Rihanna's "Umbrella"

One Song

Hartbeat

Music Commentary, Music Interviews, Onesong, Comedy, Music

4.9 • 876 Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2024

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Usually on One Song we focus on the music's cultural impact. But this time we're talking about the meteorological impact! When Rihanna's Umbrella topped the charts in the UK, it coincided with a period of heavy rain and flooding. The same thing happened in Romania and New Zealand. Coincidence, or did Rihanna's hit change the weather? On this episode of One Song, Diallo Riddle and LUXXURY explore the song's backstory, delve into the stems, and get to the bottom of how Rihanna arrived as a global megastar and made it rain. Literally.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Luxury on this show, we talk about songs that have a huge cultural impact.
0:03.7	We do.
0:04.3	But this time, we're talking about a record that had a huge meteorological impact.
0:08.4	I have no idea where this is going, but I'm intrigued.
0:10.5	Please explain.
0:12.0	Luxury, what if I told you then in 2007, when today's song reached number one in the UK,
0:17.2	it coincided with, or perhaps triggered, dramatic floods all over Britain.
0:21.9	I would say that's definitely not a coincidence, but, you know, please explain further.
0:25.7	No, that's true. It's true.
0:27.0	The days before the release of this song, clear skies, sunshine.
0:30.9	After it hit number one, the UK had some of the most dramatic rainfall ever since recorded
0:36.5	records began.
0:37.9	Okay, that's super crazy.
0:39.0	I kid you not.
0:39.8	And that's really safe.
0:40.5	I mean, like, the British get a lot of rain.
0:41.9	They do.
0:42.6	Wait, just to clarify, how do we know that this wasn't just coincidence?
0:45.3	You're sure they're connected?
0:46.3	Because it wasn't just the UK.
0:47.9	The song's rain, you see what I did there?
0:50.1	The song's rain at number one. In New Zealand also coincided with extreme weather.
	...

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