Rihanna – “Goodnight Gotham” (Singles Going Steady)

Pryor Stroud: Lasting a mere minute and a half, Rihanna’s “Goodnight Gotham” is closer to a burst of fizzy alt-pop experimentation than a conventional song. Across its duration, Rihanna and a deep-voiced interlocutor — maybe a male co-star, maybe a pitched-down incarnation of Rihanna herself, maybe neither — converse across a widening sonic chasm, each articulating “goodnight”, not as a farewell, but as a wish for this “good” night to go on a little bit longer. It’s unclear what the track would sound like if it were extended into a longer composition, but perhaps that’s the point: “Goodnight Gotham” is a fragment, a vignette, a half-told story that isn’t meant to deliver a satisfying ending or supply any coherent answers. [7/10]

Steve Horowitz: Holy cow! The video has Rihanna turns celebrity on its head here and makes her fans the stars. The smile on her face is priceless as she basks in the warmth of her admirers. Pride becomes the opposite of vanity rather than its handmaiden. The music is literally a fanfare for the common people. Freaking beautiful. [9/10]

Chris Ingalls: It’s kind of hard to review this as a “single”, since the video is really where it’s at. Essentially a one minute interlude-type track with dramatic vocal and instrumental flourishes, it’s really just meant to prop up its sweet music video, which shows Rihanna ditching a Parisian photo shoot to literally dive into a crowd of adoring fans, who prop her up and basically swarm her in a loving, non-confrontational way, with iPhones flashing and slo-mo in full effect. It’s a wonderful, candid glimpse of when fame and adulation go in the right direction. [7/10]

Chad Miller: I love Rihanna, Florence + The Machine, and Florence’s sampled “Only If For a Night,” but even I can admit that this track seemed like the least necessary work on ANTI. I still do like it though. It’s a pretty good length, and the remix is done well. The music that’s been added is all really cool too. [7/10]

SCORE: 7.50