I left Turlock at sunset and started up Spotify’s “This Is Rihanna” playlist. I figured I’d just listen to the full-length versions of her halftime show highlight reel. Two hours later, I’d run through 20 tracks with no skips.
With every song came a new memory, a patchwork history of the different eras of music listening that have defined my life. I remembered “SOS” from visiting my cousins when I was young, crammed in the backseat of my aunt’s car, singing along to Now That’s What I Call Music! 22. I remembered pirating “Take a Bow” to make it my ringtone on my first phone and looking up an iMovie lyric video on YouTube so I could sing along. I remembered listening to “Love the Way You Lie” on a local radio station at the summer camp where I learned how to sew. Every time a song came on that I’d completely forgotten, I screamed and pounded on the steering wheel. Years of my life came back through specific tracks; I remembered singing “Disturbia” at fourth-grade recess as clearly as I remembered dancing to “Lemon” at parties during my sophomore year of college. I remembered Glee’s rain-spattered choreography to “Umbrella” and Pitch Perfect’s a cappella rendition of “S&M.” I could measure my whole life in songs by Rihanna that I once loved and then forgot about. I could chart global changes to the music industry — the transition from physical CDs to iTunes albums to playlist-heavy streaming services — by recalling where I was when I first heard one of her songs.
Other fans, whether more devoted or more scrutinizing than I, have lots to say about the details of Rihanna’s performance. And yes, I think it’s hilarious that her dancers looked like “ASAP Rocky’s sperm” in their bizarre Michelin Man costumes. I agree that she seemed “a little exhausted,” and that her low energy was perfectly reasonable given her pregnancy but sometimes underwhelming to behold.
But my main impression of the show was far less about this specific performance and more about the gravity of reckoning with her extreme fame. How is it possible that her music has formed a steady current underlying my entire life, when — before yesterday — I couldn’t remember the last time I listened to it on purpose? How is it possible that we turn ordinary human beings into these towering, culture-powering machines? What does it feel like to know so many millions of eyes and ears are trained on you for decades at a time? So few people will ever know the life Rihanna has lived, estranged as it has been from every ordinary milestone since her early adolescence. But she wears her extraordinary status easily, smirking and swaying, making the astronomical seem possible. It is genuinely mind-boggling, but, again, this kind of revelation can’t really be explained. It has to be heard, felt, and remembered. If you haven’t yet, go back and listen to Rihanna’s last 20 years of hits. Maybe then you’ll see what I mean.●
