Britney Spears: Glory

BRITNEY SPEARS: GLORY (2016)

1) Invitation; 2) Make Me...; 3) Private Show; 4) Man On The Moon; 5) Just Luv Me; 6) Clumsy; 7) Do You Wanna Come Over?; 8) Slumber Party; 9) Just Like Me; 10) Love Me Down; 11) Hard To Forget Ya; 12) What You Need; 13*) Better; 14*) Change Your Mind (No Seas Cortés); 15*) Liar; 16*) If I'm Dancing; 17*) Coupure Electrique.

Three times have I sat through this record, and three times have I felt a strong pulling to take a shower immediately afterwards, because sitting out there in a pool of even your own figurative vomit is quite a schizophrenic feeling. But what could I do? Britney Jean "Princess Of Pop" Spears' Glory, her ninth overall studio LP, is not simply the worst record of her career so far — it is, quite literally, one of the worst albums I have intentionally chosen to sit through in the past... ah, heck, ever. And I am not saying that it is unique in its badness: it is simply part of a world where I very, very rarely venture. It may be useful to witness that world occasionally — like it may be instructive for anyone dwelling in a well-to-do quarter of the big city to take an occasio­nal detour to the slums, just to make sure that they actually exist — but then again, even a slum may have something noble and righteous about it, since poverty is not a crime. Listening to Glory, on the other hand, is more like taking a detour into the cheapest, trashiest whorehouse there is, where getting hooked up on heroin and catching a couple VDs is more like an obligatory course of action than an unfortunate side effect.

Where do I even begin? Well, maybe just to get this out of the way, this is not the most boring or even the most musically generic set of electropop tunes released in the history of humanity. Whatever the odds, Britney Spears still has not been stripped of the «Princess of Pop» label by the music industry, and the music industry at least has the good sense to hire taboons of corporate songwriters who can supply their victim with a decent enough amount of earworms. You take the required three listens and, sure enough, you glance back at the song titles and you can remember how many of them go, along with some of the beats. Nor could you objectively accuse the arran­gers and producers of not doing anything with the dance grooves once they've been established: what separates high-class stinky trash from low-class stinky trash is that the former has had money, time, energy, creativity and sometimes even a spoonful of talent invested in it. (The number of special effects applied to Britney's vocals alone deserves an objective mention).

The (very relative) saving grace of Femme Fatale was that these earworms happened to be amplified by a general «high-energy» approach to the project. Many of the songs had an anthemic feel to them — fast, loud, «empowered», and this helped overlook their essential fakeness and concentrate on their hooks. With Glory, the whole thing is different: it has more of a pseudo-chamber feel, maybe even of a «pseudo-bedroom» feel, if you know what I mean, and instead of giving us Britney Spears as an unstoppable tornado of externalized sexuality, it is more of a ʽPri­vate Showʼ, to use one of the titles as an appropriate metaphor. This is where you are invited to take a little bo-peep. Just send them kids off to school, and we'll get to work right away.

In the process, the 34-year old Princess of Pop will first send you out an ʽInvitationʼ, politely inquiring ʽDo You Wanna Come Over?ʼ for a ʽSlumber Partyʼ, as she wants to "take it back to my room" because she "just wants you to make me move... back and forth, like this was all ten­nis" (ʽMove Meʼ). The action gradually intensifies — "slide down my pole, watch me spin it and twerk it" (ʽPrivate Showʼ, with the additional crime of rhyming "satisfy" with "apple pie"); "I love how you go down, head first and style it out" (ʽClumsyʼ — no, in case you're worried, it's ultimately about getting rather than not getting sexual satisfaction); and by the end, we under­stand that the end is only a technical break, because "One time just ain't enough, won't let this fade / I got that good, good stuff you can't erase" (ʽWhat You Needʼ — but I sort of thought it was, you know, time that was supposed to be erasing the good, good stuff? Or is she trying to tell us that her partner is intentionally trying to wear her out? Whatever. I'm confused now... blame it all on lack of sexual education in Soviet school, I guess).

Okay, so it's just the words, and if we simply stay on that level, it would be only too natural to accuse the reviewer of sexism — so what's fine and good for a male band like AC/DC, is shame­ful for a female performer? Not at all. The difference is that the important thing for AC/DC is their rock and roll drive, which, all by itself, is (a) genuine and (b) inoffensive. For Glory, the important thing is to give us an artist who, all things considered, ultimately sounds like a blowup doll equipped with a Siri-like component. I mean, listen to ʽPrivate Showʼ or ʽWhat You Needʼ and tell me if this pitch even sounds as if it were produced by a human being — the vocoding effects squeeze the last drops of humanity out of the woman, so much so that I wouldn't want to be caught dead while listening to even ten seconds of either. (What makes it ten times as offen­sive is, I think, the intentional similarity of the basic stop-and-start pattern of ʽWhat You Needʼ to Jimi Hen­drix's ʽFireʼ — if they really want to drop us a hint that Glory is what should pass for the modern equivalent of fiery rock'n'roll, they should rather just all drop dead instead). There's not even a drop of humor or irony anywhere in sight to offer salvation (not that Britney Spears has ever been capable of a drop of intelligent humor or irony).

When you come to think of it, did they really have to go down all the way like this? I mean, even in 2016 there must be ways for a 34-year old female artist to express her sexuality without getting totally reduced to that sexuality. Heck, even Madonna knows how to do better. What could be somewhat excusable at the time of In The Zone (at least on ʽToxicʼ she really sounded like she was having honest fun with it), under the condition that the scope would eventually expand, now sounds — please excuse me for the extra harshness, but somebody has got to do it — like the symbolic convulsions of an aging whore, trying to make herself more attractive to customers with extra layers of makeup and provocative clothing. And it's not even a matter of Britney's actual age (I mean, 34 years is nothing these days — the peak of sexuality for some!), it's a matter of how it all sounds and feels, with all these plastic electronic overdubs, ridiculous vocals, trashy lyrics, and, above all, the complete and total and utter reduction of all human qualities to one big bag of sexual urges. If this is really, in her own words, "the best thing I've done in a long time", wouldn't it be more honest to simply switch to pornography?

But forget about Britney herself, whose intellectual brightness was never legendary in the first place; and forget about several dozen highway robbers and agents of Satan masking as «produ­cers», «writers», and even «musicians» on this insult to humanity. The most awful thing, of course, are the «critics» who, according to Wikipedia, all gave «generally positive reviews» of the album. Almost nobody even began to look at the obvious — perhaps out of fear of being accused of sexism? — and almost everybody concentrated on the superficial aspects, faintly praising the (undeniable, but still cringeworthy) pop hooks and even, God help us, some of these vocals. It is not the dismal, trashy quality of the album that makes me so worried — it is the fact that it still seems to attract mainstream media attention in a respectful frame. If this is what our liberal framework has come up to — a complete robo-objectification of the woman under the false guise of «sexual empowerment» — then I must say that even conservatively grabbing women by the pussy seems like an innocent prank in comparison. A highly bleargh-style thumbs down here, and a hearty recommendation to retire — if the last ten years of Britney's career were all leading up to this, she should have been sent back to Mississippi a long, long time ago, because, in the immortal words of Timmy Shaw, "Girl that's where you belong — since you've been gone to the big city, girl you started doing wrong".

Britney Spears: Britney Jean

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
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Britney Spears: Femme Fatale

BRITNEY SPEARS: FEMME FATALE (2011)

1) Till The World Ends; 2) Hold It Against Me; 3) Inside Out; 4) I Wanna Go; 5) How I Roll; 6) (Drop Dead) Beau­tiful; 7) Seal It With A Kiss; 8) Big Fat Bass; 9) Trouble For Me; 10) Trip To Your Heart; 11) Gasoline; 12) Crimi­nal.

And here comes another change of image — not a radical one, but somewhat appropriately at­tuned to Britney's 30th birthday (yes, it has been that long, hard as it is to believe). The album title is hardly a reference to The Velvet Underground & Nico, but apparently it was decided that Britney's target audience has its own understanding of what a «femme fatale» is supposed to be: if you ask me, the idea of yesterday's Loli-queen Britney Spears as a «femme fatale» is about as ridiculous as the idea of Britney Spears as an intellectual folk-rock queen from the Village, but who am I, for crying out loud? Am I Max Martin? Ke$ha? Lukasz Gotwald? Alexander Kronlund? Mathieu Jomphe? Bon­nie McKee? Jacob Kasher Hindlin? Savan Kotecha? Christian Karlsson? Henrik Jonback? Magnus Lidehäll? Pontus Winnberg? Jeremy or Joshua Coleman? Esther Dean? Benjamin Levin? Henry Walter? Will.i.am? Fraser T. Smith? Heather Bright? Liwi Franc? So­phie Stern? Claude Kelly? Tiffany Amber? All these people know better than me — and they are just the songwriters. For the producers, multiply that by 1.5. So many mouths to feed — Britney could have just as well opened a charity fund or something.

Anyway, the point here is to re-cast Britney as the «queen of the modern groove» — somewhat of a slightly less outrageous, slightly more family-entertainment-compatible version of Lady Gaga, with just as much dance energy, but without all the trash pop culture humor and sarcasm. Sex is still being sold a-plenty, too, but this time, from a more «mature» perspective — we are now out of «the zone», fully aware of all the erogenous capacities of the body and ready to teach rather than to learn. A «Femme Fatale», after all, should be way past losing herself in the heavy drug­giness of ʽEarly Morningʼ or the naïve orgy of ʽBreathe On Meʼ. But she is also not supposed to be a post-operational robot à la Blackout, or a confused, vulnerable ex-tramp à la Circus.

So, basically, this sounds like a steady, self-assured, in-command set of high-energy electropop dance tunes, loaded with brand new production gimmicks, dubstep influences, and Auto-Tune going for the kill — they use it with more creativity than on Blackout, though, usually to accen­tuate certain bits of the choruses, so that there is no overwhelming «robotic» impression from the singing, only from the musical background (which is expected).

As embarrassing as it is to admit it, more than half of the songs here are really catchy — in fact, on a pure song-by-song basis, Femme Fatale might be the most «fun» album in Britney's stash so far. That small army of songwriters and producers assembled for the occasion somehow mana­ged to pull it off in a somewhat less cheap / sleazy / generic way than the previous two records — maybe it's all a matter of hard techno grooving, or echo layering, or whatever, but the idiot hooks on generic dance fodder like ʽTill The World Endsʼ or ʽI Wanna Goʼ are grapply, and it will take all day to get the sticky burr of "I can be your treble (trouble?) baby you can be my bass" out of your system. Silly, manipulative, but it doth work.

Actually, if not for the arrangements — which, want it or not, have to follow the conventions of today the same way Madonna's arrangements of her early classics had to follow the conventions of the mid-1980s — if not for the arrangements, I could easily, just like that, see some of these songs handled by the likes of, say, Blondie in the early 1980s. ʽGasolineʼ, for instance, which is near-perfect in terms of vocal form (the verse melody begins kinda flat and stupid, but the chorus is dark, crisp, sexy, and the transition to falsetto adds a nice extra touch). Or the whoa-whoos of ʽSeal It With A Kissʼ. Or the light cooey fun of ʽHow I Rollʼ (with the naughtiness disguised by making the main verse line go "you can be my THUG tonight" in the official lyrics — hey, these songwriting guys are smart enough to know the phonetic proximity of their fricatives).

Unlike Circus, the album is almost completely devoid of sentimentality or, God forbid, any deli­berate throwbacks to Britney's ʽDear Diaryʼ-type songs; the only exception is the last song, ʽCri­minalʼ, an acoustic folk ballad (!) with flute (!!) that still rips its verse melody off ABBA's ʽLay All Your Love On Meʼ (!!!). Definitely unusual stuff for Britney, but alas, it does not work — the whole thing, at best, sounds like an unintentional parody on the «stand by your man» genre, and Britney's delivery is as stiff and stuffy here as it is everywhere else. Except that everywhere else it's okay for her to be stiff, because the rest of the album is purely carnal in essence.

So I just pretend to myself that Femme Fatale is really just eleven songs of non-stop dancing, and a bonus cut thrown in for sentimental fools who'd spent half their lives dreaming of hearing Britney backed with a pastoral sound. From that point of view, this here image, style, and pack­aging is probably the best deal possible for a «mature» Britney — certainly not one bit worse than Madonna's Confessions On A Dance Floor, as the former teacher and student are now pressing their standards closer to each other from the opposite ends.

The best deal isn't much, of course: the synthesizers are sickly, the beats are primitive, the lead singer is «The Return of the Son of Britney Spears and Auto-Tune», the lyrics are uninteresting (if not always atrocious), the guest rap stars are annoying, the sex is artificially staged, the mood is monotonous, and the idea of Britney Spears pushing thirty is a turn-off by itself — predictably, the album sold even less than Circus, which sold less than Blackout, which sold less than In The Zone... you get the tendency, and predictably, her next album will sell even less than that, unless really drastic measures are taken, like a public reve­lation that Britney and Lady Gaga are really the same person.

But it is still amusing — and instructive, especially for all the current Loli-queens who have enough intellect to think a few years ahead into their career — that on a pure song-by-song basis, ripped out of historic and cultural context, Britney Spears might have produced her best record (or, rather, «have her best record produced») at a time when her visual image, the one thing that sells best of all in this world of ours, got tattered, withered, and irrelevant. Femme Fatale was criticized heavily for not having enough of Britney «herself» — for getting her totally lost in a crowd of corporate mannequins — and I sort of disagree. First, if «Britney herself» means the Britney of ʽDear Diaryʼ or ʽMy Babyʼ or ʽI'm Not A Girlʼ, that is a definite plus; and second, the crowd of corporate mannequins did such a surprisingly good job that, even if there is not a single songwriting credit of Britney's here anywhere in sight, the «femme fatale» in question must have at least acted as an inspirational coalescing agent. Somehow.

Check "Femme Fatale" (CD) on Amazon
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Britney Spears: Circus

BRITNEY SPEARS: CIRCUS (2008)

1) Womanizer; 2) Circus; 3) Out From Under; 4) Kill The Lights; 5) Shattered Glass; 6) If U Seek Amy; 7) Unusual You; 8) Blur; 9) Mmm Papi; 10) Mannequin; 11) Lace And Leather; 12) My Baby.

This one was recorded and released at a surprisingly fast rate — coming out a little more than a year after Blackout. The hurry is understandable, since that record was produced very much in a daze, and after a series of subsequent collapses and rehabilitations, it was only logical to try and get back in the ring with a fresh start. Again, even the album cover reflects that somehow — the wonders of therapeutic treatment, heavy makeup, and Photoshop combined, we have here a far «fresher» image than on the lost-and-confused Blackout photo. But we do have the album title — and, in fact, the album concept — that still reflects turmoil and media problems, although, truth be told, the Britney team tries to view it with irony.

Instead of In The Zone's «sex junkie» and Blackout's «sex on ice» image, Circus toys around with a «sex marionette» approach — Britney as a haughty glamor doll with occasional soul. The arrangements are generally lighter than on Blackout, with less distortion, dark bass, and even fewer «auto-tuned» songs, but what is more important is that Circus, like any circus, strives for more diversity. There are even a couple of syrupy ballads that try to recapture the spirit of «Brit­ney of old» — ʽOut From Underʼ and the cooey ʽMy Babyʼ could have easily fit on her first two albums; the latter, incidentally, is the only song on here credited to Britney without a host of co-writers, which just goes to show that the girl's own «artistry level» has never really advanced beyond the Mickey Mouse demarcation line.

Beyond that, there is not only the standard expected electropop (title track, ʽShattered Glassʼ, etc.), but also bits of less techno-crazy, mood-oriented R&B (ʽBlurʼ), bass-heavy funk (ʽLace And Leatherʼ), and straightforward «melodic techno» (ʽUnusual Youʼ). None of it is done all too well — just smooth and professional, as always — but at least the overall effect is that, for the first time in seven years, there seems to be an actual human being somewhere here, behind all the shimmery glitz and all the (still heavily present) robo-antics.

Even something really silly, such as ʽMmm Papiʼ, the album's «sex-dolliest» track of all, actually sounds like self-irony in the overall context: with songs like ʽBlurʼ and ʽMannequinʼ covering it from both flanks, lyrics like "with this fast car I can get really far", and teasing-est intonations on the whole record, it is hard to take it straight — and it is the only song here that could be taken straight. Everything else is with a conscious twist; a crude twist, for sure, but there is no doubt that Britney's songwriting team is genuinely trying to lay on a layer of «complexity» on the poor unsuspecting Britney. At the very least, she now has to play the glamor doll and the suffering, exploited soul behind the glamor at the same time.

In terms of melody or witty arrangements, however, Circus is not much of an improvement over Blackout. In fact, the arrangements are quite rote throughout — I can only try to imagine how the martial punch of ʽIf U Seek Amyʼ could have sounded in a classic Brit-pop arrangement instead of depending entirely on minimalistic electronic pulp, as if they were on such a tight budget. The chorus part of ʽBlurʼ is successfully creepy ("can't remember what I did last night, maybe I should have given in but I just couldn't fight" sung with a rare authenticity for Britney, stimula­ting  uncomfortable suspicions). The chorus of ʽKill The Lightsʼ is genuinely psychotic (and at least we can hope that somebody took Britney out to see Sunset Boulevard — education rules!). The rest is traditionally rather non-descript.

Over all of this looms the shadow of ʽWomanizerʼ, the annoying eardragon that should work much better as a mouth muscle exercise for post-coma patients, but somehow turned into a «clas­sic Britney Spears single» instead. It does not fit in well with the rest of Circus and it does not «ring true» at all — this whole idea of a suddenly «feminist» Britney kicking her Romeo in the guts is like a last-minute attempt to ride the coattails of Pink and Avril Lavigne. On the other hand, it does work as a comical gimmick that is all but impossible to scrape out of your eardrums — after all, the word «womanizer» does have a cool ring to it, and what if it rings 300 times in a row? — and then there was that video with the naked Britney in the sauna... hmm, decent pop song, on second thought.

For those actually interested in hearing the album from top to bottom — it does not deserve the honor (nobody in the whole wide world deserves to experience the barbie chimes of ʽMy Babyʼ, at the very least), but it would make sense to hear the bonus tracks on expanded editions: three of them, stacked together, give a good idea of the album's diversity — there is the funny, half-Ma­donna, half-Apples-In-Stereo psycho-techno of ʽRock Me Inʼ, the thoroughly awful, cheap, pri­mitive dance-techno of ʽPhonographyʼ (yes, the lyrics make it obvious that the title was chosen due to phonetic similarity with a different word), and the «Phil Spector Meets The 21st Century (In Jail, While Inferior Crooks Are Running The Show)» electrono-Motown-ish lushness of ʽAm­nesiaʼ. From thoroughly awful to curious, we have it all, making a real circus out of Circus. If only the musical realization of most of these ideas wasn't so bland, I could see this turning into a respectable... nah, into a fun album. But it was, so I couldn't.

Check "Circus" (CD) on Amazon
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Britney Spears: Blackout

BRITNEY SPEARS: BLACKOUT (2007)

1) Gimme More; 2) Piece Of Me; 3) Radar; 4) Break The Ice; 5) Heaven On Earth; 6) Get Naked (I Got A Plan); 7) Freakshow; 8) Toy Soldier; 9) Hot As Ice; 10) Ooh Ooh Baby; 11) Perfect Lover; 12) Why Should I Be Sad.

It is hard not to admit that the «Britney team», no matter how cheap, crass, or cynical it may get (and standards are constantly rising), at least has a sense of crude (exploitative) humor: Blackout is probably the perfect title for a new Britney Spears album in 2007, in the light of — or, should we say, «in the blackout of...»? — everything that we know of Britney's public, and not-so-pub­lic, life over the preceding three years. As the demon that she had foolishly let her mentors unleash on her during the In The Zone sessions predictably entered her offstage life as well, I remember the whole thing almost beginning to take on the shape of a medieval moral tale — sell your soul to you-know-who, and here comes the retribution.

Blackout came right in the middle of the turmoil, recorded in the midst of drug-related scandals, broken marriages, trials, psych wards and what-not. For some people, these situations actually act as creative catalysts — great art coming out of great suffering and all that — problem is, since «creati­vity» and «Britney Spears» never belonged in the same sentence, all we could hope for is somebody else getting catalyzed by Britney's ordeal and creating something to match. Clearly, certain such efforts had been made. The results, however, are somewhat puzzling.

Blackout is very different from In The Zone. This is a much darker, colder, sterner album — in certain respects, more mature, and definitely more cynical. As a cohesive atmospheric piece, it actually succeeds — where In The Zone was the sound of a wild, no-holds-barred, try-every­thing-once party, Blackout is the hangover effect, and even though the party as such is over, the ef­fect is every bit as disturbing because it seems irreversible. With all the icy, IDM-inspired syn­thesizers, techno beats, and processed vocals, Blackout opens the «robo-phase» of Britney's ca­reer, and, coming straight off the heels of In The Zone, there is no getting rid of the implied fee­ling — this is where too much sexploitation actually gets you. In other words, «one fuck too much» and the senses start shutting down. (Isn't that what happens to porn stars?)

On the level of individual songs, Blackout does not work one tiniest bit. Its opening single, ʽGim­me Moreʼ, forever tied to a disastrous «live» MTV performance that introduced the «new-look Britney», is hardly memorable for anything other than the opening "it's Britney, bitch" — and only in the function of «least convincing line in a Britney Spears song ever». The rest is a mess of synthesizer sirens, morose Gregorian chant-inspired vocal harmonies, and atmospheric attempts to turn the message of ʽMe Against The Musicʼ on its head — give it a cynical edge, let the mind show some condescension towards the body — but there is no hook, and dark atmos­phere alone does not suffice, since, after all, this is still dance-oriented electropop for the masses, not a Dead Can Dance record or anything.

Then there is the obligatory anti-media rant — ʽPiece Of Meʼ is probably one of the few «sticky» bits on the album, and also one on which the heavy use of Auto-Tune is fully justified: the very idea is that, on this song, the listener who wants a «piece of her» will have to deal with the robo­tic casing, installed by the security system. If it only weren't so predictable, or so hypocritical (don't say they didn't warn you, Brit!), I could almost say that it works: there is something vague­ly Kraftwerk-ian about it, reminding of the good old days of Man Machine. In any case, it clear­ly stands out from the rest of the tracks, be it in a good or a bad way.

Because the rest is... well, even compared to the production values of In The Zone, everything is pretty bland. Auto-Tune, electro beats, processed background vocals, no curious or even vaguely interesting overdubs, and an atmosphere of total robo-stupor — depressing and boring at the same time. It is not even quite clear to me how the album could appeal to Britney's established fanbase, what with its near-total lack of the «let's have fun» message. As you slide down to the promises of the track called ʽGet Naked (I Got A Plan)ʼ — a title that should presume some giddy Prince-like bawdiness — you find that, in its essence, the song is more like a dirge than a sex an­them, and that its repetitive message of "get naked, get naked, get naked, take it off, take it off" sounds more like something you'd expect to hear in a doctor's office rather than in a strip club. So much for all the sex symbolism.

ʽToy Soldierʼ, masterminded by hip-hop producer Sean Garrett, is probably the closest that this amorphous mass ever gets to a bit of chaotic crazy fun — martial rhythms, burlesque mood, and a «drunk-off-my-head» vocal part that has Britney coming out of her robot shell for once (or, per­haps, more like borrowing a hyperactive emotional chip for three seconds). But even on that song the «fun» in question is not real fun — merely the side effect of a mechanical spring failure in the orgasmatron, with unpredictable results (for once).

Overall, the only reason why this is called Blackout and not Meltdown is that the latter excludes the possibility of recovery — here, it was immediately implied in the title that Britney's suffering is deemed temporary. It is also implied that Britney's career as such had nothing to do with it: it's all about the over-demanding fans (ʽGimme Moreʼ), the evil media (ʽPiece Of Meʼ), and that shit­head of a husband (ʽWhy Should I Be Sadʼ, closing the album on a «touchingly» personal note). It is also a nice preventive cop-out in case the album were to become panned — give the lady a break, after all, she clearly isn't in a state to produce her masterpiece. But who are we fooling? As usual, the album has very little to do with Britney herself — and this time around, they did not even bother about raising the enthusiasm bar in the studio: In The Zone might have been state-of-the-art dance-pop when it came out, but Blackout seems to be slacking in that respect. As an attempt to save a bit of face, it isn't that awful — but to say that Britney is «way past her prime» here would be a gross understatement. On the other side, she probably should have been grateful to still have a record contract under the circumstances.

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Britney Spears: In The Zone

BRITNEY SPEARS: IN THE ZONE (2003)

1) Me Against The Music; 2) (I Got That) Boom Boom; 3) Showdown; 4) Breathe On Me; 5) Early Mornin'; 6) To­xic; 7) Outrageous; 8) Touch Of My Hand; 9) The Hook Up; 10) Shadow; 11) Brave New Girl; 12) Everytime.

All right — this is where the shit really hits the fan. Be it out of sheer bare sociological curiosity, every­body needs to hear this album, or at least its most significant «conceptual» streak that be­gins with ʽShowdownʼ, ends with ʽThe Hook Upʼ, and reaches apocalyptic-evil levels on the ʽBreathe On Meʼ / ʽEarly Mornin'ʼ / ʽToxicʼ sequence. It is not every day that playing just three songs in a row gets you a-thinkin' about the ultimate fate of man- and womankind, and you cer­tainly do not expect that from a Britney fuckin' Spears album — but the last time I remember my­self walking away from a musical record with a comparable feeling was Aerosmith's Get A Grip (incidentally, released a round decade earlier — watch out, 2013!).

With Britney now well over 21, and the industry still red-hot yearnin' for another smash, the next move from Britney's ʽI'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Womanʼ was obvious: the fans had to be shown that the girl finally is a woman, and a real woman, «as all men know», lives in constant need of sensual pleasure and in permanent search of sexual conquest. Ain't too sure? Ask Madonna. In fact, don't ask Madonna — better still, invite Madonna to sing a duet with Britney on the opening track and provide her with a motherly blessing and a protective French kiss. Never mind if ʽMe Against The Musicʼ matches its title so well, given that there is so much of «me» in this track and so little actual music — just a regular hip-hop beat. The really important thing is that they got Madonna here to sing "C'mon Britney, lose control, watch you take it down", and this truly creates the illusion of «passing the crown».

There are, however, a few problems. For all of the obvious criticisms of Madonna as an artist, there was never any question of her being (a) an independent soul, (b) a modest, but occasionally impressive, vocal talent, (c) an above-average songwriter who could easily pen a catchy tune or, at least, recognize one (ʽInto The Grooveʼ alone should be able to dispel any doubt). And there is quite a hint of trickery in that recommendation — for all we know, Madonna herself never ever «lost control» over a single second of her professional life. Now cut to Britney, pampered from the Mickey Club get-go through the rose-candy bubblegum ickiness — and now, all sex-dolled for the next stage of her career: «if you loved In Bed With Madonna, you're going to be really, really pleased as Britney takes you to the next stage».

And yes, this is the next stage — in humiliation, first and foremost. It had been heavily propaga­ted that In The Zone was the album on which Britney allegedly took control in her hands (heed­less of Madonna's call?), and, to prove that, we now have her name added to nine out of twelve songs — kinda suspicious, though, that most of them feature at least three extra songwriters. But more importantly, the image that comes together through these songs can have nothing to do with the natural development of a 22-year old girl from Kentwood, Louisiana, who only recently was spotted talking about saving up virginity for marriage. I can believe in artistic independence for the likes of Taylor Swift — singing her monotonous bores about princes on white horses until the end of time — but Britney Spears herself behind something like ʽTouch Of My Handʼ? (It's not that I doubt the touching aspect, mind you — only the writing).

Anyway, that whole stretch I was talking about, once we get done with the lacklustre Madonna number and the even less inspiring Ying Yang Twins collaboration (lesson one: never collaborate with anyone who cannot even properly spell yin-yang), is quite demonstratively evil. Not «bad» as such, since it does feature at least a few really creative musical moves, but «evil», as Britney falls under the heavy press of sexploitation. She does know how to sex up her voice properly — she might even know that better than Madonna, preferring to take lessons from Donna Summer instead, and doing it in different ways: sensual purr on ʽBreathe On Meʼ, breathy hush on ʽEarly Mornin'ʼ, aggressive horniness on ʽToxicʼ, paranoid rutting on ʽOutrageousʼ, post-orgasmic re­covery on ʽTouch Of My Handʼ (what else have we missed here?). But when all of it is taken together, the overall impression is that the girl had been placed under heavy, I mean REAL hea­vy drugs — most of the songs pile on the trance atmosphere so densely that you can almost feel the presence of some invisible manipulative hypnotizer behind the girl's back.

ʽBreathe On Meʼ and ʽEarly Mornin'ʼ, in particular, are really creepy — not even minding the ly­rics (which sometimes actually border on questionable irony: "Monogamy is the way to go / Just put your lips together and blow"), they give you what you've always wanted: Britney the sex pup­pet (insert coin and wind up for your pleasure), protected by the illusion of «sexual liberation». All the more creepy, that is, given that no less than the great Moby himself — always happy to play the Joker for an unsuspecting mainstream crowd — masterminds ʽEarly Mornin'ʼ, giving it a spooky, dark, psychedelic twist with a gruff «rotating» bass pulse and swooping electronic strings as we are told that "it don't stop till the early morning / passed out on the couch I'm yawning".

The centerpiece of the album has always been, and still is, ʽToxicʼ — musically, the most inven­tive number on here, not only because it manages to fuse Bollywood strings with James Bond-ian surf guitar in a completely natural manner, but also because it gives us three different Britneys (verse, bridge, and chorus so totally different in tone and mood), with «unlawful carnal delight» as the only unifying theme. If the vocals weren't buried so deep under production make-up, one could even say that this is the only song on the record where we could perceive Britney having some genuine fun — but this is not about real people having real fun, after all.

By the time we are through with Britney's imaginary sex life and get to the ballads (only two of them this time — power crap on ʽShadowʼ, romantic piano crap on ʽEverytimeʼ), it is hard not to wonder if the famous breakdown, with a complete — at least temporarily — collapse of her per­sonal life in the ensuing three years, was not a direct consequence of the recording of In The Zone, or, rather, the whole shenanigan (recording, touring, calculated need to «uphold the image» etc.); even worse, far be it from me to start moralizing, but I wonder just how many young peo­ple's lives were, in any way, influenced by this stuff.

Because, clearly, reasonable adults can take this for what it is — unabashed musical pornography — and put it to the appropriate use. Brit­ney's teen or post-teen audiences are another matter — they could very easily be deluded into taking this for a decisive statement of «sexual liberation», maybe even a «feminist» one (even despite the fact that most of the corporate songwriters and producers behind the raciest moments here were all men), and restructure their life in accordance with the spirit of ʽBreathe On Meʼ, ʽEarly Mornin'ʼ, and, of course, ʽTouch Of My Handʼ, the song that does not justify masturbation, but glorifies it ("Into the unknown, I will be bold, I'm going to places I can be out of control..." and, of course, the completely immortal line "I'm into myself in the most precious way"!!!) — oh yeah, we've gone a long, long way from ʽPictures Of Lilyʼ and even ʽShe Bopʼ.

Even if I tend to exaggerate here — after all, it's just a run-of-the-mill dance-pop album, wouldn't it be too much honor to accuse it of raising the sexploitation bar to such hideous heights? — there is no denying the fact, it seems, that ultimately, it is all very cheap. Yes, the involvement of Moby and the inclusion of a few really neat arranging ideas (ʽToxicʼ, first and foremost) does raise the stock value of In The Zone a little bit, but if you take it as a whole — not just the melodies, but the lyrics, the vocal message, the accompanying videos, the racy tour antics — the worst thing about it is that there is nothing here that is truly, genuinely «sexy», it's more like a musical equivalent of a tasteless, boring old peepshow (watch this and tell me if I'm wrong). There is just no getting away from the fact that, no matter how big the size of the image-making army might be, here or in the future, ʽOne More Timeʼ was still the apex of Britney's sexuality — I mean, what fun is there, really, when she's so goddamn legal already?

On the other hand, I will admit that, drugged or not drugged, she does at least sound like she is still alive on most of these tracks — if you have some interest in an actual human being on the verge of being replaced with a piece of machinery, In The Zone is your last bet. Everything else, metaphorically speaking, represents the post-lobotomy period. And yes, I'd like to say that I pity the poor girl, but is she really in need of my, or anybody else's, pity? After all, the sales weren't all that bad — three million copies sold in the US alone, and how much coke can one score with those numbers? Even if you have to share with all the ten thousand producers?

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Britney Spears: Britney

BRITNEY SPEARS: BRITNEY (2001)

1) I'm A Slave 4 U; 2) Overprotected; 3) Lonely; 4) I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman; 5) Boys; 6) Anticipating; 7) I Love Rock'n'Roll; 8) Cinderella; 9) Let Me Be; 10) Bombastic Love; 11) That's Where You Take Me; 12) When I Found You; 13) What It's Like To Be Me.

Presumably, the commercial success of Britney's first two albums swooshed past the breaking point — that point where, upon having dutily supplied a legion of teens with sweet fodder, she could be dumped by the industry altogether. The legions were still hot for more Britney — but also, the legions were growing up, and so, much like Harry Potter, Britney had to grow up along with her legions. So it was decided — meticulously planned and executed, too — that the third album would be... well, since we all know that «Artists» are supposed to have «Transitional Al­bums» that gradually bring them to their «Mature Stage», that was exactly what the third album was supposed to be. (Never mind that real artists rarely, if ever, calculate their records as «tran­sitional» — they just come out that way naturally — but who are we kiddin' here).

If there is a more blatant way to emphasize this «transition» than naming one of the album's key tracks ʽI'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Womanʼ, I'd like to hear it, but it seems like Max Martin had all potential competition beat on that one. Even more important is the fact that throughout, the focus is altogether on «Me, The Real Britney». Defending her «freedom» on ʽLet Me Beʼ, asser­ting her independent personality on ʽWhat It's Like To Be Meʼ, complaining about being way too ʽOverprotectedʼ, and peeking at us with a slightly scared (or was that «stoned»?) Mowgli-type look from the sleeve photo — yep, that's «Britney», all right: the girl who just got told by Justin Timberlake what it's like to be her. Did you ever realize that it is usually the media-baked glitzy shallow stars who like to extol their «independence» and «not-like-everybody-else-ness» and «let-me-live-my-own-life-ness», usually over the blandest melodies and arrangements ever, rather than the ones who are truly independent? You most probably did — and you most probably understand why that is so.

However, to achieve the official status of «transitional», the album must not concentrate entirely on pseudo-confession and mock-introspection. In terms of sheer covered ground, Britney is her most mish-mashy, variegated album ever. For one thing, individuality and maturity be damned, there is still a lot of the «old» bubblegummy Britney, still polishing her whitebread dance-pop moves on ʽBombastic Loveʼ and ʽCinderellaʼ, or cooing away little-princess romantic ballads (ʽWhen I Found Youʼ; the techno-spiced, but just as sickeningly sweet ʽThat's Where You Take Meʼ — high up in the skies, silly, whatever did you think? Wait for just a couple more years, we'll get there even­tually).

For another thing, there is a brief, thoroughly and healthily failed attempt at dressing her up like a rough'n'tough rock star, with probably the most banal choice that could be made — Joan Jett's (actually, Alan Merrill's, but who cares these days?..) ʽI Love Rock'n'Rollʼ. Since there has never, ever been any additional evidence to the fact that Britney does, in fact, love rock'n'roll, not even her Oh So Cool "hey, is this thing on?" at the beginning manages to justify this next gaffe — granted, not nearly as face-palmish as the fiasco of ʽSatisfactionʼ, but only because, unlike the latter, ʽI Love Rock'n'Rollʼ was never a very good song in the first place.

Much better is the lead-off single from the album: ʽI'm A Slave 4 Uʼ, written and produced by The Neptunes, is probably one of the decade's better mainstream R&B dance numbers (not that I'm really an expert!), if only because its main hooks have nothing to do with mainstream R&B, but are based on an odd combination of boing-boing-ing electronic percussion with almost psy­chedelic vocalization (the "I'm a slaaaaaaaave for you..." bit, not the "get it get it get it" bit, which I originally mistook for "kitty kitty kitty", and it was way more fun). This is Britney dipping her toes into the seductive world of syncopation, sampling, and sex-tease, and it succeeds far better than dipping the same toes into bombastic riff-rock — except that ʽI'm A Slave 4 Uʼ is complete­ly «de-personalized» and could have been recorded by just about anyone.

But no, this is the first and last time you are going to hear me complain about how «there's not enough Britney in this song», because the last time we really heard «the real Britney» was on ʽDear Diaryʼ, and it is not quite clear why anyone should ever want to hear more of «the real Britney» — thank goodness we now have all those tons of makeup on top, which is really the only reason to give a quick listen to these records in the first place. Problem is, on Britney that makeup is still laid on too thin — remember, we are supposed to be in transition here, not girls, not yet women. ʽI'm A Slave 4 Uʼ and, to a much lesser extent, ʽBoysʼ feature respectable pro­duction jobs — the rest of the N'Sync-ish dance numbers sink through the floorboards as usual. Plus, more trouble looms on the horizon as we see the first elements of auto-tuning on a couple of tracks, squeezing out the last irreplaceable element of Britney's — her sexy rasp — but, for the most part, fans of her limited, but not un-cute, vocal cords will still find plenty here.

Altogether, forgetting about the individual imaginativeness of ʽ Slaveʼ for a moment, Britney's «transition-ality» was realized rather poorly — the album lacks both the super-glamor-gloss of ensuing releases and the Lolita-style pesky perverted oh-so-guilty pleasure aura of the bubblegum teen-pop stuff. For the most part, this is bad, utterly sterile music as usual, but now it even sort of lacks the most basic sense of purpose, and in a way, this is the most «boring» album released under the name of B.S. up to date. In fact, I'd rather go and vomit one more time to ʽDear Diaryʼ than have to sit through this no-spine-whatsoever Justin Timberlake duet. On second thought, I just realized that I don't have to do either of these things — see, life isn't so bad after all.

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Britney Spears: Oops!... I Did It Again

BRITNEY SPEARS: OOPS! ...I DID IT AGAIN (2000)

1) Oops! ... I Did It Again; 2) Stronger; 3) Don't Go Knockin' On My Door; 4) (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction; 5) Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know; 6) What U See (Is What U Get); 7) Lucky; 8) One Kiss From You; 9) Where Are You Now; 10) Can't Make You Love Me; 11) When Your Eyes Say It; 12) Girl In The Mirror; 13) Dear Diary.

Contrary to rumors, Britney's sophomore release is not a carbon copy of ...Baby One More Time — it is more like a slightly genetically modified clone. After all, "hit me baby one more time", unless viewed as a submissive / masochistic statement in the light of violent polysemy of the verb ʽto hitʼ, is a fairly cuddly hook next to "I'm not that innocent" — the coming-down line that really constitutes the true hook of ʽOops!... I Did It Againʼ (along with the moans and groans that hint at an already better understanding of one's bodily powers and wishes than the "oh baby baby" trick on ʽOne More Timeʼ).

Then again, Britney did turn 18 during the recording sessions for the album, which explains a few things. In general, the record is still quite strictly targeted at bubblegum teen-pop audiences: rose-colored ballads, Disneyworld-ish dance numbers, and pseudo-schoolgirl-scribbled lyrics form the bulk of it — but already the industry is trying to sex the girl up, starting from the album cover (bellybutton on the loose, and that strange wallpaper bears a suspicious resemblance to a bee­hive... beehive, get it?) and ending with the more-than-obvious choice of «obligatory classic rock cover» — no less than ʽSatisfactionʼ itself. (Or perhaps that was the condition under which Jann Wenner would allow Britney to appear on the cover of his respectable magazine).

Funny thing is, ʽSatisfactionʼ in Britney's hands actually sounds interesting, if not exactly good, for the first fourty seconds — the acoustic intro, where the chorus is re-imagined as a teen girl's complaint at not being able to satisfy her... oh never mind. Then, as the plastic soul rhythms come in and the song becomes a cruddily programmed anthem to «finding your own self», we quickly plunge into the depths of the ridiculous, such as hearing the line "I've got my own identity!" from Ms. Spears (because she doesn't care much for tight skirts, apparently).

Just as before, Britney's worst enemy here is not even the song material, but the production — we are supposed to be taking this in as «live» music, with acoustic guitars, (occasionally) real drums, and played rather than programmed keyboards manning the melodies. But most of the melodies are trivial slow or mid-tempo grooves that require real hot playing to be effective, whereas here there is absolutely no player involvement anywhere in sight — just a bunch of probably well-paid professionals wasting their lives on fluff and letting us all know that they know it, too.

In another age, in another world, a song like ʽLuckyʼ, contributed by the ever-present Max Mar­tin, could be a source of inspiration — written with a clear nod to classic Motown conventions, so much that, with a little imaginative effort, you could envisage it done by a Mary Wells or a Diana Ross... okay, at the very least — by an ABBA or someone like that. But the drums are crappy, the synthesizers' only point is to provide tonal accompaniment, the lyrics are trite even for the pop level of a 1962 (although, granted, probably just right for the level of the average 12-year girl), and the hook-forging process involves making one out of "she cry-cry-cries in her lonely heart" which might be embarrassing to sing along to even for certain 12-year olds.

Other than the «retro-potential» of ʽLuckyʼ and those amusing forty seconds of the intro to ʽSatis­factionʼ, there is nothing of interest on the album whatsoever — ʽOops!...ʼ is a stylistic clone of ʽOne More Timeʼ, but without the cool piano notes it is even less redeemable; and its companion piece, ʽStrongerʼ, makes the best of Britney's vocal abilities (her lower notes always sound more authentic and realistic than her higher ones), but completely misses its point — there is nothing about her performance that truly suggests getting "stronger than yesterday, now it's nothing but my way" (if one of your idols is Janet Jackson, this does not automatically mean that Max Martin can make you into a Janet Jackson with one wave of his songwriter's pen).

Worse, towards the end of the album they really blow it with a set of never-ending adult contem­porary and / or power ballads, including a donation from devil lady Diane Warren and a song called ʽDear Diaryʼ, co-credited to Britney herself — and it shows, it shows! not even a federal grant-supported sociological survey into the blogging activities of middle school teenage girls could have yielded such an authentic reconstruction on behalf of a middle-aged professional song­writer. I wonder if Steve Tyler would still insist that pink is his favorite color, having heard this particular song?

So, overall, even though the choice is altogether pathetic, this is probably the worst album in Britney's entire career — generic mainstream bubblegum pop from the late 1990s is bad enough as it is, but recycled generic mainstream bubblegum pop brings «regurgitated spam» to mind, or maybe even more horrendous things than that. Cute bellybutton, of course, but we'd already seen it in her videos anyway.

Britney Spears: ...Baby One More Time

BRITNEY SPEARS: ...BABY ONE MORE TIME (1999)

1) ...Baby One More Time; 2) (You Drive Me) Crazy; 3) Sometimes; 4) Soda Pop; 5) Born To Make You Happy; 6) From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart; 7) I Will Be There; 8) I Will Still Love You; 9) Deep In My Heart; 10) Thinkin' About You; 11) E-Mail My Heart; 12) The Beat Goes On; 13*) I'll Never Stop Loving You; 14*) Autumn Goodbye.

Well, I suppose we all saw this one coming, didn't we?

One thing is hard to deny: this is probably the most manipulative album sleeve in record history. Of all the people who ensured this album's 14 times platinum status, I wonder just how many slurped it off the Walmart counter, spellbound by the focused assault of eyes, lips, unbuttoned shirt, and... oh my. Whatever else one might say, the guy who took that photo was the real genius be­hind Britney's career, and should have earned him- or herself a lifelong pass to all of her swim­ming pools and barbecue lawns.

But really, there is no way one could not mention this record in one's story of the rise and fall of pop music, since it almost single-handedly transformed... Madonna into a respectable artist. Once, it used to be that people would blame Ms. Louise Ciccone for having downgraded pop to the state where sex comes first and music comes last. Britney symbolized the next stage of that develop­ment — and once you compare Madonna with Baby One More Time, it immediately becomes clear that, compared to this stuff, the former counts as a brilliant masterpiece of composition, ar­rangement, and artistic expression.

Every once in a while, you encounter opinions — particularly, of course, in the mainstream mu­sical press — that ...Baby One More Time would have still been a monster hit, effective and im­pressive, even without the photos and the accompanying videos. I beg to differ. The only musical justification behind these dance grooves and synth-pop ballads would be a great set of catchy bubblegum hooks, and few of these songs are catchy to begin with. They aren't even particularly disgusting — most of the time, they are simply «invisible». There are no interesting musical so­lutions (except for one, maybe, on which see below), both the live instruments and the electronic keyboards are primitive and rote — in short, if it's dance pop we're talking about, this shit ain't no Prince, and it even ain't no Madonna.

So color me disappointed, because at some point, I almost hoped that the record would turn out to be a «guilty pleasure»: after all, there is nothing wrong per se with the very idea of bubblegum teen pop... well, come to think of it, there is something deeply wrong per se with that idea, but it was always in the power of well-paid musically-endowed corporate songwriters to make us, sometimes, forgive and forget. ...Baby One More Time does not take any chances: it wants us to love it because it is bubblegum teen pop, with a rather transparent nod to Lolita territory, not despite be­ing bubblegum teen pop.

The one person I would completely refrain from blaming is, of course, Britney herself — who had not even turned 18 at the time and, in all of her Southern girl innocence, allowed her talents to be molded into this piece of trash. Talents, yes, because she really throws herself into this role that the producers thought up for her. She may not show much range in her singing, or any indi­vidual vocalizing techniques, but she does know how to use what she's got — be it the purring and cooing on ʽE-Mail My Heartʼ or the trademark hushy rasp on the title track. She is not quite «nothing» without the looks, and, if you ask me, given the choice between the average «diva», floating on spasmatic waves of melisma, and Britney's far more natural tones (at this early stage — fortunately, quite free from auto-tuning and other electronic treatments), I would rather have to go for the latter. In fact — shudder, shudder — I almost feel real empathy at the way she phra­ses "I was born to make you happy", with its little subtle mix of joy and weeping; quite professio­nal for a 17-year old. And if you fail to feel a small jolt at the way she croons out "forever... E-mail my heart", a quick doctor checkup may be in order (maybe even if you're female).

That said, most of the songs are still atrociously bland and artificial, and the record as a whole never lives up to its opening one second of music — the three ominous piano notes that announce ʽ...Baby One More Timeʼ are arguably the finest moment on here. And while I cannot deny that the chorus of «The Song That Established Britney Spears (And Brought Down Rolling Stone)» is somewhat catchy, that does not excuse the robo-funk of the number immediately re-written as the even less interesting ʽ(You Drive Me) Crazyʼ, nor the awful title, lyrics, and hip-hop / calypso mix of ʽSoda Popʼ, nor the abundance of cheap soft / power ballads (ʽFrom The Bottom Of My Broken Heartʼ) that even Mariah Carey could never have resuscitated.

There is one exception-oddity — the last track on the album is an unexpectedly lo-fi, bass-heavy cover of Sonny & Cher's old hit ʽThe Beat Goes Onʼ, replete with «psychedelic» electronic ef­fects, mock-drunk drum outbursts, and lite-spooky echoes. Like Sonny & Cher themselves, this song is just as bubblegummy as the rest of them, but it manages to preserve some of the original Sixties' melodic flair, and Britney certainly does it more justice — it is her element — than she could ever hope to allocate for the unhappy choice of ʽSatisfactionʼ on her sophomore effort. But it is also a song that comes after the croony «finale» of ʽE-Mail My Heartʼ, sort of as a post-scrip­tum specially targeted at the «purveyors of good taste», and in any case, you do not redeem an overall failure of a record by covering fuckin' Sonny & Cher, do you?

The absolute worst thing about this album, though, is the stinky flair of hypocrisy that went along with it, as the media were busy cultivating the «innocent» and even «traditional / conservative» attitude of Britney's straight in the face of all the innumerable innuendos both in these songs and in the accompanying videos — let's face it, at the very least Madonna had always been honest about her sexuality, even if, granted, she had already come of age well before launching her pro­fessional career. From this point of view, future Spears albums might have been just as com­pa­rably mise­rable, music-wise, but at least, starting with ʽToxicʼ and the like, they would become more balan­ced in the «sex vs. music» aspect. Not that the music on ...Baby is particularly sexy — no more so than an inflatable doll or something — but Britney herself is, of course.

In any case, ...Baby One More Time was a pop culture phenomenon in 1999, no doubt about that, but as of today, I would guess that it is probably one of the least listened to mega-best-sel­lers of the past century — and if so, for a very good reason: admit it, if you ever bought it, you didn't exactly buy it for the music, did you? You just didn't have the proper Internet access to download the album photo, or the proper color printer to zoom it and hang it in the bathroom. But in doing that, you (the «abstract» youse, that is) have created the unfortunate illusion that ...Baby One More Time had something to do with «real music», when, in fact, it had even less to do with that than Debbie Gibson in the 1980s. Rating? Forget it — I'm too bored with this stuff to actually allow myself an extra thumbs movement.