The Umbrella Effect: How Rihanna’s Breakout Hit Changed Pop Music Forever

Switched on Pop

Vox Media Podcast Network

Music Interviews, Music History, Music, Music Commentary

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2007, a 19-year-old Barbadian pop singer released the lead single off her third album. By doing so, she didn't just give us a timeless, undeniable banger -- she changed the way pop music is made, and became the global superstar that we know Rihanna to be today. In this episode we go back in time to unearth the origins of "Umbrella," and how the song blossomed as a result of many shifting currents in the music industry, the democratization recording technology, and the persistence of Rihanna and her team to record the song instead of the artist for whom it was intended. SONGS DISCUSSED James Brown "Funky Drummer" Funkadelic "Get Off Your Ass and Jam" Soft Cell "Tainted Love" N.W.A. "100 Miles and Runnin" Mya "Case of the Ex (Whatcha Gonna Do?)" Britney Spears featuring Madonna "Me Against the Music" Nine Inch Nails "The Hand That Feeds" Rihanna "Pon de Replay" Rihanna "S.O.S." Shakira "Hips Don't Lie" Rihanna "Umbrella" Justice "Stress" Usher "Love in This Club" Childish Gambino "Bonfire" A$AP Rocky featuring Skepta "Praise the Lord (Da Shine)" Asher Monroe "Synergy" Justin Bieber & Lil Dicky "Running Over" Sabrina Carpenter "Espresso" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Race the rudder, raise the sails, raise the sales!
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0:30.8	I always thought anxiety and worry were the same thing. But worry is actually, it's a behavior.
0:36.3	It's almost like a self-soothing behavior. And people
0:39.3	who are very anxious think that if you just worry enough, you won't be anxious anymore. But instead,
0:45.2	worry can make you more anxious. Like, you're never going to get to the end of the worrying.
0:49.9	If it's a behavior, why not change it? This week on the gray area, I talked to Olga Hazan about our personalities and whether we can change them.
0:59.5	Listen to the gray area with me, Sean Ely.
1:01.5	New episodes every Monday, available everywhere.
1:09.3	Welcome to Switched on Pop.
1:16.7	Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan.
1:17.9	And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.
1:32.3	Charlie, this is modern classics, a series where we take deep dives into songs from the recent past that have shaped the sound of our contemporary pop landscape in foundational ways. And today I'm enormously excited because we are going to pull apart one of the songs that I feel like is such a defining part of our 21st century soundtrack.
1:46.0	A song that just with one word instantly conjures whole galaxies of sound and emotion.
1:54.0	And what is that word, Charlie?
1:56.0	Umberrella.
	...

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