria concealed under the ice, behind the shadows, in genuinely spine-chilling lines such as “that he’s here — means he’s never lost”.
[9]

Ian Mathers: Overly dramatic? Maybe (and we really didn’t need the resolution we get at the end – if it had stopped with the sound of the chamber spinning that would have been perfect), but “Russian Roulette” is also darkly suggestive of all kinds of interesting things, and from the subtext to the vocal performance to the production, it’s the best ballad Rihanna’s done yet. Having this be your first single back after being the kind of tragic tabloid fodder she’s been is a sign not just of a willingness to take your work to interesting, uncomfortable places: it also shows a lot of guts.
[8]

Matt Cibula: All the love and sympathy for the R, but this ballad could be outrun by an ankylosaurus.
[3]

Anthony Miccio: Ne-Yo didn’t give Rihanna a tearjerker so much as a soggy handkerchief, but that’s no excuse for getting upstaged by the bass.
[5]

Alex Ostroff: This is pleasant enough, I suppose, but for a project supposedly Rated R, it’s surprisingly tepid. “Russian Roulette” relies on the subject matter and the kitschy track-ending gunshot for shock value, rather than seeking out something genuinely compelling or dark. The consistently strong Good Girl Gone Bad earned Rihanna goodwill to spare, but also proves that she can, and has, done better.
[5]

Doug Robertson: A soulful, epic song, just begging to be performed on a darkened stage. Obviously with that incident still fresh in people’s minds, this could be weighed down by the search for double meanings in the lyrics, but ultimately lyrically this is a pretty standard “Falling in love’s a bit of a risk, eh!” song, and, while ultimately the song itself follows pretty a similarly familiar pattern, they’ve spent enough on the polish, and Rihanna herself manages to strike the right balance between bold and vulnerable, so as to lift it above what could, in other hands, be a quite average performance.
[6]

John Seroff: Obsessively and oddly literal, “Russian Roulette” offers up rattling bullets as castanets, a whirring pistol barrel and an ending marked by a single abrupt shot. As a theme for The Deer Hunter: The Musical it’s sensible; as the opening salvo from one of the year’s most anticipated pop albums, it is, shall we say, interesting? Is Rihanna comparing the suicide pact to an abusive relationship? If so, she’s going out of her way to veil the biography: I’m more inclined to chalk the song’s hyper-dramatic morbidity up to Ri-Ri’s “Disturbia” goth streak and the Halloween season. There’s a certain constant emotionlessness that removes her from this track. As with the best of Rihanna, “Roulette” is Broadway musical catchy, sliding off the ear cleanly and without bitter aftertaste. For a song about shooting yourself, that’s a tough order.
[7]