Rihanna clearly has no plans on resting anytime soon.

After selling out a 45-date European tour -- including six nights at London’s O2 Arena -- the singer announced she is bringing her “Loud” act to the States this summer, a year after her last arena trek. 

The tour, in support of the singer’s album of the same name, follows last summer’s “Last Girl on Earth Tour,” which drew nearly 500,000 fans in 44 markets.

Produced by Live Nation, the North American summer tour will begin June 4 in Baltimore and stops in Los Angeles on June 28 with a date at Staples Center.

The flame-haired vixen is currently making headlines after her steamy video “S&M” was restricted by YouTube for being too racy, and banned in 11 countries. The sex-fueled song, in which she sings about her fondness of the smell of “sex in the air” and how “chains and whips excite" her while withering in hot pink latex, prompted an airplay ban before 7 p.m. on BBC 1 Radio, unless it’s the severely cleaned up version, “Come On.”

Rihanna is slated to perform at the Grammys on Sunday, where she is up for four trophies, including record of the year for her smash collaboration with Eminem, “Love the Way You Lie.”

Tickets for the tour go on sale to the public on Monday.

Check out the first announced dates after the jump --  more to be announced soon:

Grammy-nominated producers discuss their lives, careers and pop music in general at a roundtable event. 

In 2010, the songs were ubiquitous, even if the music producers who helped create them were less well-known: Lady Gaga's “Bad Romance,” Eminem's “Love the Way You Lie,” Cee Lo Green's “[Forget] You” and B.o.B.'s “Nothin' on You” and “Airplanes” blanketed airwaves and filled earbuds with indelible hooks and melodies. 

But those hooks and melodies took work. Though they may drift out of the car stereo effortlessly, much sweat equity was spent crafting them. No one understands that process better than the music producers, whose job it is to turn an idea into a song. If the timing's right, the song hits. 

In advance of the Grammy Awards, which will be held Feb. 13 in downtown Los Angeles, three of today's hottest hitmakers, RedOne (Lady Gaga, Enrique Iglesias), Alex Da Kid (Eminem, B.o.B.) and Ari Levine of the Smeezingtons (Cee Lo, Bruno Mars) sat down with Times pop music critic Ann Powers for the first Los Angeles Times Music Producers Roundtable, an intimate conversation with artists who helped shape 2010's pop-music landscape.

On Saturday evening in front of a sold-out crowd, Powers led a freewheeling conversation that sought to put into words the magic that turns a bunch of notes on paper (or, these days, a hard drive) into a hit song.

“I think the most important thing is having a vision. Being able to see things before other people can see it,” Alexander Grant — better known as Alex Da Kid — told the audience inside the Grammy Museum's Clive Davis Theater. “Most of the songs you're working on, they won't even come out for three or four months at least, maybe longer, so you have to be able to think what's going to be a hit record in six months.”

Nadir Khayat, the Moroccan-born producer known as RedOne, knows something about foresight. His best known collaborator, and muse, is Lady Gaga.

“I just saw the vision,” he said of Gaga. “I just saw this girl that could be this [huge] thing. We went to the studio and talked about Queen, Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen and I'm thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, she knows music,'” Khayat said. “She was inspired. I've always thought of music as one, it's a universal language. That's what we did with the sound of Lady Gaga.”

 
Reason No. 785 that “there will always be an England”: The U.K. pop singles chart this week is topped by the latest winner of Simon Cowell’s hit show “The X Factor,” coming to U.S.  TV screens soon. But on his way to No. 1 with his single “When We Collide,” newly crowned pop star Matt Cardle got a surprise challenge from a nearly 50-year-old U.S. surf-rock classic.

The Trashmen’s “Surfin’ Bird’’ -- the one boasting the Shakespearean refrain, “Bird, bird, bird, the bird is the word” -- debuted at No 3, right behind Cardle and the No. 2 single, Rihanna’s “What’s My Name,” and ahead of the Black Eyed Peas’ “The Time (Dirty Bit),” last week’s No. 1 place holder.

“Every Christmas, the No. 1 single has been by the person from that show,” said Tim Livingston, director of sales and publicisty for Sundazed Music, the New York-based reissue specialty label that has the rights to “Surfin’ Bird” in the U.S. “Evidently, a bunch of people over there got fed up with that, and last year they had a grass-roots campaign to try to get Rage Against the Machine to No. 1.”

It worked: Rage’s 1992 song “Killing in the Name” outsold 2009 “X Factor” winner Joe McElderry’s “The Climb” and wrested the No. 1 slot from Cowell’s talent-contest victor during Christmas week.

The first track on Rihanna’s strobe-thumping new album “Loud” is called “S&M.” Decades after Madonna made a pop-chart fetish of leather, whips and ball gags, this isn’t especially salacious. But it’s quite a spit-take of a title from a pop singer whose last album, “Rated R,” was a harrowing travelogue through the bleak corners of domestic violence. “Loud” is a rave-ready follow-up to that seething, gothic revenge tale, both a considered mission to reclaim Rihanna’s optimism and a hasty move to put tabloid nastiness behind her and get back on the charts.

“Loud” is, at points, a powerful reminder of Rihanna’s skills before the 2009 Grammys incident changed how we read her songs. The minor-key moments are still her best: “Only Girl (In the World)” revives the chilly trance of “Disturbia” with a newly vigorous vocal performance. “I want to make you beg for it, then I’ll make you swallow your pride,” she sings, adding psychosexual venom to an otherwise orthodox dance floor plea. “What’s My Name” has a disarming double-entendre chorus — a line like “Hey boy, I really want to see if you can go downtown with a girl like me” has come-hither undertones, but you can also imagine Rihanna wanting something as exotic as dinner and a movie out on the arm of a good guy. “Man Down” reasserts her Caribbean lilt with a swaggering murder ballad that one can’t help but hear as a warning shot across the radio dial to Chris Brown’s “Deuces.”

But cuts such as “Cheers (Drink to That) and “Raining Men,” as foamy and spunky as they may be, are such a dogleg turn from “Rated R” that they come off as little more than image recalibration. That’s her prerogative as an artist, and it’s certainly earned. But it underscores the one thing we’ve always wondered about Rihanna — what is she really feeling?

—August Brown

Rihanna
“Loud”
Def Jam
Three stars (Out of four)

Rihanna’s style has always been day and night. While her last album, “Rated R,” explored her darker side, her upcoming opus, “Loud,” is all about her fire-engine red hair and colorful outfits. The singer plans on showing the two looks side-by-side in an interactive music experience for Dorito-eating fans.

The snack manufacturer announced today that it is debuting a special single from the chart-topper titled “Who's That Chick?”

In September, the video, thought to be a track from her new album, leaked online.

Dressed in a vibrant blue, yellow and orange frilly dress and pink stockings, the singer is seen romping around in a circus tent that she's transformed into a club -– equipped with colorful skulls, trapezes and stuffed animals.

As part of the partnership with Doritos' special Late Night edition of chips, Rihanna will offer two versions -- day and night -- of the David Guetta-produced track. The video making the rounds for the last month is a taste of the day version of the clip.

The video is designed to put the control in the hands of the viewer, and fans will be able to explore many different, um angles, of the singer by pointing a graphic symbol located on the back of specially marked bags at a personal Web cam when logged onto the Doritos Late Night site.

Fans can then personalize the video by the way they hold and move the bag, offering a new experience each time.

"I'm really excited about 'Who's That Chick?' and wanted to find a fresh and unique way to share it with my fans," the singer said in a statement. "When I saw how cool the augmented reality performance Doritos created was, I knew this was it. This was the way I wanted to make 'Who's That Chick?' available to the world, and I can't wait to see how my fans get engaged in this innovative experience."

The snack brand previously offered music fans this type of experience last year by showcasing a live-action video within a 3-D, interactive environment through performances by blink-182 and Big Boi.

"Who's That Chick?" is slated to be featured on Guetta's upcoming album, “One More Love,” out Nov. 29, and will reportedly serve as a bonus track on Rihanna’s forthcoming album, “Loud,” due Nov. 16.

Check out a side-by-side comparison of the clip below.

-- Gerrick D. Kennedy

twitter.com/gerrickkennedy

Photo: Rihanna as seen in her Doritos ad. Credit: Doritos.

Although we can’t necessarily say Rihanna is back, since she didn't go anywhere -- she is making a comeback of sorts.

The self-proclaimed "good girl gone bad" is back to her dance roots on her new single, “Only Girl (In the World),” which she debuted Tuesday on Ryan Seacrest's morning radio show.

After taking a more macabre approach to her fourth disc, “Rated R,” she's gone in a decidedly more “sassy, fun, flirty [and] energetic” direction on her fifth disc, “Loud.”

“Get loud, everybody. Get crazy. Get excited. 'Cause I'm pumped. I'm just gonna be me,” she told fansite RihannaDaily.com during a live chat.

“I’m done recording the whole album ... I made sure not to let you down with my music! You guys are always defending me, so now you've got some great songs to justify it. I didn't want to go backward and remake [2007's] ‘Good Girl Gone Bad.’ I wanted the next step in the evolution of Rihanna, and it's perfect for us.”

Looks like Rihanna wasn’t kidding when she proclaimed her "reign just won't let up” on the swagger-touting single “Hard.”

Though the wheels are still spinning on her tour in support of her eight-month-old fourth disc, “Rated R,” Rihanna already has her sights set on her next project -- and reigning the charts again (she currently holds the No. 1 spot thanks to "Love the Way You Lie," a collaboration with Eminem.)

Confirming months of online speculation, the UK’s Big Top 40 has spilled the beans on a new single, titled “Only Girl,” which is set to premiere Tuesday.

“Get ready for dancey rather than dark,” the station tweeted about the single.

When we caught up with one of Rihanna’s main songwriters, Makeba Riddick (she penned Rihanna’s last hit, “Rude Boy”), earlier this summer, she said she was working with the chart-topper but was tight-lipped about the sound and direction of the new project.

“She’s the type of artist that, she’s on the road a lot and she’ll have an entourage that’s like family. It’s really fun, but it’s a lot of work,” Riddick later said of her frequent collaborations with Rihanna (the two have worked together on all four of Rihanna's albums). “Her schedule, my schedule, photo shoots and all of that -- and trying to meet the deadlines from the label.”

Rihanna's “Last Girl on Earth” trek wraps its North American leg Saturday before picking back up in Australia in February.

-- Gerrick D. Kennedy
twitter.com/GerrickKennedy

Photo: Rihanna performs next to a junkyard car at Staples Center on July 21 during her "Last Girl on Earth Tour." Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times.

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Her dark and thrilling new show takes on difficult topics, even in her lighter songs.

For the couture-clad Amazons in today's pop ingénue brigade, self-presentation is a battle game of flirtation and threat. Never before has a group of young women so openly explored the darker side of the freedom that women's liberation has brought. Most observers credit Lady Gaga for bringing difficult themes such as self-alienation and violence against women to light, but Rihanna, who brought her first headlining tour to Staples Center Wednesday night, is right there with her on the front lines.

“Last Girl on Earth,” the title of her show, lays out the thematic territory Rihanna travels in her music. Though she started as a carefully controlled teen pop star, by her second album, “A Girl Like Me,” she'd begun exploring the more chaotic side of emotion. Her 2006 ballad “Unfaithful,” which she presented Tuesday as a torchy number sung in a nightclub that might be in Hell, imagines infidelity as a form of murder. She would continue to elaborate on these imaginings of love as a dangerous endeavor in songs such as “Shut Up and Drive” and “Hate That I Love You”; even her biggest hit, the tender “Umbrella,” unfolds in sad rhythms, its lyrics expressing pain as well as faithfulness.

So Rihanna and her collaborators had set the stage for this tour's bombardment of violent imagery — floating machine guns, a hot pink tank, a trashed car, menacing bird demons on stilts — long before her then-boyfriend Chris Brown assaulted her after a party in February 2009, forcing an all-too-real biographical detail on the already dark psychic realm she was exploring in her music. She responded artistically with “Rated R,” a brave album that laid out the sticky web of emotion an abused woman feels. “Last Girl on Earth” expands on this subject by presenting itself as Rihanna's dream world, which turns out to be a very troubling place.

Troubling, but undeniably exciting. Working with the English fine artist Simon Henwood, who directed Kanye West's similarly disconcerting video for “Love Lockdown” (and whose partner is the singer Róisín Murphy, often cited as a source of both Gaga and Rihanna's outrageous fashions), Rihanna has devised an entertainment far more in touch with the unpredictable nature of the subconscious than, say, certain Hollywood movies treading similar ground.

Framed by films that use somewhat clunky language (“This is a dream,” the supertitles blandly announce) and creepy imagery that does seem related to Gaga's Monster Ball screen images, the show placed Rihanna within gothic fantasy landscapes where she delivered her songs in a gutsy, lonely wail.

The crowd at Rihanna's first-ever headlining show in Los Angeles, at Staples Center on Wednesday night, was already up and shouting. But the minute Rihanna began singing the hook from "Love the Way You Lie," the din began to build to a rolling boil. Then the somewhat expected happened: Eminem, her duet partner on that No. 1 song, emerged and started spitting out his emotional verses from the song. The response from the audience was so loud, you might have thought it was June 17 and Kobe, Pau and Ron had just nabbed victory again.

Eminem's emergence wasn't shocking, since he and Rihanna were filming a video in town earlier in the day. It added an element of spontaneity to Rihanna's visually stunning, high-concept concert. With no particular set piece on which to rely -- no pink tank, no trashed car, none of the many other props that populated the nightmarish dream world of the "Last Girl on Earth" tour -- the two performers relied on what made the single so memorable: their vocal rapport.

Adopting a stern stance, Eminem unfurled his emotional verses about a violent relationship, while Rihanna countered with the song's soft, mournful chorus. The pair circled each other on the stage extension that put Rihanna out in the crowd for much of the show. They didn't direct their words at each other. Their disconnection may have been the result of nerves -- Eminem and Rihanna have only performed the song live once before -- but it actually worked for this song, which, after all, is about two lovers who have grown perilously incompatible.

Most impressive, perhaps, was Eminem's effect on the fans, who went completely bonkers when he entered. The great success of his new album, "Recovery," already should have silenced anyone doubting whether Em could make a lasting comeback after his struggles with addiction. The frenzy that he can still ignite, even at another chart-topper's show, testifies to his status as a classic-variety superstar. As for giving back, he didn't pander; he just did what he does best -- rap -- and departed.

More on Rihanna's show, and on opener Kesha, in a full review later Thursday.

-- Ann Powers

Photo: Rihanna, on her Last Girl on Earth tour, performs at L.A.'s Staples Center on Wednesday. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

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Makeba Riddick walks into Takami Sushi & Robata Restaurant in downtown Los Angeles every bit as stunning as any diva, with vibrant pink lipstick, glittering earrings, heels that reach the high heavens and luscious locks.

To the wait staff she’s just another glamizon getting lunch, but if they dialed the radio from the ambient soundscapes to a Top 40 channel they’d hear one of the scores of hits the 31-year-old has penned for divas like Rihanna, Beyonce, Mariah Carey and Toni Braxton.

This particular day Riddick is apologetic for running a tad late, though only by a few minutes. She had to fit in a vocal session with Rihanna -- who was overseas on tour. Still fresh off her fifth No. 1 single -- she penned the singer’s current hit, “Rude Boy” -- Riddick's happy to honor the request from the singer who is already hard at work crafting her next album. 

Riddick is dedicated to her work -- she once hopped on a flight to Milan after just returning to New York from a London trip to work with the superstar. The result, “Live Your Life,” a collaboration with rapper T.I., ended up being a smash.

“She’s the type of artist that, she’s on the road a lot and she’ll have an entourage that’s like family. It’s really fun, but it’s a lot of work,” Riddick later says of her frequent collaborations with Rihanna (the two have worked together on all four of Rihanna's albums). “Her schedule, my schedule, photo shoots and all of that -- and trying to meet the deadlines from the label.” 

Ever since Kanye West looped Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," the hip-hop zeitgeist has tilted toward techno. Skinny-jeaned stars Wiz Khalifa and Kid Cudi have rapped over Alice Deejay and Robert Miles, while Power 106 keeps house DJ David Guetta in heavy rotation.

Admirably, Eminem has always ignored evanescent trends. Despite an over-reliance on gross-out gags and tired pop culture riffs, his last album, "Relapse," further plumbed the weird depths of his psyche. Yet on his sixth album, "Recovery," he ushers in the "Night at the Roxbury" era, sampling Haddaway's "What Is Love," the Eurodance ballad mocked in the "Saturday Night Live" skits and spinoff movie. The song ("No Love") isn't as awful as it is illustrative of the pitfalls facing Marshall Mathers. In its quest for six-digit download numbers, the industry has reduced Eminem, Lil Wayne and highly gifted producer Just Blaze to plundering grooves for the silk-shirt and silver-suited set.

"Recovery" is thwarted by similarly ill-fitting decisions. Beats from his longtime collaborators the Bass Brothers and Dr. Dre are largely nonexistent save for the latter's co-production on "So Bad." In their stead are anthemic, hackneyed hooks and big-budget producers du jour (Boi-1Da, Jim Jonsin, DJ Khalil) at their most monochromatic and monotonous. Cameos from Pink ("Won't Back Down") and Rihanna ("Love the Way You Lie") further exacerbate the disconnect from the qualities that made Eminem a star: wariness of cultural cliché, knack for storytelling and conflict, and a caustic wit. Thematically, Eminem eschews the offbeat for the inspirational, with the 12-step single "Not Afraid" serving as a manifesto for his newfound sobriety. The central salvation is Mather's enduring virtuosity. Throughout "Recovery," he weaves dazzling internal patterns and clever word play.

But ultimately, until Eminem is able to restore the memory of what got him to the top in the first place, full recovery is impossible.

-- Jeff Weiss

Eminem
"Recovery"
Interscope/Aftermath
Two and a half stars (Out of four)

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Over the years, tour riders have become almost as reliable a barometer of pop musical greatness as album sales. And you can tell a lot about an act --  how hard it plans to party, primp or act like a prima donna -- by what contractual demands the artist  makes on its tour promoter.

In the early ‘80s, you had Van Halen legendarily mandating that all brown M&Ms be removed from backstage candy bowls lest rock ‘n roll mayhem ensue. Busta Rhymes is known to have contractually insisted upon Moët & Chandon Champagne, a bucket of fried chicken and an ample supply of condoms in his dressing room. And in 2008, the Foo Fighters pushed the rider envelope by threatening to “CALL OUT A CATERING JIHAD” if their demand for red plastic Solo cups went unmet.

Now, into the annals of great tour riders, we must welcome the terms laid out by Rihanna for her “Last Girl on Earth” 2010 world tour, scheduled to begin in Auburn, Wash., in July.

Sure, upon first reading, the Barbados-born “Good Girl Gone Bad” may come off as a diva by insisting upon a dressing room environment that includes Archipelago Black Forest candles (at $37.50 apiece) and the abolition of all fluorescent lighting, as well certain hypochondriac tendencies, necessitating a “SPOTLESS” bathroom with toilet given a “DEEP CLEAN.”

But even with the rider’s Arbitrary Capitalizations (and the strange pride of place it gives animal prints), viewed a another way, the contract can be seen as a declaration of purpose and assertion of Rihanna’s cultural import.

The artist born Robyn Fenty is extremely particular about -- and, apparently, minutely involved in – what materials her dressing room love seats are upholstered, what kind of flowers should be strewn about the place (as well as precisely how defenestrated said plant life should be), even the dressing room’s “icy blue” color scheme.