Props to Melina for saving this clip because, man, this song is boring, and Rihanna’s vocal is boring and I was just bored period. I think I listened to this album once all the way through and never played it again besides “Hard”.

I pretty much gave up on listening to the vocals because you can clearly see that this visual is meant to sell Rihanna, and her sex appeal. Such a sexualized object she is at that — at one point it zooms in on the form-fitting leotard and the concentric circles around her breasts.

“You you know dis!”

Be clear, Rihanna is a beautiful woman. But it’s hard to accept her as more than that, and this video is more of the same. A little bit of choreography (and I use that term loosely) was thrown in for good measure, along with some extraneous eye candy for her female fans, but other than that, this innocuous use of a lens could be largely forgotten without you never feeling like you’d miss anything at all. Melina is one of my favorite directors though, and she used her ample Pop Art palette and colors and other effects to give Rihanna some personality.

Let’s be real, this video is for the fellas LOL. I mean, the flesh-colored shirt w/ the black duct tape over the nips? Wow. LOL! Rihanna goes “Hard” indeed.

This is probably the only song I like off of Rated R and that I ever listen to. Mostly cause I’m a Jeezy fan and the beat is niiiiice. Rihanna’s voice doesn’t offer much, but the track doesn’t require it either.

Now this video is “G.I. Jane” meets “Major Payne” meets the back of Lady Gaga’s closet meets Sade meets M.A.S.H. meets the War on Terror. I gotta admit, a desert theme and war motif is a very creative approach to the song, and what’s more “hard” than Rihanna’s shooting a gun?

Phallic symbols abound, but Rihanna is at this point nothing but a machine that uses to (barely) sell her music and whatever else she is promoting. Susan Boyle still sold more than her and half the world combined — and have you seen Susan Boyle? Right.