RIHANNA

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Good Girl Gone Bad

(Def Jam)

Rihanna’s new CD is “Good Girl Gone Bad,” although that title seems to overstate her evolution: She has always presented herself as a playful flirt. But that’s no reason not to take her seriously. This is her third album in three years, and though it doesn’t arrive in shops until tomorrow, its success seems a foregone conclusion. Last week the album’s first single, a space-age hip-pop song called “Umbrella,” zoomed to the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart; it’s the first serious contender for Song of the Summer.

In 2005 Rihanna was a 17-year-old Barbadian with a hit single — the dancehall reggae confection “Pon de Replay” — that seemed like a fluke. Apparently not: Others have followed, including the crisp dance track “SOS” and the ballad “Unfaithful,” a singularly cheerful evocation of romantic despair. And “Good Girl Gone Bad” should secure her place on pop music’s A-list. She has an instantly recognizable voice (giddy enough for teen-pop, plaintive enough for R&B), great taste in beats and a contract with CoverGirl. What else does she need?

This album begins with a rush of dance tracks. In “Don’t Stop the Music,” produced by StarGate, she finds the exuberance in a rather severe techno beat; “Push Up on Me” gives Lionel Richie’s “Running With the Night” a frenetic, club-friendly makeover. This CD sounds as if it were scientifically engineered to deliver hits: There’s a breezy duet with Ne-Yo, “Hate That I Love You,” and three tracks produced by Timbaland, including one on which Justin Timberlake sings backup.

The most puzzling moment is “Question Existing,” a moody (though not unpleasant) electronic soundscape near the end, but maybe Rihanna figured fans would spend so much time rewinding that they’d never hear it. KELEFA SANNEH

MARILYN MANSON

“Eat Me, Drink Me”

(Interscope)

Once Marilyn Manson was the Antichrist superstar, the scourge of the moralistic, a proud magnet for controversy. Now, years later, he’s a lovesick ghoul. “I kill myself in small amounts/in each relationship it’s not/about love/Just another funeral,” he sings in “They Said That Hell’s Not Hot.” It’s one of the many songs on “Eat Me, Drink Me” that start out as rock dirges and build melodramatically from there. The songs were written, produced and performed with Tim Skold, the only other musician on the album. Despite some spooky background noises, the music leans toward a glam-gone-grim style, reverting to a sound that predates Marilyn Manson’s past industrial-rock stomps.

Just because he’s singing about love doesn’t mean Marilyn Manson has turned into a nice guy. The closer he wants to get, the creepier he becomes. As a goth in good standing, he can’t envision love without thinking about death. When a girl blows him a kiss in “Just a Car Crash Away,” he “can already feel her worms eating my spine.” He takes a particular delight in mutilation, for himself and others: “She’ll never cover up what we did in a dress,” he gloats in “Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides That Hand),” the album’s snappiest song.

He must miss his days as a scourge. “The legends get older/But I stay the same/as long as you have less to say,” he sneers. But actually, no one is angling for his old job, since it has been utterly diffused. Amid extreme Internet porn, hi-res videogame violence and real-world war, Marilyn Manson has become just another public deviant. JON PARELES

DADDY YANKEE

“El Cartel: The Big Boss”

(El Cartel/Interscope)

The chorus of Daddy Yankee’s new single for American radio is “Make an impacto,” a bilingual slogan that sums up his goal on “El Cartel: The Big Boss.” Reaching the pop mainstream has become the goal of reggaetón, the Puerto Rican rap-and-reggae hybrid. It has spread across the Americas by emulating dancehall and gangsta rap: flaunting street roots while aiming for a mass audience.

Yet the language barrier is still reggaetón’s glass ceiling. Despite Daddy Yankee’s major crossover hit in 2004, “Gasolina,” and a brief flurry of hip-hop with reggaetón connections, mainstream American pop hasn’t embraced songs in Spanish.

Daddy Yankee, who was born Ramón Ayala, has prospered anyway. Like a Puerto Rican Jay-Z, he runs a label, El Cartel, and has his own sportswear line; he’s also a syndicated radio host. His new album chases crossover again while insistently touching its Latin bases; offering something for everybody, it stretches for 21 tracks and 78 minutes. It has guest stars — Fergie on the remix of “Impacto” (there’s also an all-Spanish version), Will.i.am, Akon — and assorted producers from hip-hop and reggaetón.