14 DAY TRIAL // She may have not taken home any award at last night’s MTV European Music Awards, but Rihanna was certainly the star of the show with her fiery performance of “Only Girl (In the World).”
Earlier, before the EMAs, the singer was on stage with Bon Jovi rocking to “Living on a Prayer” in an intimate show in Madrid, as we also informed you just hours ago.
During the fancy awards ceremony, though, Rihanna was also doing some solo performing, taking to the stage for a live rendition of her latest single off her upcoming album.
As we also noted on several past occasions, Rihanna’s next studio material will mark a clear departure from the aggressive, heavy sound of “Rated R,” moving towards more “girlie” and fun territory.
“Only Girl (In the World)” is the perfect example of that Rihanna will soon put the “dark” stage behind her, returning to her fun, dance-y sound.
The official video for the song also illustrates that, as we noted a while back. For the live performance, Rihanna recreated the feel of the clip with lots of stage props, as the video below will confirm.
There were plenty of flowers and smoke, and even more diffuse light from a make-believe sunset. There was also a fairytale-inspired dress, combined with military-style boots and a sparkly tiara.
The feel of the official video for the song is warm, like a late summer day, right before the sun sets – and so was Rihanna’s performance, with the atmosphere being “disturbed” only by a handful of male dancers that appeared towards the end of the song.
And then, there was something more that lacked to make Rihanna’s performance perfect: a good singing voice for her.
As commenters note on YouTube and several other channels, Rihanna may be a good performer but she’s still miles to go to become an even acceptable singer.
Of course, she must know this too, which makes the fact that she dares sing live nonetheless all the more admirable, word in the blogosphere has it.
What everybody seems to agree on is that Rihanna put on quite a performance – even though she left a lot to be desired in the singing department.
Below is the video of her doing “Only Girl (In the World)” at the 2010 European Music Awards.