BRITNEY SPEARS: BRITNEY JEAN (2013)
1) Alien; 2) Work Bitch; 3)
Perfume; 4) It Should Be Easy; 5) Tik Tik Boom; 6) Body Ache; 7) Till It's
Gone; 8) Passenger; 9) Chillin' With You; 10) Don't Cry; 11) Brightest Morning
Star; 12) Hold On Tight; 13) Now That I Found You.
Hitting a new image is one thing, but sustaining
it on a reasonable level is quite another. With will.i.am of The Black Eyed
Peas as executive producer, and a small stormtrooper unit of about 50,000
people credited for additional production work, Britney Jean is the (not) long-awaited sequel to Femme Fatale, once again promoting the
«Princess of Pop» as reigning ruler of the latest and trendiest in electronic
dance groove — even if it means taking cues from K-Pop, which I feel is one of
the uncredited influences, or pretending that this is really a «deeply
personal» record, aiming for your body and
soul at the same time.
Which is exactly what makes Britney Jean, ultimately, a draggy
disappointment after the harmless catchy silliness of the previous album. As
far as I am concerned, it is impossible to take Britney Spears «seriously», be
it fifteen or fifty years into her career (and I shudder to think that the
possibility of a 70-year old Britney Spears coming up with another album
remains open). The issue of whether she has or does not have real feelings to
express does not actually worry me as much as the fact that she is just a bad
actor; her only successful role has been that of a sex machine, and this is
exactly the role that seems to be missing from Britney Jean.
Instead, we get ʽWork Bitchʼ, a relatively
generic EDM tune with a message — a
message that actually makes sense, considering that we do indeed sometimes forget
just how much hard work goes into the success story of a mainstream pop star.
The problem is, those techno synth loops and those ridiculous auto-tuned vocals
aren't exactly the kind of product that would convince me of the necessity of said hard work. It's such a
stupid-sounding groove, and such an expressionless, colorless vocal, that the
conversion efficiency looks close to zero: I'd even take Mick Jagger's ʽLet's
Workʼ over this one any day as far as the message is concerned, and that was
arguably one of the worst songs he'd ever done.
The majority of these tunes, however, deal with
softer feelings: romance, yearning, loneliness, getting rid of loneliness,
jealousy, and whatever else there is in the same line of work — as illustrated
by the second single, the rhythmic power ballad ʽPerfumeʼ that she co-wrote
with Australian songwriting hack Sia Furler (who seems to have collaborated
with about 99% of «Pop Divas» throughout the 2000s). If the wooden intonations
and repetitiveness of the chorus do not get you, maybe the story will — it's
like, there's this guy, and Britney's got a crush on him, and there's this
other chick, and she's kinda jealous, and she wants her to know she's got the right
to this guy without telling it in her face, so she's gonna smear the guy in her
perfume to «mark my territory», and we never get to know how it ends, but ain't
that a thrill? (Spoiler: the guy gets killed, dismembered, buried in the woods,
and his ghost returns from the grave to drive Britney into an asylum... oh
wait, that's the officially unreleased Alice Cooper/Rob Zombie mix).
Neither the singles nor any other track on here
deserves serious comment, I think. There are
occasional vocal and instrumental hooks, with Autotune and mind-bogglingly simplistic
synth loops accounting for most of them, but it all sounds emotionally fake
("I'm blind from the tears that fall like rain" — yeah, right; are
those the same tears that are responsible for Autotune's «disruption» of the
vocals?), verbally inane ("I laughed so much that I cried / I danced so
much till I was tired" — don't they even try to find decent rhymes any more?), and sonically disappointing
(ʽTik Tik Boomʼ could have at least used some realistic ticking and booming
effects, but instead it's just the same old creaky synth tones and a robotic
vocal).
The sequencing is also a drag, as they put a
whole bunch of utmostly lethargic sentimental ballads at the end of the album
— and in the finale, which is supposedly supposed to wrap things up in one big
final ball of heavenly joy (ʽNow That I Found Youʼ), do you know how they convey this joy? That keyboard
riff would have made Mother Goose turn over in her goosey grave, although maybe
some Teletubbies fans would have found it suitable.
Cutting a needlessly long story short, Britney Jean is further proof that (a)
it is impossible for Britney Spears to sustain a credible new image for more
than one record in a row, before it is ruined with futile attempts to add
«soul» to it at the expense of groove quality; (b) it is impossible for Britney
Spears to convince us that she is an actual human being, at least not through her
music; (c) the majority of today's corporate songwriters and producers should
go back to their ploughs, looms, and cowsheds, in order to make the world a
better place; (d) no matter what your
real birthname is, you do not go
generating associations with classic era Michael Jackson by means of your album
titles — I mean, do you really need
any extra reasons for looking stupid, when there's already more than enough for
a decisive thumbs
down here?
Check "Britney Jean" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Britney Jean" (MP3) on Amazon
Look at the picture. The title also refers to Norma Jean.
ReplyDelete"Britney Jean" was actually Spears's childhood nickname, but Starostin's right in that this title definitely suggests an association far out of the album's league.
DeleteI found this quite enjoyable and diverse. 'Work Bitch' is just harmless fun and basically every song has at least one strong hook.
ReplyDelete"...co-wrote with Australian songwriting hack Sia Furler (who seems to have collaborated with about 99% of «Pop Divas» throughout the 2000s)"
ReplyDeleteWell assuming "the 2000s" refers to a decade and not a century or a millennium Sia didn't collaborate with any pop divas in the 2000s. Her first co-writing credit with a pop star was with Christina Aguilera in 2010 and her first featured artist credit was with Flo Rida (ugh) in 2011.
I actually like Sia's music a lot, but I know a lot of people here might not like it, perhaps dismissing it as "Good-girl soul for the Starbucks set" like the PopMatters reviewer did. But even if you don't like her calling her a commercial hack seems to be off the mark, even if she has written songs for a few pop divas (which is hardly a crime anyway, frankly).
Wikipedia: "As a writer, Furler has collaborated with many artists including Christina Aguilera, Eminem, David Guetta, Flo Rida, Afrojack, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Lea Michele, Rihanna, Kylie Minogue, Leona Lewis, Hilltop Hoods, Katy Perry, Kesha, Rita Ora, Britney Spears, Jessie J, Oh Land and Celine Dion."
DeleteIf all of this only began in 2010, it is rather clear that, these days, she prefers to live the life of a commercial hack rather than that of a reputable artist in her own rights. (Come to think of it, she hasn't released a new album since 2010).