Rihanna's Cabin Fever Led to Recording "Personal" "Rated R"

With Rihanna's new album Rated R out on Monday, November 23rd, the "Russian Roulette" singer discussed when she knew she was ready to record the LP after being assaulted by then-boyfriend Chris Brown on On-Air with Ryan Seacrest. "Right after the Grammys this year, I would say months later, I kind of got tired of just hanging out in the house and I got cabin fever, so I was like 'I have to work.' I called the label and said 'I'm ready,' " Rihanna told Seacrest.

Rihanna's fierce fashions: check out photos of the star onstage and off.

Lyrically, Rihanna at first tried not to broach the subject of love in her new music, but she found it hard to avoid. "We went into the studio and first thing we did was figure out the sound. I was having mixed emotions about what I wanted to talk about. I did not want to talk about love at all, because it was sort of expected and I didn't really believe in love at that point, so I tried to go the other way," Rihanna said. "But when I went into the studio, it was my peace and my way to vent, so all these real emotions started to come out, so it's really raw. The album is a roller coaster of emotions. It's a really personal album and I wouldn't have made it any other way."

Rated R isn't out until Monday, but Rihanna's official site and Culture Jam Labs launched a full album stream of the record this morning, so if you have a Twitter account, you can hear Rihanna's music now. "It was therapeutic to me, but at the same time we made a great album, which was my intention in the first place. To make this a classic album for me," Rihanna said.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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