Britney Spears - Blackout

That's not what I wanted clarity on. I really do love this album though.

Ha ha RTC your last post is pretty much why I'm gonna campaign to get "Is It You" as high up on the Pfork end of year singles chart as possible.

can you try understanding again. i want to help you but don't.

uhhm i am just saying that there's "woo woo robot pop" and "wah wah hero/sad brit" impulses mingling as you listen to it and that it's hard to get across satisfactorily and bah damn thanks for making me look facile now

no problem : )

i'm just being honest when i say what draws me to this collection of songs first and foremost is the nature of the production and the context it works within.

as far as songcraft goes, i much prefer the Feist album and a number of others, but Blackout is more 'interesting' or exciting than most if not all of those because of this crucial context and mythos surrounding it and the valuation put on that.

I don't think you really get a clear sense of the "sad brit" angle from the music itself, which is probably why nearly everyone who approaches this album from that angle ends up saying "there's not enough Britney in it" even though she's as front-and-centre as she's ever been. It is interesting through that she chose not to do an "Everytime" style track this time around.

Conversely, because she is so front-and-centre if people did run with the whole anonymous robo-diva line it would seem pretty off-the-mark - we know her voice too well for that. At the same time the production is very impressive in some places. Perhaps the closest thing to a successful version of this take is to note that Britney's appeal has always at least partially been a kind of masochistic intermingling of her vocals with monstrously monolithic production - no less true of "Baby One More Time" than "Gimme More" etc. But this works precisely because she is neither robotic nor anonymous.

(I've never really believed in anonymous robo-divas anyway - I'm not sure which singer fits the description. R&B especially practically has a cult of vocal personality going on. Maybe Keri Hilson's backing vocals fit this description?)

Why do you say "masochistic" when describing this intermingling, Tim?

i'm just being honest when i say what draws me to this collection of songs first and foremost is the nature of the production and the context it works within.

i got no problem with this! this, the grubby coin of the poptimist realm! just wish more people set their stall out before drawing for the slogans is all.

This is good. The album is built with fragments. You get a Britney yowl and then her voice is violently displaced, detuned, disfigured. The production is allowed to be brash in a way that few big pop productions are. I want to clarify that what I mean by that is it is brash in how it is allowed to be so reckless with her voice, Danja either has supreme confidence in the particulars of Britney's voice (I never realised quite how familiar the nuances of her phrasing were until hearing this) or else a complete disregard for making an album about/for/with Britney.

Compare it to the DFA demo ("Get it" or whatever). That track is so performative, Tim goldsworthy lets her voice fill the centre of the song and get surrounded by all the various elements, it sounds like the air from her breathing is setting off the cowbells. She is allowed to give a vocal performance in a way she rarely has ("Everytime" and "Breathe on Me" are exceptions)

I can't believe I forgot to list Get Naked above. The creepy voice that introduces it. Also when she sings "whatti gotta do to getchoo to leave the party?" it is quite brilliant for reasons I can't quite figure out.

I don't really know where I'd set my stall first. I am a massive Britney Spears fan though.

I mean, I was probably biased as this was my most anticipated album like ever. Especially since In Da Zone was her best since her debut imho and I loved the singles from her Best Of.

"Why do you say "masochistic" when describing this intermingling, Tim?"

ha ha I guess ever since I read a review of "Baby One More Time" which compared the sharp inhalations and exhalations which make up part of the rhythm to some sort of bondage play, I've always made the link between Britney's harder tunes and rough sex.

Ha ha RTC your last post is pretty much why I'm gonna campaign to get "Is It You" as high up on the Pfork end of year singles chart as possible.

-- Tim F, Monday, 26 November 2007 22:40 (17 minutes ago) Link

YESSSSSSS

(It's number 5 on my Idolator ballot)

"i know right?" does the para on 'piece of me' in ewing's rvw not round out yr dualism a bit?

i like this voice crit stuff! can't say i ever thought about it too much before but it feels like it ought to be weighty. would be nice to think that it wasn't all just symptomatic of the goodgirlgonebad perv angle she's always had though, but i'm not so sure

also as hungry as i am for anything that slightly punctures the baffling puffed-up keri hilson gravy train, i think a robo angle on her is more to do with how little she's done so far in her career; the nature of her outside clutch writer credits suggest it'll be impossible for her to sing her own stuff that way. also in pictures she does seem enticingly diffident!

the french-sung version of 'the way i are' grates in quite robotic fashion.

lemme reread it.

oh plz dudes, there are harder critpop challenges than cassie to overcome. though i don't doubt there'll be enough disinterest to make it feel like it's not.

nb. i am not about to name a harder challenge

nb2. cough, did always like that big james blunt song that year

ps. has poptimist kru caught the (DREADFUL) usher noize single yet? mmmmm i can almost taste the bile of the future rising up

ooh link me to 'the way i frog'!

did people notice btw that timbahandz was on top of the russian charts for like a month with some random russian dude with a random russian song. they are pimping all over the world.

Actually Robyn is fantastic in that song. All I remembered from that song was the line about "piece of meat". It just grabbed me in a way that made me forget everything else.

It is fair to say that this is an album that exists very much in its context. That it is an album about britney where the most personal sounding song contains no co-write credit, she seems to be doing no promotion or even doing up her website adds to the disconnection that is so often focused on in most discourse about it.

the way i hee-hoh hee-hoh

The challenge with Cassie is more that she'll only ever get loved for stuff like "Me & You". It also helps that there wasn't a better song than "Is It You" this year.

Conversely "You're Beautiful" would be worth getting behind if it was good - I don't mind "1973" though, it appeals to my soft-rock side.

someone stole my Paul Young cassingles goddammit now im nothin :((((

The challenge with Cassie is more that she'll only ever get loved for stuff like "Me & You". It also helps that there wasn't a better song than "Is It You" this year.

Exactly. Last year, it felt like people were treating Cassie as if she were a one hit wonder the minute "Me & You" hit. The live performances/dirty video didn't help.

And even though "Long Way 2 Go" was better than most singles on radio last year, it didn't do very well (charted in the 80s, i think?). So in regards to a comeback, everything seems stacked against her.

But this year, she released four amazing tracks, and no one really seems to be paying attention. And apart from a few blog mentions, no one seemed to react to the (false) rumor that Bad Boy dropped her.

A successful single for her now seems like...I don't know, Blu Cantrell making a comeback. Maybe I'm wrong (I've become a bit obsessed recently...I search "Cassie sophomore album" once a week)

And critical acceptance seems more unlikely (like Paula DeAnda getting votes on Pazz & Jop). Though I'm worried that a Pitchfork run this year would be less successful than one run next year (when it's officially released)

fuck, that was long-winded and stupid

Also, though, the only R&B that gets mainstream critical love is stuff like "Me & U" ("it's so cold!!!"), whereas "Is It You" is just too sweet and winsome.

4give me for saying so, but tape store's swansong has something of the patented self-mythologizing teenpop defence system® about it. obv i sympathise with the urge to not see her get totally ignored, and 'is it you' is as terrific as has been said, but it does seems slightly counterintuitive to be expecting a more robust critical (and cough cough popular) framework around her than there already is; moreover, is there not something laissez-faire and disposable that we secretly buy into with her in the first place? something a little... of the boutique, critically? (wasn't it kinda interesting how a lot of people, inc me, went for a nu-freestyle angle with 'me & u' - did anything audible in the song actually merit that? not really!) seriously, i am not trying to ride you guys on some "perfect pop" scorn tip but nor am i sure of quite what i want cassie to be achieving tbh.

(also not to be completely dreary but 'me & u' was a breakaway smash hit and 'is it you' was... what? i think on some soundtrack in the end? has to be said)

The song is contagiously hot and has the type of ominous beat that makes you take notice wherever you are. I was taking out the bins last night so that the bin men could collect them the following morning and someone drove past my house with Me & U at full blast. As the car sped away at a few good yards through the cool summer night, you could still hear the song very transparently as it faded away into the distance.

<3

best and truest review ever, by toyah of toyah's world

I'm sure the opening comment of the Britney album has been played to death critically, but it's taken on a really funky performative quality in my real life social groups. We'll now say hello to each other by saying 'It's Britney, bitch,' like as an introduction. This relates someway to the impersonal nature of the album - ie: We'd never quote an earlier Britney album in such an adoptive manner. Quoting Hit Me Baby One More was always an evocation of Britney. This seems completely disembodied - freed from her persona. Maybe that's what people mean by "this doesn't sound like Britney" even though, as has been mentioned here, she is VERY front and center. It's, gasp, transcendent.

good point, but i disagree that it's "freed from her persona" - if anything it's opened up her persona for other people to take on, if that makes sense. particularly at the moments where the vox have been fucked with, too. this album was on at a houseparty i went to and it turned into a right old quote-athon from start to finish (granted i was with a bunch of very camp folk at the time but still)

Not to mention that she's self-referential in a way I'm more used to with hip-hop artists than Britney.

i really like this album but i'm not ready for it yet. i'm just not in a place wher ei want to listen to this kind of music. but when i get there i'm sure to immerse myself in this.

I've never heard "Is It You," but I really like "Sometimes."

This thread is the reason I listened to Me&U like fifteen times today.

not to get en gang w u creeps but the crazier she gets the doper her music will be she is the frank sinatra of my hermaphrodidic generation as we revert to the follies of the 80's now

she needs to get smackt

i'd still rather bang uffie

I figure the 80's will go out of fashion in like five minutes now, so um... not really. I mean, it's bee ages surely people are sick of it by now

THE RISE OF THE CALIPHATE CANNOT BE STOPPED

"radar" is really great.

People who like this album should really check out Ashley Tisdale's Headstrong. It's quite similar, only with slightly less look-at-me production and slightly better singing/songs.

But Tim, what if we're unreasonably attracted to the look-at-me production? (Personally, I couldn't stand Headstrong. I really wanted to like it, cause I like Tisdale, but it was awful.)

Oh i'm not saying Headstrong is necessarily the better album (although clearly I like it more than you!). Britney really makes the limited singing/songwriting work for her here.

I like the look at me production.

Okay so obviously me saying "look-at-me" is being taken as a value judgment. It's a good thing, and Britney's album is better than Ashley's. If anything, the better singing/songwriting makes Headstrong seem more like a generic pop album. All I meant was that the best stuff on Headstrong (e.g. "So Much For You", "Be Good To Me") sounds like what Blackout might sound like if Britney was still trying to make typically shiny pop songs.

well i think the fact that the album has faired so poorly on the charts must be partly because the 80s thing isn't really grabbing everyone's attention right now. that might be me just BSing -- but this definitely sounds 80s to me in parts.

Video previews of 'Piece of Me' suggests she still doesn't know the words.

Album of the year!

i should put this on tonight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89oS4SN4mNg