Welcome back, Rihanna! We’ve missed you. Sure, we know youve been at the top of the chart for the past several weeks with Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie,” and that it’s been only a year since the release of “Rated R,” but that album seems a little like a major detour and now you're back on the super highway.

Today,  Rihanna released “Only Girl (In the World),” the first single to her new album, “Loud,” which comes out Nov. 19.  The song is the perfect blend between the edginess of the songs from “Rated R” and her earlier, frothy tunes.

In the upbeat dance tune (which went to radio and clubs simultaneously), Ri-Ri asks her man to make her feel like she’s the only girl in the world, but there’s no doubt by the edge in her voice that she’s not sticking around if he’s not up to the task.  You go, girl. (On a side note, doesn’t the song sound a little like Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” in terms of tempo?)

On “Rated R,”  Rihanna seemed to be doing two things: working out her demons from her horrible experience with convicted felon Chris Brown and trying to show us that she’s a grown up with its over-sexualized, hardcore messages.  “Rude Boy” was a radio success, but the album was too insular, too off-putting for fans who loved her mainly for songs like “S.O.S.,” “Umbrella,”  or “Don’t Stop the Music” (although not such a leap from tunes like “Disturbia.”

Whether it’s her desire to swing the pendulum back a little or her record company’s, it looks like we’ve go the fun Rihanna back. “Loud,”  whose producers include Stargate, will arrive Nov. 16 and is, according to the label,  is “a return to the uptempo dance grooves of her earlier records.”

Rihanna’s label is spending all day taking down copies of “Only Girl” cropping up on the youtube as if they’re playing whack-o-mole. Here’s a link to hear the song on KISS-FM, which premiered it this morning. If we can find an embed, we’ll add that later. (On KISS’s home page, the Rihanna single will come up as one of the top stories).