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Song of the day – 319: Britney Spears (a mini-review)

Song of the day – 319: Britney Spears (a mini-review)
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Disclaimer: I am not being ironic here.

I haven’t liked Britney’s albums in the past. I really like her new album Femme Fatale. It has energy, a pulse. It’s great driving music: it’s even better music to listen to screaming loud on the bus. The constant use of the vocoder only serves to make her voice super-real. The repetition is pure Fall. I like the way someone’s reinvented her as a slightly cuddlier, less cool elder sister, version of Lady Gaga. I like the directness and simplicity of the lyrics. Lyrics are crap anyway, so let’s reduce them one stage further.

The line in the song below, “Keep on dancing till the world ends” draws on familiar imagery, imagery that I’ve used myself: it doesn’t mean it’s any the less potent if you choose to invest it with meaning. Yes. Let’s keep on dancing till the world ends. What else is there to do? ‘Till The World Ends’ is a great song, the same way the first couple of X-Men film were great films. Not great in the usual way I use the word (challenging, thought-provoking, chilling) but great as in … switch off the outside world, lose yourself to the pulse, mesmeric great. Entertainment that hypnotises through force. For a long time, I didn’t understand music like this because I thought there was something to understand. There isn’t. Not when it’s done well. Enjoying this totally reminds me of being addicted to fruit machines.

There’s a moment on ‘Inside Out’ where she sings “C’mon” and I just wish … I just wish I could sing “C’mon” like that.

The video below, incidentally, is crap. Lady Gaga meets The Day After Tomorrow, with shoulder pads and no menace. It feels weirdly low rent, not in a good way. There’s no fanfare, nothing added to the music.

7 Responses to Song of the day – 319: Britney Spears (a mini-review)

  1. Pingback: Structurally Unsound « Reinspired

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