Rihanna’s Super Bowl halftime show was her first performance in almost seven years. The performance lacked spectacularity to some, but those who would consider themselves to be fans of Rihanna on a regular day-to-day basis seem to disagree.

The 13-minute show included 12 of her most popular songs, including “Rude Boy,” “Umbrella,” “Diamonds” and “Work.” Most Rihanna listeners could agree that she chose songs that were both appropriate for the setting and represented five of her eight albums and included three of her best features. 

“It’s gonna be a celebration of my catalog in the best way that we could have put it together,” Rihanna said in an interview with Billboard.

I would agree that her setlist maximized her entire discography in the time she was allotted. The only gripe I have is that “Pon de Replay” was not performed, a track that I would have expected in a performance of her greatest hits.

 “There were probably about 39 versions of the setlist right now. We’re on our 39th,” Rihanna said. “Every little change counts, whether I want a guitar cut out, something muted, something added or just put in a whole new song, or take out a whole song.”

Apart from her setlist, which most people, Rihanna listeners or not, thought was well-created, some critics said that the entire show lacked energy and this could’ve been attributed to Rihanna’s lack of dancing.

However, I would like to excuse Rihanna for her simplistic choreography on account that she is seven months pregnant. Considering the fact that she is in her third trimester of her second pregnancy within two years, the choreography that she did pull off was more than enough for me. Her backup dancers picked up the slack, especially during the transition to “Rude Boy,” when the dancers created a waterfall of small-group hiphop dance breaks.

All in all, Rihanna created a fantastic arrangement, her backup dancers were amazing and she kept completely cool and collected despite this being her first performance in seven years—I was impressed.