The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, February 8, 2016 — 5A
ACROSS
1 Basil sauce
6 Pops, to baby
10 Sacred
assurance
13 Sound from a lily
pad
14 88 or 98
automaker
15 Give a ticket to
16 Birds on United
States seals
18 Longing feeling
19 Old photo hue
20 Started the poker
kitty
21 Explosion noise
24 Commonly multi-
paned patio
entrances
27 Hop out of bed
29 More like a cad
30 Send a racy
phone message
to
31 Changed into
34 Apt anagram of
“aye”
37 Reptiles known
for their strong
jaws
40 Actor McKellen
41 Briefs, informally
42 50-and-over
organization
43 Somber melody
45 Red-nosed
“Sesame Street”
character
46 Bank transport
vehicles
51 Poetic nightfall
52 Quicken
offerings
53 Reebok rival
55 __ Spumante
56 Musicians found
at the ends of
16-, 24-, 37- and
46-Across
61 Costa __
62 Word for the
calorie-conscious
63 Fertile desert
spots
64 “I’m not
impressed”
65 Arrived at second
base headfirst,
perhaps
66 Little songbirds
DOWN
1 Banned chem.
pollutant
2 Pitching stat
3 South-of-the-
border sun
4 Youngsters
5 Michael of
“Caddyshack”
6 “Git along” little
critter
7 Edgar __ Poe
8 Pres. before JFK
9 Stubborn animal
10 Post-race place
for a NASCAR
winner
11 Catchall check
box
12 Dandelions, e.g.
15 Kayak kin
17 Earth Day mo.
20 Poisonous snake
21 Low operatic
voices
22 Sports venue
with tiered
seating
23 Versatile, as a
wardrobe
25 Shipping
container
26 Organic fertilizer
28 Fuel additive
brand
31 __-watching: TV
viewing spree
32 Put the kibosh on
33 Movie SFX
35 Tremble-inducing
36 Trembling tree
38 Good vibrations,
in the cat world
39 Sticky road stuff
44 Ancient Aegean
region
45 Real-estate
holding account
46 Smartphone
wake-up feature
47 Riveting icon
48 Desert plants
49 Patronized a help
desk
50 Big truck
54 Zoom up
56 Dr. Jekyll
creator’s
monogram
57 Saudi Arabian
export
58 “__ the Force,
Luke”
59 Confident
crossword
solver’s tool
60 Escaping-air
sound
By David Steinberg
©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/08/16
02/08/16
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Monday, February 8, 2016
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
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T
he day after Rihanna’s
ANTI dropped, I was
annoyed with myself. I
was so hype to listen to the record,
downloaded it as soon as I saw it had
been released
and got left
feeling empty
after a couple
of listens,
because I had
bought into the
year-long hype
and had started
to believe that
Rihanna’s
eighth record
really would be
a classic.
But why would I think that?
Rihanna has a collection of singles
that rivals any artist ever, but she
has never made a great album, so it
shouldn’t be surprising that ANTI
fell short of high expectations. Even
with some interesting tracks and
charismatic performances, it’s mostly
a directionless record devoid of big
highs or intriguing moves.
And I don’t think I was alone in
my disappointment. It’s hard to gauge
exactly how excited people were by
ANTI — by traditional metrics, the
album is a relative flop, only because
Tidal decided to give it away for
free to everyone — but regardless
it doesn’t feel like it really captured
massive enthusiasm. Lead single
“Work” has performed solidly but
remains far from ubiquitous, and
nothing else on the album feels like
it has hit potential. Given the massive
build-up, it’s hard to truly call ANTI
a success.
So now I’m wondering, how
exactly did we get here? What made
Rihanna one of the biggest stars in
the world, and how can she keep it
up? ANTI won’t drop Rihanna from
the A-List, and I’m sure tons of
people will still enjoy the album, but
Rihanna might have to step it up next
time if she wants to continue domi-
nating the world. Let’s take a look
back through Rihanna’s career to see
if we can predict her future.
Phase One: Turn the music up
Rihanna’s first two albums are
almost entirely nonessential. You can
literally stop both of them after track
one and barely miss a thing. Both
Music of the Sun and A Girl Like Me
lead off with enormous singles and
then drag on through filler song after
filler song, as if Rihanna only had
enough budget and industry clout
to score one big hit for each record.
(We can talk about “Unfaithful”
as also being an important part of
A Girl Like Me, but strip away the
nostalgia and it’s little more than a
cheesy young singer’s heartbreak bal-
lad that’s way too Rob Thomas to be
good Rihanna.)
But two very strong songs is an
OK showing for the beginning of
a career for unknown artist from
Barbados. “Pon de Replay” is a
fast-paced dancehall track that
does exactly what it’s focused on
doing (making people dance), while
“S.O.S.” takes a catchy “Tainted
Love” sample and makes it prettier
with Rihanna’s voice, her lilting hook
sticking in your head pretty much
forever. Sure, both of these songs
would likely be entirely forgotten by
now if not for the rest of Rihanna’s
career, but they remain catchy and
fun today and they’ll easily make the
cut when Rihanna’s Greatest Hits
finally comes out (no small feat.)
Phase Two: That Rihanna rain
just won’t let up
2007’s Good Girl Gone Bad was
the start of my personal favorite
Rihanna phase, one she perfected
two years later on Rated R: the “You
should be terrified of me, because I
will slit your throat if you even look
at me wrong.” persona. Plenty of
people will mark “Umbrella” as the
turning point where Rihanna became
more than just a generic radio pres-
ence, and that song is obviously a
huge career highlight, but give me the
Jay-Z-less “Disturbia,” an irresistibly
produced track that gels perfectly
with Rihanna’s newfound swag.
Here, she haunts the sticky synths
and relentless bass drum, suffocating
the track by inserting her voice in
every crack she can find and disori-
enting the whole dancefloor by layer-
ing hooks on top of hooks until every
microsecond is catchy as fuck. With
its lack of features and darker, more
unique production, it’s the first track
of Rihanna’s career that a lesser star
wouldn’t have been able to pull off.
Rated R is still one of the most
badass Rihanna albums. While it’s
another Rihanna record mostly nota-
ble for its singles, those singles just
keep getting better, and her run of
hits just keeps getting more impres-
sive. “Hard” is a radio song that,
despite its near-meaninglessness, is
still awesome for taking Young Jeezy
and barely smoothing over his jag-
ged edges (compare with Juicy J on
“Dark Horse” or Kendrick on “Bad
Blood.”) And “Rude Boy” … well,
I love “Rude Boy” and I can barely
explain why. It’s just a great hook
overflowing with attitude — what
more do you want from a Rihanna
song?
Throughout the next few years,
Rihanna sang hooks on festival-ready
rap tracks like “Run This Town” and
“All of the Lights” while also releas-
ing Loud, which for my money is
front-to-back her best record. Loud
is the most blatantly radio-ready
album in Rihanna’s catalog, but it
came at a point when she had com-
pletely perfected the art of the single.
The big songs here are the relaxed
“What’s My Name,” where Rihanna
and Drake get drinks and smile at
each other over a mid-tempo snare
and synth beat, and “Only Girl in the
World” — still probably the heavi-
est shout-a-long chorus of Rihanna’s
whole career.
At this point, Rihanna is a huge
star — someone with the guts and
power to pull a hit out of something
as ridiculous as “S&M” and make
listenable otherwise awful tracks like
“California King Bed.” But she gets
even bigger from here.
Phase Three: One perfect song
I want to talk about the phrase
“lightning in a bottle” for a moment.
It’s a phrase used so much that it’s
basically meaningless, but let’s actu-
ally imagine what I’d get if I actually
captured the power of lightning. I’d
have a blast of nearly unfathomable
energy, a pure destructive force of
nature contained within a tiny space,
ready to level any room, any area it
gets released in.
Basically, I’d have “We Found
Love,” a song that transcends all
cultures with its easily translatable
refrain, synths that hit directly to
your pleasure centers and a build-up
and release that is physiologically
impossible to resist. It is one of the
greatest moments of the decade,
simply two professional escapists
(Calvin Harris and Rihanna) creating
the most blissful release and chaotic
fun that could possibly be made and
packing it within a three-minute mp3,
giving all of us all a tool that could
bring an entire room to a frenzy.
Phase Four: ANTI
I could never understand the
success of 2012’s Unapologetic.
Released a year after Beyoncé’s 4, it
was a similarly confused, toothless
move toward adulthood, filled with
boring ballads and terrible deci-
sions. “Diamonds” is easily one of
Rihanna’s weakest singles, devoid of
either fun or innovation, “Pour It Up”
never hits a payoff and the filler feels
like a 50-year-old ad exec’s idea of
trap. And also, there’s a Chris Brown
duet on here?
But somehow from that we all
decided that ANTI was poised to be
a classic. That’s slightly understand-
able, though, since the supposed
previews we got were “FourFiveSec-
onds,” which blew all our minds
because there hasn’t been more star
power on one song since the first
“We Are the World,” and “Bitch Bet-
ter Have My Money,” a single/video
combination that set the record for
least fucks ever given, ever.
But neither of those songs even
ended up on the album. ANTI is a
banger-free work with a focus on
vibes and grooves over choruses, and
that style doesn’t play to Rihanna’s
strengths. It’s entirely possible that
the record is a grower, or even a cult
curiosity, but after “Work” fades
away there won’t be anything from
ANTI left in the national conscious-
ness.
Phase Five …
There’s a line from “Work” that
I’ve been rolling around in my head
the past week: “Nobody texts me in
a crisis.” Is it too much to call that
one line the perfect encapsulation of
Rihanna’s entire career in the spot-
light? We’ve seen Beyoncé and Nicki
Minaj hang out and eat hamburgers,
we’ve seen Kanye with the Kardashi-
ans on E!, but nobody can imagine
what it would actually be like to hang
out with Rihanna. She’s the Kobe
Bryant of pop music — an immense-
ly talented machine whose closest
thing to a public persona is “winner
with no time for human concerns.”
Of course, that’s not always a great
place to be, and when you’re off your
game, fans will be less forgiving if
they don’t feel personally invested
in what you do. While Taylor Swift
has built an entire brand out of being
close and open with her fans and
Kanye has seemingly taken us along
on every personal crisis he’s ever
had, with Rihanna, we only really
see her final product — polished
hits or mediocre filler. If that hit well
dries up, there’s little for her to fall
back on.
Going back through Rihanna’s
work, there’s a very obvious com-
mon thread: a few huge songs on
every album and almost nothing else.
Can an artist build a legacy off that?
Do tremendous flashes of greatness
make up for a lack of consistency? If
the only Rihanna album I’d advise
anyone to buy is her future Greatest
Hits compilation, what does that say
about her as an artist?
So I have an honest proposal
for the future: Rihanna should stop
releasing albums.
One of the few things I can say for
certain about Rihanna’s personality
is that she doesn’t give a shit about
the expectations of others. So why
should she tie herself to the out-of-
date traditional album cycle? We all
saw what just happened with Beyon-
cé’s “Formation” video —everyone
I know is talking about it, and it’s
the only few minutes of work she’s
put out in many months. If Rihanna
can pull off a new singles-only strat-
egy, she can be the subject of these
national conversations multiple times
each year while only giving us what’s
she always been singularly interested
in — the best possible hit songs. With
just a few killer tracks divorced from
any mediocrity Rihanna can break
the Internet every six months, have
the song of the summer annually and
leave us constantly wanting more.
Nobody e-mails Theisen in
a crisis. To be the first, send a
note to ajtheis@umich.edu.
MUSIC COLUMN
Where ANTI fails
ADAM
THEISEN
Coen’s ‘Hail, Caesar!’
peak for director duo
By MADELEINE GAUDIN
Daily Arts Writer
The Coen brothers (“Inside
Llewyn
Davis”)
return
to
Hollywood with their latest
film
“Hail,
Caesar!”
The
film
follows
studio
fixer
Eddie Mannix
(Josh
Brolin,
“Sicario”)
through
a
day in the life
in which he
chases
down
a
kidnapped
lead, negotiates the marriage
of a pregnant starlet and keeps
the cameras rolling at Capital
Pictures (the same studio from
the brothers’ 1991 film “Barton
Fink”). With the humor of “The
Big Lebowski” and the anti-
climatic aimlessness of “Inside
Llewyn Davis,” this is Joel and
Ethan operating at peak Coen.
No clear plot emerges until
the studio’s mega star, Baird
Whitlock (George Clooney, “The
Descendants”),
is
kidnapped
and held for ransom by a group
of
communist
screenwriters.
Spinning around this central
plot are a series of overlapping,
interwoven side stories used to
illustrate the constant action of
Hollywood and to cast Mannix
as a point of sanity in the midst
of pure chaos.
These side stories include a
hilarious scene in which cowboy
character actor Hobie Doyle
(played charmingly by Alden
Ehrenreich of “Blue Jasmine”)
has been unfittingly cast as an
urban socialite and is coached
by
his
director,
Laurence
Laurenz (Ralph Fiennes, “The
Grand
Budapest
Hotel”),
through the lines “would that it
were so simple.” It’s one of the
funniest scenes of the movie
and proves the staying power
of a more developed joke over
a slew of one-liners. Likewise,
while trying to make sure
his depiction of Jesus in the
studio’s latest big budget epic
“Hail, Caesar!” is respectful,
Mannix sparks some hilarious
banter between an Orthodox
priest who is concerned about
the realism of the chariots,
a disinterested rabbi and a
pastor who wants to discuss
the metaphorical tangibility of
Christ.
The humor is varied in “Hail,
Caesar!” from pure goofiness
(Tilda Swinton of “The Grand
Budapest Hotel” plays twin rival
tabloid journalists) to absurdist
commentary on faith (Mannix’s
priest tells him he confesses
too much and sends him away).
With an overwhelming pace and
sometimes
overdone
humor,
every moment of the film is
an opportunity to make fun of
a new part of the Hollywood
machine. At the heart of much
of that humor is, surprisingly,
Channing Tatum (“22 Jump
Street”). All grown up from
the
days
of
“Dear
John,”
Tatum shines as a tap-dancing
communist
who
finishes
a
homoerotic dance number and
then boards a submarine headed
to the USSR. It’s hilariously
absurd and proof of Tatum’s
refined comedic abilities.
Relative
newcomer
Ehrenreich
is
absolutely
wonderful as a singing cowboy-
turned-Hollywood-big-shot.
He brings an out-of-place, yet
much needed, earnestness to
the flashy, calculated world of
Capital Pictures. A scene in
which he twirls his spaghetti
like a lasso, trying to wrangle
his date’s fingers, is one of the
only times the film allows itself
to be nothing more than sweet
— a much-needed break from
the onslaught of satire and social
commentary.
“Hail, Caesar!” is bursting at
the seams with talent, so much
so that powerhouse actors like
Jonah Hill (“True Story”) and
Frances McDormand (“Moonrise
Kingdom”) are given one scene
apiece. Everything about it is
over the top, from the characters
to the plot to the homoerotic
tap dance number. And while
it’s entertaining every step of
the way, it sometimes feels like
the Coens are trying to cram
too much into an hour and
40 minutes. The film opens a
hundred doors and can’t find
the time to close them all.
“Hail, Caesar!” ends exactly
where
it
begins,
with
the
immediate crises taken care of
and similar disasters looming
on the horizon. The anticlimax
manages to still be satisfying
— a feat that few besides the
Coens have mastered.
A-
Hail,
Caesar!
Rave &
Quality 16
Universal Pictures
FILM REVIEW