Tag: Britney Spears

Giorgio Moroder feat. Britney Spears – Tom’s Diner

“What?”

Tom: I was looking through the list of upcoming singles, spotted this, and let out an audible “what?”.

Tim: Erm, yeah. What’s going on?

Tom: Because Tom’s Diner is one of the canonical capital-T Tracks. It’s where that sample came from. You know the one. It’s an acapella that was used to tweak the original MP3 algorithm, for crying out loud. And suddenly it’s being covered by one of the greats of electronic music, featuring one of the greats of pop on vocals.

Tom: And the result is… well, it could be worse, it’s no Madonna’s American Pie. It ticks every box that you could want for: Moroder’s production is pretty much flawless, Britney’s vocals, filtered through all the robotic synths, seem similarly perfect.

Tim: They do – as an electropop cover of that track, it’s great. You’ve still got the melody from the vocals, fleshed out very well indeed by the production. Like you say, pretty much flawless.

Tom: The trouble is: removed from that original, acapella production, the lyrics and melody just sound trite. They always were, but they were in such a folk-song context, decades old now, that it seemed okay. And now: there’s something a little bit Fast Food Rockers about it. Which is a shame.

Tim: Hmm…I disagree somewhat – you’re right about them sounding trite, but the production is good enough that that’s not so much of a problem. It’s certainly no worse than the original, and I reckon it’s not as bad as it seems you think the Fast Food Rockers were. I’m enjoying it. For a bit, before it gets too repetitive, anyway.

Saturday Flashback: Britney Spears – My Only Wish (This Year)

“Like all the clichés got mixed together.”

Tim: Of course Britney’s done a Christmas track. Way back at the start of her career, her label thought it’d be a good idea. Upsettingly there’s no video for it, but let’s have a listen…

Tom: Wow, they pushed the Christmas dial up to maximum on that from the very start, didn’t they?

Tim: They certainly did, and, while I’ve certainly heard worse, that’s a good minute and a half longer than it needs to be.

Tom: It’s like all the Britney and Christmas song clichés got mixed together. There’s even a “bay-beh, bay-beh” in there.

Tim: It is early Britney, recognisably so, and it pains me to say it’s not done all that brilliantly. It didn’t chart anywhere for the first eight years of it’s existence, and when it finally got going in 2008 it got to 34 in Denmark and 41 in Sweden. It finally hit the big time in America in 2011, sort of, climbing to the heady heights of 49 on the Holiday Charts, and the highest it’s ever climbed was 24, in, erm, South Korea.

Tom: That’s a resounding “meh” if ever I heard one, particularly for an artist of that scale.

Tim: So yes. Entirely generic Christmas muzak, really, which no-one would ever really choose to buy but might just make it onto the occasional compilation. Eight of them, in this case.

Finally, speaking of compilations, there are a lot of Christmas ones out there, but I don’t think I’ve every come across one where I didn’t know a single song. Until this one. And since there’s not a lot on right now, shall we explore it? Yes. YES WE BLOODY WELL SHALL.

Tom: Oh dear. Brace yourself, reader.

Britney Spears – Work Bitch

Ah. Generic EDM. Super.

Tim: First new track since the really rather good Femme Fatale album; back then we were playing with dubstep, what’s up this time?

Tim: Ah. Generic EDM. Super.

Tom: Whoa, before we get to the music: what’s with that album cover? Something seems really… well, badly Photoshopped.

Tim: Well, it’s certainly a very narrow waist she’s got going on.

Tom: I know that’s to be expected, but her head doesn’t seem to fit quite onto her body, and the angle of her arm just seems… wrong. Either that’s a really awkward position, or there’s been some rather interesting editing done in post.

Tim: Looking at the mirror reflection, I’d tend towards the former, actually – like she’s leaning as far towards the camera as she possibly can whilst keeping her head tilted back and her arms on the side. You’re right, it is a bit odd.

Tom: Anyway, yes. This really is generic, isn’t it?

Tim: Yes, and very disappointing, for any number of reasons. Lyrics for one (Maserati/Bugatti is as lazy as they come, and you’re using it twice?), dullness of the backing for another, but the biggest one is simply two words: where’s Britney? This could be any singer at all – if it wasn’t Britney, this’d be a track by will.i.am (who is the producer BTW) feat. Vocalist.

Tom: Agreed. She’s talking for a good fraction of it, and what’s left is so distorted by vocoders and production that there’s not really any of her left.

Tim: She’s been one of the biggest pop sensations for all of the past fifteen years – why on earth is her personality almost entirely absent from an album’s lead single? Well, I say almost entirely – the middle eight is good. The middle eight is what the track should be. The middle eight, in fact, turns my reaction from a “what the hell is this?” to a “why the hell is this?”. This should be so, so much better. But it isn’t.

Britney Spears – I Wanna Go

There’s no way that was meant to be good, was it? Really?

Tom: What’s the deal with music videos having director credits in them now?

Tim: I have absolutely no idea what that video was all about.

Tom: Also, Britney – you’re not Lady Gaga. Forty seconds of intro for a fairly lame gag really isn’t worth it.

Terribly blue-screened car ride. Slightly creepy driver pouring milk over self. What?

Tim: Yes, but there’s no way that was meant to be good, was it? Really? Hell, my fifteen year old cousin could do better than that on the iMac he just bought.

Tom: Let’s talk about the music. Britney’s increasingly sounding like an impressionist doing a poor version of her: I’m not even sure how it’s possible to achieve that vocal tone without major computer edi– er, never mind.

Tim: Well, it’s a decent enough track – just a fairly standard post-album release single, and more a ‘hello! would you please mind skipping to track four on the album now? and then buying it again please?’ than an actual new song.

Tom: It’s a perfectly serviceable pop song, but I can’t help feeling that if anyone except Britney Spears released it there’d be no great fuss about it. Good to know she’s bounced back into being a regular pop star, though.

Tim: She stopped? But… but Britney is queen of pop. Everyone knows that. Don’t they?

Britney Spears – Hold It Against Me

How about we take a quick break from the usual?

Tim: Well, the final version of the new Britney single got leaked yesterday and the whole music internet and his dog is talking about it – how about we take a quick break from the usual and have a look at it?

Tom: Go for it. What do you think, Tim?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WiWqrAr57c

Tim: CAN’T STAND: the dubstep bits, which sort of includes the verses and definitely includes the first half of the bridge, which is absolutely not my type of thing.

CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF: the rest of it. This includes the choruses and the second part of the bridge, which will have lasers and smoke machines and hands in the air in any self-respecting club, and everything later than that.

That is what I think, and because it ends on a high, the positiveness wins over.

Tom: I have yet to find a dubstep track that I like, which is strange – normally, even in genres I don’t like, there are a couple of tracks that I’ll still enjoy. Dubstep? Not one, yet. It completely kills the energy in the bridge: there’s even a ramp up to it and then it just dies. That second half of the bridge, though, with the sparse drum hits? That’s bloody amazing. I want to dance to that.

Tim: Oh, and apparently if you, like me, thought you knew how to pronounce ‘hazy’, you were quite clearly wrong.

Tom: Tim, I have a degree in linguistics, I know the International Phonetic Alphabet, and I’m not sure I could transcribe what she sang there. I’m not sure those vowels are used in any human language. Perhaps she’s signalling the mothership.

Europlop’s Sunday Mashups: Vol. 2

Thirty years of pop culture in three and a half minutes.

Tom: It’s been a few weeks, so let’s have some more mashups. First of all, here’s Miracles by Norwegian Recycling.

Tom: It’s one of those genius mashups that pulls in a dozen different sources to make a coherent whole. It doesn’t really seem to go anywhere, or do any building, but it’s just rather pleasant to listen to. It’s a run through thirty years of pop culture in three and a half minutes, and the video brings it all together nicely.

Tim: Ooh, I like that – I’ve always quite liked mashups that pile in a whole load of songs together just to see what happens, such as the United State of Pop ones, and Party Ben‘s Boulevard of Broken Songs, and this one pulls it off well.*

* There’s also Axis of Awesome’s Four Chord Song, which whilst not actually being a mashup is still fun to listen to.

Tom: There’s been some very clever autotuning on Cee-Lo Green, as well; while it still sounds like him, I’m fairly sure those aren’t exactly the notes he was originally singing…

Tim: Well, with so many songs you’re bound to need a little pitch correction on there just to keep them in the same key, surely.

Tom: No, it’s more than that: I think they’ve actually got him singing a different melody, not just a different key. I might be wrong, though.

Tim: The only thing I dislike about it is the Jason Derulo track – it’s one of his better ones, but it sounds like he forgot to write words to half the chorus, which gets me every time I hear it.

Tom: Second up, here’s a simple A+B mashup by Sam Flanagan. It’s called “Brimful of Bonkers”, and that tells you all you need to know really. Oh, but watch out for an unexpected cameo just after three minutes in.

Tom: It’s easy – there is, of course, not even any pitch correction to do – but it’s still a hell of a party tune. It could use being a bit shorter, but it’s good enough that I don’t really mind.

Tim: I thought that as well – it could easily lose the first verse/chorus, since it’s identical to the second. Anyway, you’re right, it is good, especially the cameo.

Tom: I know both the original songs off by heart, which normally would just make a mashup like this confusing – but this is just pulled together so nicely that it doesn’t matter.

Tim: Personally, I prefer it when I know the original songs – you get to think ‘Ooh, this is fun – never thought of these going together.’ And speaking of knowing the original songs, here’s a mixture of two Europlop favourites merged together by Benji of Sweden (apparently he’s the only one in the country) to form one big Bromance Killer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9scZ67EAGc

Tim: Aside from the Radio Sweden jingle (which is surprisingly nonintrusive anyway), I think it’s ruddy marvellous, with him still managing to keep the big Lovekiller climax and all the energy that was originally there. Well done Mr Sweden.

Tom: Wow, that’s a belter. Bromance itself is steadily picking up more and more airplay and traction in the UK – the vocal remix with Love U Seek gets released on 25th October, which means it might well be a Big Autumn Hit.