Rye Rye - Go! Pop! Bang!

When I first watched the video for her M.I.A. collaboration 'Sunshine', my initial reaction to Rye Rye was a mixture of horror and disgust. Although a fan of M.I.A., and even more outrageously offensive female popstars like Nicki Minaj, Ke$ha and Peaches, it just stagnated in an odour of "Arulpragasam felt a bit bored". Adding this to an already saturated market of sweet-voiced straight-talkers and it just made me wholly unfazed by the idea of his new popstar.

But then the production credits and collaborations kept rolling in and it made me doubt myself. Surely someone who's managed to grab herself work with Robyn, the Neptunes, RedOne, Tyga, Blaqstarr, Akon and Cherry Cherry Boom Boom must have something to her? I should warn you, I've just listened to OK Computer prior to writing this out, and let's face it - nothing's going to match that. I'm sure Rye Rye will try try her best though. Oh God, I'm so sorry.

In the jargon of many music-bloggers then the album suitably 'Drop's with sirens, a jungle beat and an overwhelmingly convincing call to dance. "Drop the 808s and you know I'm gonna freak" is a promise that's almost certainly going to be delivered upon. The childlike vocal tinges to 'Holla Holla' over an extremely M.I.A.-derivative track make the end result quite an assault on the ears, and I'm not sure if it's how hungover I am today or how tired I am right now, but it's just grating. Upon first couple of listens, though, I deemed it quite a good track, and it's certainly a bold and attention-grabbing effort, but an acquired taste maybe. That's very much a recurring theme on Go! Pop! Bang! but there're more conventional club-thumpers to get you motivated: 'DNA', featuring Porcelain Black, someone I know only through this camp gay guy I know, picks up where Minaj efforts 'Whip It' and 'Pound the Alarm' might have finished. Very Guetta in its execution, it's a pretty catchy track. That a track called 'Crazy Bitch' can be deemed one of the albums softer edges is really testament to its brashness - and the Akon-featuring song, although short, is indeed quite charming and laidback. Inoffensive, really.

On the other hand you have the Kreayshawn-meets-Lil Jon anger-rap of 'Hotter', which spouts "swag so fresh, walk so mean/ I've never been a mess, I gotta stay clean" inbetween one of the most aggressively repetitive choruses you'll have ever heard. It is indeed bold, but at what cost? It's difficult to respect, and although Berrain's flow is pretty smooth, it smacks of cockiness and tedium. One of four tracks (if you have the deluxe version, that is) to feature guiding-figure M.I.A., 'Sunshine' still makes me honestly believe that she's capable of so much better. A kind of filler drumbeat combined with a nasal vocal hook just makes it an all-around stinker. Sampling the Vengaboys then on 'Boom Boom' for just another sprinkling of controversy, it's an earnest attempt at nostalgia-pop that would be more successful if the new production had anything in the way of a tune or rhythm. It does demonstrate, though, that Rye Rye is capable of carrying a note.

Hearing Ethel Merman samples, as someone who's only familiar with the name through Airplane!, is quite surreal but is just another page in the Rye Rye encyclopedia of daftness. 'Better than You', the second M.I.A. feature (in which she's even more redundant than in 'Sunshine'), does try more concertedly to hammer in a summery hip hop twist on the Annie Get Your Gun standard (think Jay-Z sampling It's a Hard Knock Life). Less original, though, is the reworking of Robyn's 'Be Mine' on 'Never Will Be Mine' - the remixed version perhaps being a wise inclusion on the standard LP since the deluxe version is so blatantly unchanged from Robyn's original. Here, R3hab commands the dancefloor with a rapturous house anthem, with certain europop elements thrown in for good measure. One of her more straightforward boasts, 'Dance' proclaims "bitches be fronting, I've never been one of those" and "my girls, we bossy, we don't give a fuck". Convincing, certainly, but it's all been done before. Surely? A touch of M.I.A.'s 'BirdFlu' then about her final track, 'Shake Twist Drop'. Featuring Tyga, it's naturally concerned about money, dancefloors and other such meaningless endeavours, but there's a brass-hook in amongst the chaos that makes the whole thing an inanely catchy dance track.

Where other female musicians under this whole urban-alternative umbrella (Santigold, M.I.A., Azealia Banks) have been quick to assert swagger and power, they've also done so through the medium of powerful and meaningful lyrics and beats. Rye Rye's approach has been to rant and whine her way into pop music with some insipid dance music. Although much of the production work is to be credited, and there are indeed a handful of catchy tracks, the majority of the work has been done before her. There's absolutely no depth to this debut album, and certainly no sense of identity. With a plethora of guest spots and samples it's very much like listening to a teenager at a house party commandeer the iPod speakers and shouting "I LOVE THIS ONE THIS ONE'S MY FAVOURITE SHUT UP EVERYONE" inbetween Cobra Starship and Destiny's Child. An energetic but completely irritating and soulless debut.

Rating: 5/10
Highlights: Drop, Never Will Be Mine (R3hab Remix), DNA, Shake Twist Drop, Crazy Bitch
Avoid: Dance, Shake it to the Ground, Hotter, Sunshine,

Artwork Watch:  I just don't know what to attack first. The fur coat? The hairstyle? The PS1 computer game background? The title font (any font that fills in the holes of its letters needs to die)? The black outline?
For fans of: Lady Sovereign, M.I.A., Nicki Minaj, sherbert dips and Red Bull.