So I've finally fallen in Love with Rihanna's new single, SOS (Rescue Me). The last obstacle was overcoming my qualms about what I perceived to be Rihanna's perpetuation of my biggest grammatical pet peeve - the substitution of "your" for "you're". Gaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! is all I have to say about that. Give me text speak over that any day. At least then there's no pretense of speaking actual english with spelling and grammar or anything. Christ on a bicycle it gets my goat. Anyway, I eventually came to the realisation that Rihanna was not singing "Y O U R making this hard", but "Y O U are making this hard". Hooray!!! Oh Rihanna, how I misunderestimated you; you're not just a nifty little pop star, you're a world champion speller!! Phew, thank God for that.

But this was not the only obstacle lying on the path towards my love of SOS. Word on the cyberstreet was that Rescue Me contained a sample from Tainted Love. Oh no. Shades of Hung Up, which, while being enjoyable enough, always bothered me in the way it let the sample do all the heavy lifting. Take away the ABBA magic and what do you have left? A pretty flat melody with some hand-me-down Hangin on the Telephone lyrics. Ho hum. But..what is this? I've listened to SOS (Rescue Me) a few times and have barely even noticed the sample. The melody is stuck is my head. I have to remind myself to listen for the Tainted Love bit. The song has been built over rather than around the sample! It has been used as a foundation rather than the centrepiece for this magnificent single!! A triumph!! Bravo Rihanna!! BRA-VO!!!

Please also enjoy this classic and equally educational track from Janet Jackson, which will not only make you shake your thang, but aid you in the correct spelling of 'miss' i.e. "m-i-s-s you much".

Janet Jackson - Miss You Much