Britney Spears Thread

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I mean, it's better than the putrid sh!t that was Hold It Against Me, but it really lacks a hook and isn't really all that catchy.

I think it will do well for her as a first single though. At this point, Britney is pretty irrelevant to general pop culture anyway. The likes of Katy Perry, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and even Miley Cyrus pretty much have the pop world on lock, while Britney is seen as more of an aging star at this point in her career.

She'll never recreate the relevance or success she had from 99-04, but she's a familiar face that can still sell a lead single at least.

ETA: That single cover is atrocious, I don't think even Cher would be caught in something like that.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Y&RWorldTurner

[All My Shadows]

I'm digging it.

No.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Hold It Against Me sounds like an Ace of Base reject from 1995.

At least this one sounds like a reject from 2002.

[YRBB]

Yes. I love her but, really, a classy sense of style has never been her strong point. Sometimes I think she's one step away from trailer trash fashions, especially in her personal attire.

You might be a bit too harsh lol

[Toups]

I hate it. There's no hook to it, there's no catchy chorus. I think it's her worst lead single off her an albums. I didn't like "Scream and Shout" and when I heard Will.i.am was executive producing her new album, it made me worry. I have a feeling I'm going to hate her new album just like I hated Blackout. I prefer Britney to be more pop than dance. I hope there's at least a couple of Max Martin/Dr. Luke songs on the new album. I almost always love their work with her.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Even though he's EP, apparently, this is the only song he has actual producing/writing credit on.

I actually appreciate Blackout more as time goes by. It really is the soundtrack to her breakdown - sex crazed, flippant, and unapologetic, yet she's literally a ghost in the machine on it.

I felt like the writers and producers on that album were intentionally giving her material that they wouldn't give to her if she was in her right mind. They knew she out of her mind at that point and they didn't have to produce a typical Britney Spears record, and they could get away with it. If her life wasn't in personal turmoil at the point, the public probably would've embraced it much more than they did. Britney has never had a very good album from start to finish, IMO, but I think Blackout probably stands as her most cohesive album in a strange way.

[Shawn]

The inevitable mash- up of "Work, Bitch!" and "Supermodel" by RuPaul was released. It's freaking awesome.

http://thats-so-tyler.tumblr.com/post/61378100444/what-everyone-expected-work-bitch-to-be

[Toups]

Really? I hope that's true. I thought he would do the majority of her songs. Now I'm a *little* optimistic.

[Mr. Vixen]

You guys I am OBSESSED with this song no lie.

[Skin]

This hasn't been well received at all commercially, it may grow on people like Scream & Shout did but as of now, it's been one of her poorest starts sales wise since iTunes digital breakthrough in 2005. I like it for the most part, and I think it's fairly inventive. I think Britney is one of the few pop artists who is generally ahead of the trend musically speaking. This single for instance features a lot of electro-house, glitch and rave elements that a lot of pop artists haven't touched yet, even though dance has been building on popular airwaves since 2006.

Well Britney isn't really of this time period in general anymore, so of course she is going to stick out compared to women whose careers started in 2007/2008. She's been in the industry for 15 going on 16 years now. She's not in the same place as them. It would be like comparing Janet in 2002 and Madonna in 1999 to Britney, Christina, BSB and Nsync when they first started out. Britney is in a completely different career phase than Rihanna, Katy Perry and Gaga are. For what it's worth Gaga isn't that big of a deal anymore either. Her career has been sliding since 2010. Same with Rihanna since 2011.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Skin

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I do not understand this, there is nothing innovative about this single and nothing Will.i.am hasn't been dishing out for years, both solo and with BEP.

God bless Britney, but she's never been in complete creative control of her career. She only got saddled in with Will.i.am because Scream & Shout became one of her biggest global hits in years (it was the first time she had part of a #1 single in the UK since 2004, for instance, though it wasn't really HER song).

As I said, she's an aging pop star at this point in her career (though she's only in her early 30's). She's still young enough to get radio airplay, but her impact culturally is just no longer there, and likely won't have much of a sustainable impact with the rest of the singles off this album. It's kind of an awkward era that most female pop stars go through (see Madonna in the mid 90's before her comeback with Ray of Light, or Janet since her Super Bowl music career ending incident). She's not really a legend yet, but no doubt, her past success was huge and left some sort of impact behind.

Rihanna has never been an albums artist, but she can still score #1 hits more than anyone else, only Katy Perry has come close to her singles success in recent years. Yes, she's had some flops, but the only reason she releases albums every year is because no one would be interested in her if she didn't. I do think Lady Gaga's career has been a mess since The Fame Monster though.

[Skin]

 

I already expressed all the ways this is different (Also will.i.am didn't produce this. Otto Knows did) this doesn't sound like The Black Eyed Pea's music. As I said this utilizes a lot of dance style production called glitch, electronic house music and rave music, which is not something any one else in pop music is doing right now. This is very different for the US and none of the recent pop artists have experimented with this particular dance style. This is more inline with Swedish House Mafia and Girls Aloud's musical outputs then anything on Top 40 now. In that way it is avant garde and atypical of what is popular now. Britney's always done that though, she did the same with dubstep a few years back with Hold It Against Me. No one was utilizing that particular genre in pop music either until she highlighted it in her single.

Rihanna's commercial viability has hit a snag and it's been that way since Talk That Talk (2011). Gaga's career has been on borrowed time since 2010. Katy and Miley are really the only current pop stars who are "in season" and that's because they are still relatively new. But again comparing Britney to these stars makes no sense because she is not in their group. These women are not her contemporaries, and she out paces them all in terms of overall impact. Her career pre-dates them by a good decade so the similarities are meaningless. In many ways it's inappropriate to compare them, because it's apples and oranges. The only reason people really compare Britney to the newer pop females is because none of her musical contemporaries are still around or relevant to compare her to, so she gets added in to the newer "it girls."

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I see very little difference in this than say what Lady Gaga has been passing out for some of her music in the past 5 years.

EDM is very popular right now, especially as many of those EDM DJ's are becoming more and more mainstream. This single isn't starting any trend, it's riding the waves of one.

Rihanna is not an albums artist, TTT gave her the biggest hit of her career and another single was a top 5 hit. Her career has been inconsistent if anything else, but in less than a decade, she's still managed to equal Madonna for #1 singles, and has already racked up more #1's and top 10 hits than anyone this millennium.

She's not comparable to them, but it's fair to say that her career is pretty much passed its peak and people have moved on to a whole new slew of female pop acts, many of whom are making the same type of music that appeals to the same market as Britney's.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Y&RWorldTurner

[All My Shadows]

I definitely agree that Britney's in a weird career spot right now. She has a pretty healthy career behind her, and she's still doing well, but it's clear that she isn't on the rise anymore. But, because she's already had such huge success, it's really not a horrible, embarrassing thing that she isn't topping the charts or outselling everyone. Let the Katy, Gaga, Riri, etc. stans fight it out over things like that. Britney's been there, done that, and at this point, if she can put out a song that gets me hype (and WB has grown on me IMMENSELY thanks to it being on heavy rotation during my workouts this week), then I'm proud of my Louisiana homegirl.

[Skin]

Well everyone considers anything with a big beat to be dance music. My point is to say that dance music does have it's differences. Work Bitch is different from a lot of the other dance music that been released as of late. A lot of music that is popular now is just experimentations of house music, which is more mellow and soft sounding which is what artists like Rihanna, Zedd, Avicci, Lady Gaga, and Madonna have experimented with recently. I really don't think you can confuse those songs with this, this sounds much harder and grittier than those pieces and the production on this track takes a lot of notes from rave music, clash and glitch. It's definitely not what BEP and Gaga have been releasing. I would definitely say Britney is popularizing a trend that was underground, which is what she has often done in her previous music. Is she creating this sound? No. But she is definitely a step ahead of the curve and her competition in this regard. She is one of the first to really step out and go this route musically, as no other pop star can really say they've done this style of music before.

As to Britney not being new anymore I feel like we keep reiterating the same point over and over, we know Britney isn't the it girl of the moment and she hasn't been in awhile. That happens to all artists who endure. No one stays on top forever. That kind of success is not sustainable.