Single Review: Rihanna – Sledgehammer

rihanna sledgehammer

Rihanna releases Star Trek soundtrack co-written by Sia
There is no stopping Rihanna at the moment. After the release of her latest album Anti earlier this year, she is not spending a minute outside of the spotlights. While she is travelling across the world with her successful Anti World Tour, she recently released the smash hit ‘This Is What You Came For’ with Calvin Harris, a collaboration with Mike Will Made-It and now she already dropped another one. The brand new single is called ‘Sledgehammer’ and it is released as the official soundtrack for the movie Star Trek Beyond.

Rihanna co-wrote the track together with Jesse Shatkin and Sia. It is not the first time that the pop star from Barbados works together with the ‘Chandelier’ hit maker. In 2012 Rihanna had a huge hit with ‘Diamonds’, which was also written by Sia. ‘Sledgehammer’ is exactly what you would expect from a Sia co-write. It’s a big ballad, full of metaphors and a message of self empowerment. The song starts out quiet, but rapidly builds up to a big chorus where Rihanna belts her heart out, similar to what we hear on Sia’s two most recent albums. “You’re just another brick and I’m a slegdehammer”, Rihanna sings with confidence. It will be interesting to see how this track will perform commercially. It seems that everything that Rihanna is touching at the moment turns to gold, but at the same time it might be time for Sia to shake up her formula a bit, as ‘Sledgehammer’ is in no way a surprising composition. Then again, Rihanna already teased lyrics of this tune on Twitter two years ago, so it seems this was finished long before the release. Either way, ‘Sledgehammer’ is a powerful pop ballad with a huge chorus, that should do well in combination with the probable success of its movie.

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