Breathe again.
[Video][Website]
[6.12]
Anthony Easton: Even precluding the video (which I have seen a dozen times and cannot parse), the ambiguity of the text is fascinating. Ignore what she is saying, ignore the capitulation to American Empire, for a second. Even ignore the slightly gospel woo-oos. Hear the sound. I don’t know if this is Rihanna’s house style, or if it’s Kanye’s reworking of “the American style” in American politics. I want this to be subversive. I want the noise of the track to be a commentary on the ambition of the lyrics. I am not sure what I want is what I have been given, but I hope.
[6]
Micha Cavaseno: I honestly thought we were past the Alex da Kid thing: a man who conjures pomp that automatically results in some of the most reluctant march alongs. Once again, Rihanna isn’t hitting much lyrical directness, just sort of trying to talk about how this is a tough place to be yet it’s the place to be to realize your dreams or something or another. I don’t know — it’d be a lot more poignant if I was high, I bet. For what its worth, Kanye works hard at turning Alex’s pomp (and his own pomp, since we all know he’s got quadrillions of gallons of it to spare), to sound ennobled, and Rihanna sounds it too. It’s just that it’s an ornamental piece of sentiment.
[4]
Ramzi Awn: Rihanna against that red flag in the video almost tops Heather Graham in “American Woman.” “American Oxygen” is only as good as Rihanna sells it, and she sells it well. The heft of the piano, Rihanna’s alto, and the cadence of the beat makes for something fresh, if contrived. If anyone else were on this song, I wouldn’t buy it. But it isn’t anyone else — it’s Rihanna. This is the new America.
[8]
Thomas Inskeep: I’ve never much cared for Rihanna: too much of a cipher for my taste, her songs meh at best. “Bitch Better Have My Money,” however, had a nasty bite. “American Oxygen” is better, an odd ballad with serious dubstep production touches (listen on headphones and you’re struck by how loud the wobbly bassline is). To my ears, lyrically this could be Ri’s story: young girl immigrates to the U.S. and makes it bigger than big. Not to mention the refrain “this is the new America/we are the new America.” The singles we’ve gotten from Rihanna’s upcoming album are the first indication I’ve had that she wants to be something more than a fashionista diva, and not only that: proof that she might just pull it off.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: American oxygen, but the track sounds like smog. I realize the music is secondary to the point, but surely “the new Americans” would be better served by something newer than the old Sia sound and Alex da Kid, who is old as BALLS.
[4]
Will Adams: It’s hard to read the nationalistic themes when the production is such a nightmare. The wobbling bass lines combined with the martial drums and choir don’t work at all, making the track vacillate between industrial boom (a far more interesting angle for a patriotic song) and uplifting downtempo (the obvious choice). Worst of all, the damn song just never seems to end.
[3]
Alfred Soto: Hearing a pop star use “empire” in a surefire hit is heady enough, and for once Rihanna’s blankness helps: when she quotes “The Star-Spangled Banner” it sounds like the metered doggerel that it is, which is her point. And she doesn’t sound blank at all when reminding herself to breathe over drum rolls. Clever bits in the mix help too — I love the wobbling sound effect. It’s a minute too long but so what.
[7]
Mo Kim: American oxygen tastes like smoke in your eyes and blood in your mouth. It feels as fragile as a dollar bill crumpled into your mother’s waitress uniform, as grimy as the carpet in the first apartment your family ever owned. American oxygen whispers a language you learn to speak through your classmates’ mocking accents and your dad’s admonishments to stop slurring your words, don’t you know you gotta make ’em listen any way that you can. American oxygen fills the air as you chase this American dream: you lunge at its coat as it slips away, giggling at the joke it’s played. American oxygen watches a young boy on a June afternoon tinkering away at a rusted bike, pedaling forward on sunken tires. American oxygen mixes with sweat, runs through the cracks of castles we all built out of our nickels and dimes. American oxygen boasts the privilege of being able to choose whether to look at those stranded below you. American oxygen hovers under the fumes of a national anthem in which the flag is seen only through the light of rockets and bombs. American oxygen coats your lungs, stains everything it touches as accomplices in a history of heartbreak, hypocrisy and violence, all the products of a polluted empire. American oxygen is breathing it all in when so many of your fellow citizens still cannot, when American oxygen becomes something both precious and toxic and most of us have never known another way to sustain ourselves. American oxygen is breathe out, breathe in, breathe in, breathe in. American oxygen is a battle to be fought and a conviction hard-won. American oxygen is heavy with the weight of knowing what’s at stake and who you are fighting for. American oxygen tastes dead. American oxygen tastes new.
[9]