#constance fear street icons

[trufflezitas]

籱췽ꕤⴰ 𝐅𝖾𝖺𝗋 𝐒𝗍𝗋𝖾𝖾𝗍 𝟏𝟨𝟨𝟨 𝐈𝖼𝗈𝗇𝗌 ! ៸៸🦋꩜ ⵓ ♡"

. [[🕳🌎💭! ꦕᴥᩚᤐ) ᰍᩚ𝗼᥍𝘁. 斘｡˚♥︎ ฅ(ˆㅿˆฅ)ᨀ 𝗅.𝗂𝗄𝖾 𝗈𝗋 𝕣e◞b𝗅𝗈ᦋ! ⟬▒⃨⃗홨 ꕤⴰꜜ 𝙲𝗋𝖾𝖽𝗂𝗍𝗌. "✫៳!🥐🏸🎧𖡎 ﾉ䮴☆%퐣ເ ☆⌒(≧▽​° ) ண🦇📞🥥

[suckedit]

Fear Street 1666 Icons

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[ladyworks]

𝒇𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒕 𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒌 𝟐 [𝒅𝒂𝒚 𝟐]

𝑨𝒃𝒊𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒍 & 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑩𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒏; 𝒊𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒔.

𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒐𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒈 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒂𝒗𝒆, 𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆. 💌

[verifiedaccount]

25 more movies (and one miniseries) you can watch on youtube

I posted 11 movies that are on youtube yesterday (Part 1) but since things are really starting to get shut down here’s more worthwhile movies and a miniseries you can watch for free on youtube right now

Leave Her To Heaven (1945): Gene Tierney is Ellen, a woman whose only crime is “loving too much,” and also all the other crimes she commits to make sure there are no competitors for husband Cornel Wilde’s affections in John M. Stahl’s incredibly lurid and entertaining technicolor melodrama.

M (1931): Fritz Lang’s masterpiece is the basis for every subsequent movie about hunting a serial killer and it’s still the best one.

The Naked Kiss (1964): Here’s the jacket copy from Criterion: “The setup is pure pulp: A former prostitute (a crackerjack Constance Towers) relocates to a buttoned-down suburb, determined to fit in with mainstream society. But in the strange, hallucinatory territory of writer-director-producer Samuel Fuller, perverse secrets simmer beneath the wholesome surface. Featuring radical visual touches, full-throttle performances, brilliant cinematography by Stanley Cortez, and one bizarrely beautiful musical number, The Naked Kiss is among Fuller’s greatest, boldest entertainments.”

Underworld USA (1961): Dave Kehr on the film: “Sam Fuller's harsh, obsessional 1960 crime drama is narrated in the style of a comic book gone berserk. Cliff Robertson is the neurotic hero, bent on avenging his father's death by infiltrating and destroying a crime syndicate that operates under the redolent name “National Projects.” Corruption is all-pervasive in this vision of America, and Fuller disturbingly suggests that only a madman can make a difference. One image from Underworld—of a heavy striking straight at the camera—prompted Jean-Luc Godard to describe Fuller's films as “cinema-fist.” There is no more apt phrase.”

Pickup on South Street (1953): Another Sam Fuller. Here’s Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo on the film: “Richard Widmark manages to portray himself as twisted, conniving, pathological, sleazy, tragic, vulnerable, and handsome all at once in most of the movies I’ve seen him in, and never more exquisitely than in this, one of my favorite film noirs.“

Journey to Italy (1954): Richard Brody on the film: “One of the most quietly revolutionary works in the history of cinema, Roberto Rossellini’s third feature starring Ingrid Bergman (his wife at the time), from 1953, turns romantic melodrama into intellectual adventure. [...] From Rossellini’s example, the young French New Wave critics learned to fuse studio style with documentary methods, and to make high-relief drama on a low budget.” 

The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973): A satirical thriller based on the Sam Greenlee novel about the CIA recruiting a token black agent who quickly realizes they have no intention of letting him advance to a meaningful position and decides to head back to Chicago to teach the black revolutionaries all the latest guerrilla warfare tactics. Despite playing to packed houses the film was quickly pulled from theaters with little explanation and remained out of circulation until a DVD was issued in 2004.  

The Big Combo (1955): Dave Kehr’s capsule: “This 1955 film noir borders on total abstraction for most of its length and then achieves it in an astonishing final scene—a shoot-out in the fog that suggests an armed and dangerous Michelangelo Antonioni. Where the usual noir takes place in a nightmare world, this one seems to inhabit a dream: there's no longer fear in the images, but rather a distanced, idealized beauty. With Cornel Wilde, Jean Wallace, Brian Donlevy, and Richard Conte; the director is Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy).”

The Stranger (1946): Orson Welles’s film concerns an FBI agent (Edward G. Robinson) tracking Nazi war criminals whose search takes him to a small Connecticut town where the local schoolteacher (Orson Welles) is not what he seems. It’s the most conventional Welles film, reportedly intended to prove he could turn in a movie on time and on budget, but it’s still plenty entertaining.

F For Fake (1973): Orson Welles documentary/essay/whatsit about forgers and frauds, specifically Elmyr de Hory, who became famous as an art forger because instead of forging existing paintings he painted new ones in the style of famous artists, and Clifford Irving, who wrote a best-selling book on Elmyr and then was busted for a fraud of his own, the fake Howard Hughes autobiography. A wildly enjoyable, incredibly edited, one of a kind mindbender.

Citizen Kane (1941): It’s Citizen Kane. You just have to put up with hardcoded Korean subs.

Detour (1945): Roger Ebert on the film: “Detour is a movie so filled with imperfections that it would not earn the director a passing grade in film school. This movie from Hollywood's poverty row, shot in six days, filled with technical errors and ham-handed narrative, starring a man who can only pout and a woman who can only sneer, should have faded from sight soon after it was released in 1945. And yet it lives on, haunting and creepy, an embodiment of the guilty soul of film noir. No one who has seen it has easily forgotten it.”

A Woman Under The Influence (1974): Dave Kehr: “John Cassavetes's 1974 masterpiece, and one of the best films of its decade. Cassavetes stretches the limits of his narrative—it's the story of a married couple, with the wife hedging into madness—to the point where it obliterates the narrator: it's one of those extremely rare movies that seem found rather than made, in which the internal dynamics of the drama are completely allowed to dictate the shape and structure of the film. The lurching, probing camera finds the same fascination in moments of high drama and utter triviality alike—and all of those moments are suspended painfully, endlessly. Still, Cassavetes makes the viewer's frustration work as part of the film's expressiveness; it has an emotional rhythm unlike anything else I've ever seen.”

Opening Night (1977): Another Cassavetes masterpiece, again starring the great Gena Rowlands, with Gena as an actress mentally disintegrating as she tries to prepare for an upcoming play. Easier to start with this one than A Woman Under The Influence. Richard Brody on the film: “Though there isn’t a movie camera anywhere to be seen—and Cassavetes, with his tightly sculpted, uninhibitedly intimate images, is a master of the camera—Opening Night captures with astonishment and boundless admiration the uninhibited ferocity of the art that brings life onto the screen. (In fact, Cassavetes had originally planned to take the role of the play’s director.) It’s one of the greatest tributes ever paid by a director to an actress.“

Magnificent Obsession (1954): It’s not necessarily Douglas Sirk’s best technicolor melodrama but this adaptation of Lloyd C. Douglas’s ridiculous bestseller is the most melodramatic one. From Cine-File: “Produced in the wake of Henry Koster's CinemaScope adaptation of Douglas' THE ROBE, Sirk's 1954 remake of MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION is, by any standard, an absolutely batshit movie. (It's the kind of film where a lecture about the radical power of kindness compares the crucifixion of Christ to the act of turning on a light bulb.)  It's not so much an adaptation of Douglas as a third-hand amplification of his aura. "Ross Hunter gave me the book," Sirk recalled, "and I tried to read it, but I just couldn't. It is the most confused book you can imagine.” As Geoffrey O'Brien asserts in his essay for the film's Criterion release, Sirk earnestly examines that which he admits to finding absurd, forcing such questions as, "What if this weren't crazy? What if it were real? What sort of a world would that be, and how different would it be from the one we inhabit?" Therein lies the genius of Sirk's glorious melodrama, one certainly worth seeing in all its Technicolor magnificence.

All That Heaven Allows (1955): Geoff Andrew on the film: “On the surface a glossy tearjerker about the problems besetting a love affair between an attractive middle class widow and her younger, 'bohemian' gardener, Sirk's film is in fact a scathing attack on all those facets of the American Dream widely held dear. Wealth produces snobbery and intolerance; family togetherness creates xenophobia and the cult of the dead; cosy kindness can be stultifyingly patronising; and materialism results in alienation from natural feelings. Beneath the stunningly lovely visuals - all expressionist colours, reflections, and frames-within-frames, used to produce a precise symbolism - lies a kernel of terrifying despair created by lives dedicated to respectability and security, given its most harrowing expression when Wyman, having given up her affair with Hudson in order to protect her children from gossip, is presented with a television set as a replacement companion. Hardly surprising that Fassbinder chose to remake the film as Fear Eats the Soul.“

Written on the Wind (1956): Dave Kehr:  “One of the most remarkable and unaccountable films ever made in Hollywood, Douglas Sirk's 1957 masterpiece turns a lurid, melodramatic script into a screaming Brechtian essay on the shared impotence of American family and business life. Sirk's highly imaginative use of color—to accent, undermine, and sometimes even nullify the drama—remains years ahead of contemporary technique. The degree of stylization is high and impeccable: one is made to understand the characters as icons as well as psychologically complex creations.“

His Girl Friday (1940): Geoff Andrew’s capsule: “Charles Lederer’s frantic script needs to be heard at least a dozen times for all the gags to be caught; Russell’s Hildy more than equals Burns in cunning and speed; and Hawks transcends the piece’s stage origins effortlessly, framing with brilliance, conducting numerous conversations simultaneously, and even allowing the film’s political and emotional thrust to remain upfront alongside the laughs. Quite simply a masterpiece.“

Bringing Up Baby (1938): Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on the film: “Possessed by an overwhelming sense of comic energy, Howard Hawks’ screwball masterpiece heaps on misunderstandings, misadventures, perfectly timed jokes, and patter to the point that it’s easy to overlook how rich and fluid it is a piece of filmmaking, effortlessly transitioning from one thing into the next.”

Underworld (1927): Dave Kehr: “The first full-fledged gangster movie and still an effective mood piece, this 1927 milestone was directed by the master of delirious melodrama, Josef von Sternberg. George Bancroft is the hard-boiled hero, granted tragic status in his final sacrifice. Ben Hecht wrote the script, and many of the same ideas turn up, in a very different moral context, in his screenplay for Howard Hawks's 1932 masterpiece, Scarface.“

Q - The Winged Serpent (1982): In Larry Cohen’s cheapo classic, Quetzelcoatl terrorizes New York. Michael Moriarty plays a bumbling, unlucky small time crook (the robbery he participates in goes hilariously wrong; losing the keys to the getaway car is just the start) who accidentally discovers the monster’s nest and realizes he’s stumbled into the opportunity of a lifetime. He’s willing to help the authorities, including cops played by David Carradine and Richard Roundtree, but they’re gonna have to pay for it. Very goofy and very fun.

Stalag 17 (1953): Billy Wilder’s classic mixes POW drama with comedy as a group of prisoners in a German POW camp try to figure out who in their barracks is a rat while they plan their escape.

Hellzapoppin (1941): Ignatiy Vishnevetsky:  “The opening reel may be the most manic stretch of go-for-broke gonzo comedy to come out of studio-era Hollywood, with the zoot-suited duo of Olsen and Johnson introduced tumbling out of a New York taxi into the bowels of hell (“That’s the first taxi driver that ever went straight where I told him to!”) in the midst of a musical number about how “Anything can happen / And it probably will.” Dozens of throwaway gags—including the first Citizen Kane reference in film history—and an argument with the projectionist (once and future Stooge Shemp Howard) follow, before the movie snaps into something vaguely resembling sanity. From there, Hellzapoppin’ finds Olsen and Johnson wandering in and out of a musical comedy that’s seems to be on the verge of falling apart and tussling with such comedy ringers as Martha Raye and Mischa Auer, the latter cast as a real Russian nobleman who’s trying to pass as a fake Russian nobleman. It’s like a Marx Brothers movie playing at triple speed; it eludes easy summary—it’s a real “you have to see it to believe it” kind of movie—and often stretches the limits of the Production Code. True to its absurdist sensibility, Hellzapoppin’ ended up getting nominated for an Oscar by mistake, for a song that doesn’t appear in the movie.” 

Outrage (1950): Directed and cowritten by Ida Lupino, this was one of the first Hollywood movies after the implementation of the production code to deal with rape and one of the first to tackle its psychological aftermath (the censor office actually made them take the word “rape” out of the script so it’s never uttered in the film). Richard Broday on the film: “Outrage is a special artistic achievement. Lupino approaches the subject of rape with a wide view of the societal tributaries that it involves. She integrates an inward, deeply compassionate depiction of a woman who is the victim of rape with an incisive view of the many societal failures that contribute to the crime, including legal failure to face the prevalence of rape, and the over-all prudishness and sexual censoriousness that make the crime unspeakable in the literal sense and end up shaming the victim. Above all, she reveals a profound understanding of the widespread and unquestioned male aggression that women face in ordinary and ostensibly non-violent and consensual courtship.“

The Hitch-Hiker (1953): Another Ida Lupino joint, this one a lean and mean film noir. J. Hoberman on the film: “The “Hitch-Hiker” script, written (uncredited) by the socially conscious journalist Daniel Mainwaring, was inspired by an actual case: Two buddies (Frank Lovejoy and Edmond O’Brien) pick up a murderous psychopath (William Talman) who forces them to drive him to Mexico. It’s a brutal story handled by Ms. Lupino, one of Hollywood’s very few female directors, with the same steely determination and emotional sensitivity found in her strongest performances.”

And the miniseries:

The Singing Detective (1986): Here’s the entry from the BBC’s list of the top 100 British television programs, where it placed number 20: “For many Potter's masterpiece, this extended six-part filmed drama series mixes flashback and fantasy to create a psychological profile of a writer of detective fiction hospitalised by a crippling skin disease. Though not, the writer stressed, autobiographical, the drama features many elements from both Potter's own life (the disease, the childhood setting) and his body of work (particularly the use of popular music from the war years). As usual with Potter, it also caused controversy at the time for the frankness of its sex scenes, though its position as one of the most challenging and inventive of all TV dramas is secure.“

[maplestreetsims]

Get to Know Me Tag❁

i was tagged by @whyeverr and @abelsimblr ♥  thank you for tagging me!!  

nicknames: Coti, or constance weirdly enough.... 

gender: female

sign: Cancer🦀

height: tbh i have no idea, but last time i measured myself was 1.52m, idk what that is in inches 

time: 18:38pm

birthday: July first! 1/7/00′

favorite bands: one direction ....like, name any modern day band that gets more iconic than that.....apart from them, queen fucking slaps, abba, tear for fears, p!atd...

favorite solo artists:  Sufjan Stevens (i love that dude), harry styles, girl in red, dodie, daughter..

song stuck in my head: literally the entire soundtrack of life is strange

last movie I watched: i dont watch movies that often.. but the last one i remember properly sitting down and watching was beetlejuice

last show I watched: i literally cant even remember yikes :/ adventure time maybe,i need to start watching something asap

when did I create this blog: i think i created this blog on july 15 of this year?? i got a new laptop just so i can play the sims so i figured might as well post it so other humans can see it or smtn 

what do I post: legacy/story posts, and edits whenever i get creative

what did I last google: creepy font copy and paste (rip) i found it btw Ì̴̬̝̤͎t̴̻̣͇̦͋͜͝͝ ̶̢͈͓̺̘̿̀͌̿͠ẁ̶̰̱̱̙̑̓͋̄̄à̸ͅs̶͖̳͊̈ ̶̹̭̬̹͂̄ţ̴̦͘ḣ̵̢̝̳̠ḯ̸̝̮͙̼́̇s̸̡̬͆̐̒͘ ̴̨͈̮̜̠̭͐́̈́͗ǫ̶̘̌̑̽n̷̢͔̼͖̫̝͑̈́͗̓̇̋ě̸͇̄͑̐

other blogs: at this point i would say this is my main blog, my original blog is so depressing i feel like im back in 2015 whenever i log into that account, it feels very lonely for some reason i dont like it there lmao

do I get asks: i would say they’re mainly wcifds but in dont mind them!, but boy do i love when i get asks about anything to do with my sims or my story, it makes me sooo happy you dont even know :)

why did I choose this url: i suck at originality, so i just picked one of my fav episodes of stranger things, the weirdo on maple street and just added sims to it, bc maplestreet was already taken, what a shocker

following: 1.039 

followers: 964 ♥

average hours of sleep: depends on the day.. but i would say like 6-7 hours 

lucky number: i never really had one, it always changes but.. i would say 7

instrument: i suck at music big time, last year i literally failed my music class rip, this year not so much thankfully...so idk 

what am I wearing: blue leggins with a green with white stripes sweater.... the outfit made sense at one point i promise 

dream job: if someone just payed me to play the sims that would be it,but sadly, not happening lol so i would say anything artistic really, being a photographer or an editor, im moderatly good at drawing so maybe that, orrr like working behind the scenes at like movies and stuff?? that sounds cool

favorite food: pizza🍕

last book I read: las cronicas de una muerte anunciada, it was for literature class

3 favorite fandoms: The Sims (kinda), the 1d fandom (we were all so mentally unstable god) anddd maybe the detroit become human? or the life is strange one, can’t decide

I tag: @esperilla @pollinationqueen @hiddenspringss @elisabettasims @retro-plasma and anyone else who wants to do this! :)

[littalks-blog]

On October 16, 1854, one of the most iconic authors and gay icons was born. Oscar Wilde was born to William and Jane Wilde. He was their second son, a middle child, and he grew up in Dublin Ireland. His father was notorious for being a serial cheater; he had three kids with three other women, and three kids with his wife, Jane. Oscar’s mother was six feet tall, and regularly hosted parties in the parlor of their home. Oscar and his older brother were invited to sit in the room of the parties, however, they were not to talk to anyone. This is where Oscar learned to captivate an audience.

At the age of 9, Oscar was sent to Portora Royal School, a boarding school, with his brother. Later, he received a scholarship to Trinity College in Ireland, followed a few years later by a scholarship to Oxford, in England. During his time at Oxford, Oscar really came into his own. He was a six foot two, proud Irishman, who was obsessed with aesthetics. He told many people he wanted to become a work of art. He wore a lot of velvet and silk clothes and grew out his hair. In 1878, Oscar became well-known because he placed first in his finals. When asked what his next move would be, he told many people he would become a poet, writer, or playwright. He is also quoted saying, “I will become famous, if not famous, notorious.” Surprisingly, he achieved all of these things, in that order.

Oscar started writing poems when he was at Trinity College, and so, in 1881 Oscar published his first collection of Poems. The collection sold quite a bit, but many critics said the poetry was bland. It was during this time that Oscar was quoted saying, “There’s one thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about.” Many people were making fun of Oscar at this time. However, he went on tour in America with the play Patience, a play that was satirical of the aesthetic movement. During his tour, he was to speak to the audience about how the aesthetic movement was a good thing. By the time he returned to London, Oscar had become an international celebrity.

In 1883, Oscar moved to Paris and changed his aesthetic. He did this by adding a flower to his breast pocket. He started smoking gold-tipped cigarettes that he carried in a gold case. He also adorned a cane, for fashion. During his time in Paris, he wrote The Duchess of Padua. Soon after, he had many travels. He went to New York, London, and son back to Dublin. In Dublin, he ran into Constance Lloyd, a woman he had met in London in 1881. The two got married in 1884 and they had their first son in 1885 followed by their second a few months later. However, many people comment about how Oscar didn’t know he was gay when he was married. He was even heard making comments about his wife’s appearance. He said that he was disgusted with how she looked because her very slim body had become swollen with pregnancy. Many believe that this is because before she was pregnant, Constance resembled a male figure. Also, at age 32, Oscar became the editor of a magazine titled Lady’s World, later renamed, Woman’s World. Around the same time, Oscar began tutoring a boy named Robert Ross who was obsessed with Wilde’s poetry. It was at this time where Oscar began living a double life because Ross had seduced him.

In 1890, The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in Lippincott’s Magazine. The Picture of Dorian Gray was seen and scandalous and was highly criticized. Many people called the work ‘unclean.’ In 1891, at age 36, Oscar fell in love with an Oxford student named Alfred “Bosie” Douglas. Alfred was the encompassment of Dorian Gray with blonde hair and overall, gorgeous. However, Alfred was sixteen years younger than Wilde, making him twenty years old. Truthfully, the two were perfect for each other, and Oscar gave Alfred many gifts and they spent a lot of time together. Oscar even went as far as telling his wife that he spent time in hotels because he needed privacy for writing, however, he was staying in hotels with Alfred. Wilde even wrote many plays with titles that alluded to his secret life. For example, “An Ideal Husband” and “A Woman of No Importance.” Oscar caused himself to go into debt because the more money he made the more money he spent. He was spending the modern equivalent of $10,000 a week.

Alfred and Oscar were lovers in many settings, however, they spent a lot of time together ‘hunting’ for other lovers for themselves, or for the other. It is said that Wilde got ‘addicted’ to the danger of the homosexual underworld in London. The homosexual underworld, meaning gay prostitutes. Also, Oscar did not have a lot of time for his wife and children. However, he never tried too hard to hide his secret life. He essentially hid it in plain sight. Oscar essentially lived life thinking that if he didn’t say anything about his secrets, then there was nothing going on, even though many people saw Oscar engaging in suspicious acts.

Soon, Alfred’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry, grew suspicious of the relationship between his son and Oscar. He confronted them many times but did not find out much. In 1894, Queensberry met with Wilde on Tite Street and made his feelings clear to Wilde. “I do not say that you are it, but you look it, and pose it. Which is just as bad. If I catch you and my son again in any public restaurant, I will thrash you.” Wilde only responded to this with, “I do not know what the Queensberry rules are, but the Oscar Wilde rule is to shoot on sight.”  

In February 1895, Alfred’s father left his calling card at Wilde’s club. It said, “For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite.” Wilde, who was encouraged by his lover, initiated a private prosecution against Queensberry since the note was a public accusation that Wilde had committed the crime of sodomy. Queensberry was arrested for criminal libel. He could only avoid conviction for libel only if he could present evidence that his accusation was true, and also that there was public benefit to having the accusation made openly. Thus, Queensberry’s lawyers hired private detectives to find evidence of Wilde’s homosexual activities. During their investigation, the private detectives leaked information about Oscar’s private affairs to the press. At the end of the trial, Queensberry was found not guilty and the court found that his accusation was justified. Thus, the end of the trial rendered Wilde legally liable for the expenses Queensberry had incurred and left Wilde bankrupt.

On April 6, 1895, Wilde was arrested for gross indecency under section 11 of the criminal law amendment act of 1885. This act referred to homosexual acts not amounting to buggery. Wilde’s prosecution opened on April 26, 1895. He pleaded not guilty, but the trial ended with a hung jury. Wilde, then, was able to post bail, and then went into hiding. The trial was, essentially, reopened and on May 25, 1895, Oscar and Alfred were convicted of gross indecency and were sentenced to two years’ hard labor. Wilde was incarcerated from 25 May 1895 to 18 May 1897. Once released from prison, Wilde immediately fled to Paris and never returned to the UK. Wilde spent his last years impoverished and in exile. Alfred and Oscar reunited in Naples, during this time. Also, Constance offered Oscar 150 pounds a year to stop seeing Alfred. She had also moved herself and their children to Switzerland. Alfred and Oscar soon had to stop seeing each other because of the fear of having truly, nothing. Constance took away the money from Oscar and then died four months later. There also was no chance of Oscar ever seeing his children again.

In November 1900, Oscar died of cerebral meningitis at the age of 46.

In his life, Oscar faced quite a bit of prejudice, yet he somehow stayed true to himself. He achieved all of his goals and is one of the most iconic authors of all time.

[soundofawesomeblog]

Umbrella, arguably Rihanna’s signature song, came out on this very day in 2007. Ten years later, the Barbadian star is still shining bright like a diamond, prompting us at Sound of Awesome to gather around to create the definitive countdown of her best songs.

Pop chart domination is a grueling goal to achieve and it’s fair to say that no artist can claim the crown for the last decade like Rihanna and her near perfect resume. Her career started as a 17 years old Barbadian curiosity and almost immediately exploded, making her a mainstay of radio airplay, dancefloor, galas, gossips and fashion events. When it comes to Rihanna, what stuns the most is her constancy. Of her eight albums, only her first did not boast at least one number-one song – her début single Pon de Replay “only” reached #2 in 2005.

Yet, even with this constant success, it’s hard to lump Rihanna into the same box of the other stars dominating the current pop landscape. Unlike artists like Katy Perry or Ed Sheeran, Rihanna comes off as natural and real. Authenticity in pop doesn’t come too often, yet Rihanna never comes across as fake. It’s not because she cares less – you can’t release seven albums in seven years without discipline and dedication. But she doesn’t seem to spend her time polishing some sick squeaky-clean PR machine all the time or to have some kind of evil world domination masterplan like the squad-and-trademark queen Taylor Swift. She does what she wants, with all the risks that come with this. Because of that, she is exciting.

If she achieved great success early in her career with Pon de Replay and SOS, it was with her third album’s lead single, Umbrella, that it became clear she would stay an inescapable force in pop music. With its head-drilling hook of ella-ella’s, the track became both a commercial and critical home run for Riri, spending seven weeks atop the charts in the US and 10 in the UK. Want another crazy, fancy statistic? The song was released exactly 10 years ago today. 10 years! Even I, the kid who only listened to Rise Against and similar “real punk” bands back in 2007, remember exactly where I was the first time I heard the song, when the music video premiered on television – back when that kind of event was still a thing.

To celebrate both this event and her outstanding career, we at Sound of Awesome compiled our picks for the 10 best Rihanna songs. As it turns out, it is extremely difficult to trim her discography to just ten tracks, so don’t be too sad if your favorite picks didn’t make the cut. Hell, half of my own original picks had to be left out, though it is safe to admit that all tracks presented in this countdown deserve its inclusion.

Looking at Good Girl Gone Bad’s promotional rollout, it’s easy to feel like Rehab was only released as a single as an afterthought, as a way to keep riding the wave of her previous tracks. After all, the song had been available for well over a year on the standard edition of the album, and three singles had already been released from the Reloaded edition by the time it was finally given the radio and music video treatment. Still, Rehab remains a cruelly underrated Rihanna number. The ballad, penned and produced by Timbaland, Justin Timberlake and some guy named Hannon Lane, showcases a smooth Rihanna reflecting on a failed relationship and how it got her addicted like one gets addicted to drugs. Fun stuff.

What were you doing at 16 years old? If your name is Robyn Fenty, you were out of your home country to be in New York, recording the song that would launch your career and make you an international superstar years before you could legally drink at the bar down the street. Not only had Pon de Replay the strength to make a star of Rihanna instantly, its dancehall vibes also stood the test of time remarkably.

What differentiates a fluke from a long-lasting career as a popstar is the ability to change your sound while staying true to yourself. After the darker album Rated R, Rihanna came back with Loud and made it clear from the start that she was here to party. With a giant hook as colorful as her red hair in the music video, Only Girl (In the World) was the closest she had been to encapsulate the emotion of celebration inside a four-minute track.

Rihanna’s fourth album, Rated R was dark, as best exemplified by its first singles, Russian Roulette and the hip-hop leaning Hard. However, it was her third single, the flirty and dumb-in-a-fun-way Rude Boy that achieved the greatest success. The fact that it was the first time Rihanna came across as carefree again after the horrible Chris Brown scandal (and the unhealthy coverage of it in the media) sure is no stranger to this feat. The dancefloor-ready number also foreshadowed Rihanna’s more electronic influences in which she would bathe for her next few albums to come.

Pop superstardom doesn’t come with an age limit. Just ask Lorde, the Hanson brothers or – hey! – Rihanna herself. Yet, for a myriad of (obvious) reasons, you should wait until you turn 18 to become a sexy pop superstardom contender. Technically, Rihanna was about a week shy of blowing her mandatory candles when SOS came out, but it didn’t stop her from turning into a sex symbol in the blink of an eye. Over a sample of Soft Cell’s Tainted Love, Rihanna flaunts the listener from the get-go without even relying on actual words. The line “La la la, la la la, la la la la la, oh” probably won’t help you finish your PhD, but as it opens one of the best guilty pleasures of 2006, it sure will bring you back some sweet memories.

Unapologetic was Rihanna’s answer to the increasingly hard and aggressive electronic music flooding the charts’ landscape, yet it was in its softest spots that the album really worked. While tracks like opener Phresh Out The Runway are just downright embarrassing today, Diamonds remains an example of how Rihanna can be one hell of a classy act when she wants to. Originally written by Sia, the song allows Riri’s voice to let loose while giving her one of the most iconic line in her discography in “shine bright like a diamond”.

While it wasn’t the biggest hit off Anti, it makes no doubt that Kiss It Better was the best song off it. More than just a ballad, Kiss It Better presents the dreamiest landscape Rihanna has ever found herself cruising in, helped by oozy synths in the verses and a guitar line embracing her voice in the chorus. Inspired by power ballads of the 80’s and 90’s, Kiss It Better manages to go way past simple nostalgia through its futuristic production and Rihanna’s full commitment to the songs in her vocal performance.

Just because a song is popular, it doesn’t mean that it is actually any good. Thankfully, in the end of 2011, the most unescapable track was also an impressively good one. Even after spending an impressive amount of weeks on the top of the charts in just about every country, We Found Love never got old because of how great it was. As brostep was taking over, Calvin Harris managed to create a dance-ready club anthem with a drop that was as exhilarating as it was appropriate to avoid overstating its welcome. In a way, Rihanna doesn’t have much to do here: she only has eleven lines of lyrics to deliver. Yet there’s no way this song would have been as much of a hit had anyone else proclaimed “we found love in a hooooooopeless plaaaaaace” over the beat.

As we stated above, Umbrella is without a doubt Rihanna’s most important song, her definitive signature hit. In fact, she does such a strong impression on the song that by the time she gets to the second verse, you already forgot that Jay-Z was actually the one who opened the record. An ode to friendship more than an actual love song, Umbrella benefits from a funky and memorable drum beat and a production that gets busier and louder as the song progress. No 00’s party will ever be complete without this track, yet one song managed to sneak past it to claim the #1 spot on our list.

Oh gosh, where should we even start with this one?

Rihanna always had a certain swagger, an aspect on which she tried to capitalize on album #7 Unapologetic to mixed success. Also, she did rap on underrated single Hard alongside Jeezy and had a couple of spiky numbers on Talk That Talk. But never has she been so brutal in a song before.

Bitch Better Have My Money is the ultimate Rihanna moment because she has never sounded so huge, so menacing yet so carefree at the same time. Here she is, commanding attention and earning every last penny of our respect on an extremely risky move of a song.

But what really makes this song worthy of the crown is just how Rihanna that song is. True, when the song came out, it was a shock: Rihanna had never been so fearful on a record before. But really, could any other major pop star release such a balling track? Can you see Katy Perry or Ed Sheeran release such a song? On a number basis alone, it’s easy to compare Rihanna’s chart success to that of Michael Jackson or Madonna. But have they ever released anything as in-your-face, as dangerous, as mad yet as downright fun and liberating as Bitch Better Have My Money? The answer is no. Because of this, this #15 peaking number will be remembered as a classic, iconic Rihanna number more than most of her 30 top 10 singles. It was the reminder no one thought they needed that she played by her own set of rules and that she’s one who calls the shots, shots, shots. Like bra, bra, bra.

As stated above, cutting down to only 10 Rihanna songs is almost impossible, which means we will leave with some honorable mentions that got some points:

-Work (Anti, 2016): Instead of building a dizzying electropop number, the lead single of Anti went back to Rihanna’s roots with its dancehall vibes, foreshadowing the music trends of the charts for the months to come.

-Hard (Rated R, 2009): Rated R was a bold move and Hard alone makes this left turn to darker territories worth it. Over a mix of menacing drones and tentative piano notes, Rihanna holds her ground and manages to sound as fierce as respected rapper Jeezy.

-FourFiveSeconds (Single, 2015): A collaboration between Rihanna, Kanye West and Paul McCartney might raise a few eyebrows on paper, but it was all worth it in the end as the acoustic ballad sheds a light on everyone’s strengths for a soulful and honest number. If this doesn’t become a sing-along classic around campfires, there’s something wrong about your circle of friends.

Other songs getting votes: If It’s Lovin’ That You Want, Shut Up And Drive, Don’t Stop The Music, What’s My Name, You Da One, What Now, Loveeeeeee Song, Needed Me.