Blackout - track by track

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The back cover says "Executive producer: Britney Spears". Let's see what she can come up with!


Gimme More - The lead single sounds way more amazing without the awful video, This is how you do a cardboard box chord progression! The last minute builds up into proper menacing Danger Will Robinson. Great start.

Piece Of Me - Drumbeats that sound like rattling chains! Bloody hell this chorus is like an awesome compressed Britney sausage coming out of a meat grinder in a big long snake, all the right ingredients having been fed in and the bumps ironed out. I drifted off in the middle somewhere but then the electro synths wibble back in for the last half a minute.

Radar - Britney's done a schaffle record! OMG! Bloody hell this is totally bonkers batsh1t. She might be vocodered to hell but compared to the background level mix of Gimme More, Brit's voice is all over this one, bouncing off the walls like a ball on top of karaoke screen lyrics. It's missing meaty bottom end drums (relying on minimal kick & clap) so this almost sounds like a... BALLAD? Heehee, she just rhymed 'tingle' with 'mingle'!

Break The Ice - Destiny's Child-ish electro-string-stabs and harpsichord, again very little bottom end except for the mini breakdown for "my 808". Ooooooh that's better, a lovely warm chorus sucks the bass back in. Oh my god the spoken middle eight - Jesus Britney, you are a grade A fvcking mental girl! And again, at the end you suddenly hear what's been going on in the song all this time underneath bonkers Brit's layers of lovely intertwining vocals.

Heaven On Earth - Ellis-Bextor did it earlier this year with 'China heart', here Britney attempts to outdo Donna Summer with an awesome playground disco obble-obble-obble intro. The vocal isn't so strong here but it still works very well, haunting verse contrasting with soppy chorus. This would be a GREAT Girls Aloud song - a wider variety of vocals to pick out the different parts. Blimey, it's even got a nonsense middle-8 line for Nicola to sing on repeat: "I fall off the edge of my mind". Of course you do, Britney!

Get Naked (I Got A Plan) - Brilliant unintelligible letchy slurring from Danja - his production is very similar to Gimme More - but FAR FAR better in the use of bass and beats. If they hadn't already released the former as a single I'd definitely say this Get Naked should be released next. Gosh this is definitely one of my favourites so far - it's almost like micro-house with pitch shifts and whooshes and glitches all over the place.

Freakshow - This sounds a lot like Robyn! Britney sounds in control of the track for once, actually using her voice and showing us what she can do. Again it's very blippy and glitchy but the vwarp-vwarp bass holds it all together nicely. This is one for the remixers, I think, some euphoric hands-in-the-air would suit this very well!

Toy Soldier - Cor, if Get Naked was micro-house then this is almost tech-house! AHAHAH brilliant, marching drums! I'm fast running out of words to describe how enjoyably crackers this all sounds but... but... OH DUDES THIS IS THE SORT OF SONG I'D MAKE IF ONLY I COULD. It just needs speeding up a bit. Man, those Swedes... I'm speechless.

Hot As Ice - Britney sounds very child-like on here, a refreshing change from the breathiness of the previous tracks. Not as impressed with this one overall but Toy Soldier is a tough track to follow.

Ooh Ooh Baby - I said never again but it's Rachel Stevens glam stomp time again! The melody line follows a similar structure to a couple of the other songs but really suits the 'oooga-chaga oooga-chaga' beat. This is actually a deceptively sparse track, I kind of want to colour in the spaces. Hang on was that a ROCK GUITAR crayon I just heard there?

Perfect Lover - Back to breathy vocals again. I really appreciate the song twists (plenty of interesting chord switches) here but the beats themselves are a bit unremarkable. And again, as soon as I write that, the outro turns up a whole new palette of noises. Blip blip blip!

Why Should I Be Sad - Not quite slow enough for a slow jam. This reminds me of an 80s soul track that I can't quite remember the name of with extra bop-bop on the top. Good but a bit of an uncertain wobbly finish to proceedings.

Phew! Well, the first good sign is that I want to listen to it all again immediately. It's not too long (hurrah for concise albums!) and *just* about varied enough to be able to tell the tracks apart. None of the songs aside from 'Gimme More' really follow a traditional structure (hence the single release I guess), which is most definitely a good thing. I love clicky noises and electro vworps, and am VERY GLAD that someone has made a pop r'n'b album that uses them properly! Britney, you've done yourself proud.

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Judging by the latest clips Maura put up on Idolator the theme for the reviews is "OK, this is good, therefore Britney can't have had much to do with it."

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Despite the fact that it's a really, really self-involved album! Am amazed that when rock dudes make albums in the middle of their own booze'n'drugs period their agency over those albums is pretty much assumed but despite the lyrics which are EXPLICITLY ABOUT HER LIFE RIGHT NOW, this doesn't apply to Britney.

That said apparently there was a paparazzi 'incident' last week when they asked when her album was out, and she said "December", and then said the second single off it would be 'Sometimes', ie the follow-up to... 'Baby One More Time'.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Disputed, apparently. See Nia here:
http://skyecaptain.livejournal.com/35318.html

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

ts for next single: eight-year-old song vs non-existent song

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

For those who can't read it, she said that Britney claimed her next single would be "Someday," not "Sometimes."

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The rock dudes thing is why I did that little Bowie piece on NYLPM yesterday.

a JULIA LENNON THEORY question abt agency

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

"was natalie curtis a member of joy division?"

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Haha I hadn't read that! What are the Bowie incidents which correlate to the Britney ones? I have no idea what critical reception to Bowie was at the time. Or much about Bowie at all.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

- f3llated Mick Ronson's guitar onstage
- gave N4z1 salute on arrival at Waterloo Station ("I was waving to a friend") - this was the career suicide one.

He got famous doing glam rock then made "Young Americans" which was his black music album - lots of then-hot'n'young soul people like Luther Vandross involved. There's actually an album between that and "Low" but "Low is all sharp op and electronix and Bowie is hardly on side 2 and it's produced and co-written by Brian Eno, and Bowie was doing MOUNTAINS of coke at the time.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

That fits cos Britney's "black music album" is really Britney rather than In The Zone (which is her "EVERYTHING'S ALL OK HONEST" album). This makes me want to give Bowie another try! What other "obviously on a load of drugs/going through life crisis" albums are there? I read the other week an interview where Tori Amos admitted to being on a load of hallucinogens and generally sleeping around loads while writing Boys For Pele - in retrospect, duh.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

What about Eminem?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The album between for Bowie is Station To Station, on the title track of which he sings "It's not the side effects of the cocaine." Erm, actually it fairly obviously IS. That record is half him ripping off Kraftwerk, half him doing 50s style crooning, and it doesn't really map onto anything else ever.

Low is a good place to start with Bowie!

I will ask Dr Drugs about life crisis/drugs albums - there are tons obviously.

it's my life it's my wife <-- actually about wife

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

surely you mean none?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I think Lex would love Station to Station (and possibly Young Americans)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I wd have thought Bowie's rock voice would put him off S2S.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It was partly his voice, which I vaguely recall as being a bit too arch, but mostly that I'd imagined DB to be someone I'd really enjoy, but when I came to him, his music was a lot more pedestrian than I'd imagined. (I can't remember which DB songs I heard...Hunky Dory I think? Did not like that at all. And whichever one has 'After All' on it - that's the only song I liked.)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

OMG those are the least Lexy Bowie albums! You really do need the ones after he's discovered electronics I think.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The title track from Young Americans is one of the worst songs in existence. I can't bear it. It reminds me of cardigan wearing evangelical Xtians attempting gospel. The backing sounds clumsy and lethargic. Urrrrrgh seriously guys, WORST SONG EVER.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Haha I love it! I like all of YA, he should have stuck with "plastic soul" a bit longer I reckon.

I have been wary of Bowie for many years now but just in the last cpl of months I've returned to him a bit.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Really? I am so-so on large chunks of the album, and I have always really LOATHED that fake plastic soul/cod-gospel rip-off malarkey, but I really like 'YA', in large part because I think the way the meandering backing perks up so sharply at the chorus is rather exciting.

(I may also be influenced by the really gorgeous woman in the backing singers, but I don't think that's a big factor as I liked the song before I saw the video.)

It's almost the epitome of a style of music that drives me loopy, yet it's infectious.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Are any of the lyrics aside from "Piece Of Me" especially self-involved?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

'Freakshow' has one or two lines which could be interpreted as such...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The sexxxiness is all very me-me-me throughout - and lest we forget Brit's "out-of-control rampant sexuality" has been a pretty big part of her media image of late too. Plus at least two references to herself in the third person.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

It's very 'me me me' but also kind of what Britney does - I don't think you can really use the lyrics as evidence for her input or lack of it.

[5500.livejournal.com]

That is, essentially, the entire thesis of Kelefa Sanneh's NYT review (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/arts/music/29spea.html): La Brit est mort. Vive la Brit.

Idolator leaves out the most 'damning' excerpt:

But she cuts a startlingly low profile on “Blackout,” and there are times when it scarcely sounds like a Britney Spears album at all. Even when not buried in electronics, her distinctive singing voice sounds unusually vague, and sometimes it’s hard to be sure it’s hers. It isn’t always. On this album, unlike on previous ones, Ms. Spears isn’t credited with doing any of her own backing vocals. Read the fine print, and you’ll discover an impressive cast of helpers, including T-Pain, Keri Hilson (who sang the recent hit “The Way I Are”) and the Euro-pop star Robyn. In general the parts that sound the most Britney Spears-ish are the whispered introductions and interjections.