The Singles Jukebox

Based on this maybe her album should have been called PRO hohohoho..

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[7.33]

Brad Shoup: Rihanna and Nuno’s harmonics are godmode; it earns them an eye doctorate. “Work” was an offhand worldbeater; “Kiss It Better” has the same goal — getting off until the clock melts — but like the late Sam Hinkie, it’s more concerned with the process. The title is a complete afterthought: “Fuck Your Pride” would’ve been better.
[7]

Cassy Gress: I am more than happy to hear Rihanna covering “Take My Breath Away.” That’s obviously not what this is, but the day-glo Miami guitar is putting that in mind, and she’s a sea of sirens in that last verse when it’s block harmonies all the way through.
[8]

Alfred Soto: The way “Tell me what you’re willing to do” harmonizes with Nuno Bettencourt’s guitar has given me the month’s biggest thrill, akin to looking at Poppy Bush-era photos of Bettencourt in Extreme. And Rihanna is at her giddiest.
[8]

Jer Fairall: Mixing Ri’s vocals so that they play a subordinate role to the hiss and sputter of the music, her producers play to the song’s alluring strengths, not least of which is a luxurious guitar squall that wraps around the whole thing like an oversized comforter. It is a bit too anxious to reveal all of its neat production tricks, though, and with everything on the table at the 1:30 point, I’ve run out of interest by the time the entire four minutes are up.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: The boring story about Rihanna albums is that she got progressively realer, or mature (which means sexualized), or celebrified or pop-machinized or whatever with every album since Good Girl Gone Bad. The real story has something to do with personnel and trend fluctuations, and is also boring. You’ll probably disagree, but to me the interesting story is how, after a string of albums in which market forces muddied to some degree any cohesion, Rihanna’s come to fit into the aesthetic of our times, that of expensive moodiness. It’s a stage set, bare and practically levitating, someone tightening the screws every few seconds to keep it aloft. Or a Miguel song, with all his predilections for cheesy guitar epics (no doubt shared somewhere secret in Nuno Bettencourt’s mind). Or a wind-machine you’re kissing closed-eyed by for an hour, or a feeling, of whatever sort, you’d like to sustain and indefinitely float atop. The “kiss-it-kiss-it-better baby” hook, repeated until it’s sliced out all your mental acreage, evokes old Rihanna, whose team’s songcraft has been disproportionately dissected; the rest aims squarely at making hooking up with an on-again-off-again whomever feel like a grand cinematic reunion.
[7]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Yes, the backing guitar work is great, but the Casiotone-gone-Trap beat/synth-bass combo and Rihanna’s determined, melodramatic delivery are the real stars of this show. “Kiss it Better” would be a much more boring song if it wasn’t for those genius production choices — like the distorted octave harmonies in the hook — but the final result is engaging and powerful. It’s eerie balladry at its finest. 
[7]

Will Adams: While I feel dumb for discounting “Work” upon release now that it’s all but taken over the world, “Kiss It Better” was the winner from the start. Rihanna’s used the guitar-laden slow jam formula before, but never has it sounded so urgent. The hi-hats skitter until they swirl out of frame, all the while Rihanna deploys a variety of voices to melt everything around her, refusing to let your focus rest on anything but her plea.
[8]

Scott Mildenhall: If “Purple Rain” weren’t so laborious, was sung by Rihanna and was not that much like “Purple Rain,” it would be approaching this. Eschewing obvious routes to immediacy, it’s a song that flows like a brook of caramel-coloured water, whatever that means. Something like the rivers in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory perhaps, but luxuriant.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: This is a confident jam that soars effortlessly, as if the heavy guitar was fuel and not weight. But it’s not so heavy that she doesn’t completely dominate it, while herself being dominated by the spacious thud of the beats. Vulnerable but simultaneously a globe-conquering Amazon: that’s my favourite mode for Rihanna.
[8]