100 Plays Later is a series that is exactly how it sounds. I try to explain how I’ve managed to reach a century of plays on songs you may not even recognise. Or explain what it’s like to listen back to my favourite songs for the 238th time. 

Pour It Up – Rihanna – 112 Plays

I HATED Pour It Up on first listen. So much so that after my initial few listens of Unapologetic I actually started listening to a version that didn’t include the song. At some point, around the time that the song started gaining buzz on the US RnB charts I saw sense and Pour It Up became the only track from that album to reach 100 Plays.

Pour It Up is probably the song that cemented the transition from the Pop bangers of old into the ‘new Rihanna’ that we saw release Anti earlier this year. It’s 2 minutes and 41 seconds of Rihanna grinding and wailing over a trap beat, but sometimes that’s all you need in life. ‘Strip clubs and dollar bills, still got my money’ it’s the audio equivalent of Rihanna’s social media presence, a song version of the ‘fuck you all, I’m rich’ attitude she has been rocking for the last half of her career. It sounds the sort of song Rihanna would make if she was left all by herself in a room and was messing around while she smokes a blunt. There’s no effort here, just Rihanna doing whatever the hell she likes, which is why it’s one of her most intoxicating growers of a single.