Rihanna: Needed Me (2016) watch online HD

I'm of two minds on this video for Rhianna's 'Needed Me,' one of the single s off her eighth album. On the one hand, the way this is shot is not a surprise but that's fine: if you saw Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, with the many scenes of the excess with guns and gangstas (notice not 'gangsters', 'gangstas', there is a difference you know), and slow-motion shots of both the beautiful and the cracked out sides of violence and sex-appeal, then you get that in three minutes with Rhianna sometimes in a see-through blouse. The phrase 'stylish as hell' was created for something like this and, in a way, Korine's dreamlike, neon-candy-coated, fever-dream-of-f***-all-y'all vision of the seafront world of gangsters is maybe even more fitting for a music video than a full feature film, where the approach and world created with the shots and colors and lighting and editing fits with a song (some of the more memorable parts of the film were like a music video anyway, sprinkled with James Franco).

The downside is that the song, what drives the whole piece, is just not strong. It's meant to be a moody, slow-paced kind of bump-n-grind feel, but it's more sluggish with the pace and it's not one of those Rhianna songs that I ever want to revisit again. I'm also not sure listening to the lyrics how much it connects with what's on the screen, as it's mostly 'about' as far as a story goes with her getting on a bike and (spoiler?) shooting a guy in a strip-club. Cool to see, but the song in a way feels unfinished, like it's missing something else to make it complete. I may just not like the speed of it, how it's slow but not in that area of it being like a ballad, nor is it exciting enough to really get into like other Rhianna hits. It's not catchy and it doesn't have any strong hook. It meanders in its way like the video, so tonally perhaps it does match.

Some may love this and I do get it; I could actually watch it with the sound turned low or off and it would be effective. It's personal preference with the song part, but it does make it the full experience that it is. It's a mixed bag for me, though it fills me with a perverse joy that a true madman of cinema like Korine has made something that many millions of people have seen online and elsewhere.

This is "Rihanna: Needed Me" and in the title you can read the artist and name of the song we see visualized in this music video. It is extremely short, 3 minutes only and was directed by Harmony Korine. Another reviewer made the reference to the film "Spring Breakers" and now that I saw who directed this, I can also see the connection. We see Rihanna in a club singing that apparently the guy who she kills in here needed her. That's all there is too it. Oh wait, there is more. Not only a graphic murder scene, but also bare breasts and almost bare buttocks with tons of tattoos. Of course, the cast is exclusively black again as almost always for Rihanna. So what is Rihanna's target group with this one? Black audiences that mistake shock value for actual creativity I guess because there is absolutely none of the latter in here. Korine is back to his early years when he really came up with very low quality on some occasions. And even if you take a look at his quality stuff like the previously mentioned "Spring Breakers", this is just a very very poor (wo)man's version of his trademark film. As for Rihanna, she has shown little to no creativity and vocal range for many years now in her career to an extent where the term "artist" hardly applies anymore. This one here is zero substance, 100% shock value / style without ever being stylish at all. Utter garbage. Stay far far away. So glad this was over at the 3-minute mark.