Rihanna - Cheers (Drink To That)

September 30, 2011 Critic Jonni 0 Comments

So here I am again reviewing another Rihanna music video, only I think this song is probably my least favourite song by her. But maybe I'm a little biased, since I think it would have been a lot better if Rihanna, real name Robyn Rihanna Fenty, had decided to collaborated with Avril Lavigne, and although there was a report from Digital Spy, that announced Rihanna had planned on doing a collaboration, but when it was recorded they had already added Avril's vocals from the song "I'm With You". But at least Avril isn't upset by it, and also showed that she was happy because she even appeared in the music video. However I think it's chart success would have been a lot better if it was a collaboration because both artist's fans would've bought the single and therefore should have boosted up sales. Here in the UK this song managed to get to number 15, which is quite a low chart position for Rihanna since she has managed to gain a lot higher on many of her other singles.

This song is the seventh single from her album "Loud" and she is finally getting around to recording her sixth studio album. It was written by many people who are  Andrew Harr, Jermaine Jackson, Stacey Barthe, Laura Pergolizzi, Corey Gibson, Chris Ivery, Lauren Christy, Graham Edwards, Avril Lavigne and Scott Spock. It's nice to see that they included Avril in the writing credits, and I am surprised to see Jermaine Jackson there too (most notably known as one of the Jackson 5, but also came 2nd in the UK Big Brother 2006). To be totally honest the song does sound right up Jermaine Jackson's street. This music video now has over 29 million YouTube hits which is really good for Rihanna, although I do think her other videos may have gained a lot more. This song is a very party-drinking song, and imagine that you have shots in front of you and this song comes on and you have to drink a shot every time you hear "I'd Drink To That", I bet you you'll a) not be able to keep up, and b) you'll probably be having way over 10 shots with only one play. That would definitely turn this song into the ultimate drinking game.

The music video kind of annoys me, if you haven't already guessed. I really dislike music videos that has too many things going on, or if the editing of the clips is too quick, or when a crowd audience don't really know all the words to the song. Unfortunately this music video incorporates all three of my hates, yet the song gets stuck in my head, so another reason why I'm writing about this music video is to hopefully prevent it from getting stuck in my head ever again. However the lyrics are pretty difficult to craft into a storyline so they left any potential narrative out, and this is constantly used for many artists and bands when thinking up a good concept is difficult. This video reminds me of the "Black Eyed Peas" video of "Don't Stop The Party".

Many stars appear in this music video, first off you see Rihanna (obviously), she's on stage at times, she's on a boat every now and again, but the majority of times she is with friends having a fun time. The first star you see is Avril Lavigne, who's first shot is drinking from a cup, then someone pushes her into a pool while she is sitting on a skateboard, the last scene is her riding the skateboard into the pool. However the amount of times she sings "yeah, yeah" in this song, I would've thought she would have appeared more, maybe she sent a lot of footage, and it was edited down a lot. Cee Lo Green makes a quick performance, having a drink with Rihanna. And then you have Kanye West & Jay-Z who both performed on stage with her.

Overall, this song and it's accompanying music video doesn't wow me at all and it's one I watch on the music channels if there's no better videos on the other channels (yes there are worse videos out there). I have to admit, the editing must have been really difficult as they would have been unsure where they want to cut certain parts, and which shots were the best, I presume there was hours and hours of footage to try and reduce down to just under 5 minutes, this is probably the only reason that saved this music video from getting only 1 star, but also I like the fact that they did include Avril Lavigne, they didn't have to, but they did, so that was nice of them too.