Has anybody else heard this that is surprised as I am? I've only liked certain songs of hers in the past (Toxic, You Drive Me Crazy, Breathe On Me...and thats about it) but this new album is pretty good. Not great but it's definitely good. No drippy ballads, just straight up dance floor music and it's catchy. I'm shocked.

You actually bought it at a store
Tantamount suicide

I read some reviews and they were actually quite positive as well. I might just have to check it out.

Yeah, I'm totally psyched about her new CD!! I just love brainless dance music, courtesy of non-artists who can't sing and who pay songwriters and producers for their best tunes and beats!

Not all music has to be innovative or art, some of it can just be fun.

Nah, I just downloaded it on Rhapsody. It's pretty good though and it's getting really good reviews. It's the type of album Pitchfork would go gaga over as well so I wouldn't be surprised to see the album or at least a couple singles make the AM list. I thought it was going to be a lot different.

I'm not gonna lie- I totally dig "Gimme More".

Just came up on Metacritic: http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/spearsbritney/blackout?part=rss

Guess the reviews aren't so glowing. 70-80 seems about right. Somewhere in the middle. Billboard is kind of missing the point.

It's getting pretty bad reviews on rateyourmusic

That's to be expected though. You can never count on a user review site to give an accurate judgement of a pop album. Until Pitchfork says it's ok to like it they'll always hate it.

When it comes to pop music I always object to the way it is produced in a way that is similar to the way that some object to the way Nike and McDonald's products are produced. Still, I DO wear Nike and eat at Mickey D's! I gotta admit I really like that Kelly Clarkson song, "Since U Been Gone".

With Britney my main complaint is that she's too much of an idiot, and the stupidity really shows in the music. Self-pitying ballads like "Lucky" and "Not Yet a Girl" are beyond tolerable and plastic love tunes like "Oops! I did it Again" and "Hit Me Baby One More Time" are so obviously not about anything at all that I wonder how her fans' heads stay intact while digesting such intellectual vacuum.

The ballads are terrible and are bubblegum. But, she's a puppet and sometimes her strings are pulled the right way. Toxic is one of the best pop songs of this century and this album plays off the greatness of that song. Nothing is as good as it but it stays in that mold. If you didn't like Toxic, you won't like this album. If you did, I'd suggest giving it a listen.

^^^ is that some sort of sick joke? toxic and britney are a huge reason there are so few good bands out there.

Britney Spears is preventing bands across the globe from making good music? Wow, she can't even get custody of her kids, but she has a stranglehold on the music industry.... It's pop music. It's good pop music. It's not art. It's fun. Anything else?

Add me to the list of 'toxic' fans - it's definitely one of my favourite pop singles of this decade. It's pretty much the only single of hers that I've unreservedly loved, but I haven't heard anything from this new release.

I don't like "Toxic", which was way too "contemporary R&B" for my taste. But I like this album, just like I like Kylie Minogue, Annie and the Madonna of the past ten years. Because, really, the 80s retro sound of those is what Britney sounds like now. It's the first time she does and it's also the first Britney album I like.

i haven't heard her new album, but i haven't been able to stand what little britney i've heard in the past, so i'm not really motivated to. having said that, i'm almost certainly guilty of completely disregarding her music because of its target audience (oh yes, i'm elitist). it's important to realize just how irrelevant that, and many other things are though. those other things are personal life, intelligence, values, etc. none of those things alone can take the blame for horrible music.

One of the reasons, among many, why I won’t (or more aptly “can’t”) listen to Ms. Spears’ music is that she’s not in control of what she does.

Here’s an excerpt from the oft brilliant Mr. Erlewine, from AllMusic:

…it makes sense: how responsible is Britney for her music, anyway? At the peak of her popularity, she never seemed to be dictating the direction of her music, so it only stands to reason that when her personal life has gotten too hectic, she's simply decided to let the professional producers create their tracks and then she'll just drop in the vocals at her convenience.

And he correctly points out: Britney may not have much on her mind but at least she has pockets so deep she can buy the best producers…

I’m not a dance-pop hater. But as a musician, and someone who admires talent and songwriting ability, my appreciation can only extend to the songwriters, producers and musicians that are doing the hard work for her. At the end of the day, I’m not inclined to listen to someone who is merely a vehicle for someone else’s creativity.

i suppose the reason i can't relate to you might be because i dislike many musicians for many different reasons, but none have ever stopped me from listening to their music. i would like to think that if i don't listen to something, i do so because i don't like the music. to me, that is the one and only good reason not to listen to something. things like her lack of creative input to her music, as far as i can see, are only reasons to dislike her as a person... i suppose disliking someone as a person would make it difficult to listen to their music, but as i said, i've never been effected by that.

There are a ton of great songs where the singer is just a cog in the wheel. By saying that you are throwing anything by Phil Spector or Burt Bacarach out the window and almost everything out of Motown and that's just a start. Now, Britney has nothing on most of those songs but to disregard her music because she wasn't involved in the creative process is a little crazy.

thank you john. i was going to say something along those lines too, but i couldn't think of such brilliant examples. well done.

Can of worms…

I’m not throwing anything out per se. But, I should’ve elaborated…

For the most part, my personal musical tastes form a hierarchy whereby “true” artists are near the top and non-artists near the bottom. By true artists, I’m referring to those individuals who, at the minimum, write the music that they’re performing. Non-artists being the singers/performers of others’ songs (eg. Spears and other cogs in the wheel, past or present.)

Sure, “Be My Baby” (Spector, your example John) and “Heard It Through The Grapevine” (Motown, another example) are great, well-crafted songs, I agree. And I can appreciate the songwriting and the performances (and being a musician myself helps in both regards, I believe.) However….I tend to gravitate toward songs and music that are performed by the writers themselves. The reason being, music is such an emotional outlet (which any songwriter will tell you), and I’d rather listen to someone sing and/or perform their own words and music over someone singing another person’s words/feelings/emotions.

Like I mentioned before, there’s more to music than just being “catchy”. Again, not completely throwing anything out; just perhaps giving “priority” to those true artists like Thom Yorke, Michael Stipe, Jeff Mangum; artists that write and perform their own music.

I think it's also the marketing that makes her so distasteful. It relies so heavily on image and sex appeal, and only because Spears has so little talent! Now Marvin Gaye might have been a cog in the wheel, but he was a great cog at that, and never needed a flashy music video to pull it off.

anthony, whoever your favorite artist is, would they still be your favorite if they didn't write their own music?

Moeboid - absolutely not. They would cease to be an "artist" at that point. Music is art, and I admire its creators.

Re: Marvin Gaye, he went on to become a artist in his own right later his career, and so because of that, I can appreciate his songs during the time when he was a Motown cog.

And jonmarck is dead-on about Britney - her entire career is based on her image. And as far as I can tell, her only marketable "talents" are dancing and sex appeal. Her vocal abilities are laughable, and her songwriting prowess, aside from a few co-writes here and there, remains to be seen.

Anthony, I’ve noticed we’ve been on the opposite side of the fence a few times in bracketology, but I've liked and laughed with many of your comments - but, wow, I completely disagree with you here. The notion that a performer can't be a true artist if he doesn't write his or her own material is preposterous to me. Frank Sinatra didn't write his material and Cole Porter didn’t record interpretations of his songs - does that diminish their achievements? If it does in your eyes, then I think you’re denying yourself appreciation of craftsmanship at its highest level.

Being a good performer and a good writer are two completely different roles and one of the worst things to ever to happen to pop music was the ascent of the notion that you have to do both to be a complete artist. Compare how many truly classic, melodic, well-structured songs came out of the eighties and nineties to the amount that came out of the sixties. This is dangerous ground for a Dylan fanatic, but I absolutely believe the main reason we've seen such a scarcity of memorable, melodic song-writing in the past few decades is due to the rise of the 'self-contained' artist and the diminishing role of the professional song-writer.

I think what it comes down to is that good music has to have value. It has to have substance, otherwise it would be McD's, which might be fun and might feel good for the moment, but is not substantial (and leads to the metaphorical "runs").

Frank Sinatra has value because (at least in my view) he is an incredible vocalist and has sustained a great image.

Meat Loaf has value because of the spectacle, the skill (and there IS skill to his songs, heck the Bat Out of Hell musicianship is on par with Springsteen) and, again, a great, unique image.

Singer/songwriters have value because they write their own songs, depending on whether those songs are any good or not.

It seems to me like Britney's sole value is based on the immediate appeal of a style she exploits (rather than adds to (unlike classics like Off the Wall or Ray of Light)), her sex appeal (which was never that respectable to begin with, and at this point is downright laughable) and her image of a virginal Archie-comic-style teenage role model, which is ridiculously hard to digest for anyone with half a brain. I don't think her stuff has substance so I don't think it can be considered valuable or good, at least not in the sense that Frank Sinatra is considered good.

You gotta admit Anthony, The Hip are at least better than Britney.

jonmarck - lol, yes, The Hip are better than Britney, no question. I admire their musicianship and artistry, even though I completely detest the substance (with the exception of a few songs.)

damosuzuki - thank you for the compliment on my Bracketology comments. The feeling is mutual.

I feel that I'm being partially misunderstood here. The main point of my posts has been to illustrate, firstly, my *personal* dislike of Britney Spears' music, based on these criteria:

1. She is a bad vocalist.
2. She is a performer, but not an artist.
3. Her music and career is image-driven and manipulated by an industry that expertly masterminds and executes her every professional (but obviously NOT personal) career move.

From there, I attempted to explain how I, again, *personally*, rank true musical artists higher on my own musical hierarchy than non-artists, reasons for which I previously explained. The fact of the matter is, I happen to enjoy artists who write and perform their own music - their own ART - themselves. The Dylans, the Bowies, the Jack Whites, the Buckleys* of the world - these are the types of artists that I respect and rank high on my own musical scale. Their music is real, in the sense that they wrote it, they performed it, they sang it. They are the conduits of their own emotions and experiences.

On the opposite end lies Britney - a figure in the music industry who has so much money that she can pay literally anything to get the best songs from best producers out there. I wouldn't be surprised, in fact, it's probably not far from the truth if I said that she probably listens to some producers' songs and says "Yeah, that one sorta fits into my life in a way; I can, like, relate to that. I'll take it." Money changes hands; she gets her dance-pop tune - everyone's happy. That's why I can't listen to anything she releases - it doesn't feel true to me. To use jonmarck's terminology, it's "plastic". She's singing someone elses words, and I just can't buy it on an emotional level. Yes, it might be catchy as hell, but (gosh, I'm beginning to sound like a broken record here), "catchy" is NOT the be all and end all. Music has to have substance, and I don't find it in the songs she's released.

Which leads me to Sinatra - an amazing performer and vocalist, no question about it. So talented, in fact, that when he performed songs written by others, he could sell it on an emotional level. I admire the talent, but again, he didn't write his own songs, and so he wasn't a "complete" artist in that sense. Accordingly, I don't rank him as high on my own personal scale. I'm not saying that he wasn't an important figure in the history of music - he was! But for as much as I admire him, I would not put him higher than Dylan, Bowie, Cooke, Wonder et al. - they sang too, but they did so much more.

(* Yes, Buckley did a covered Cohen and is well-known (arguably) because of it. And he covered a plethora of songs by other artists (Van Morrison, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, etc.) But he established himself as an artist by writing and performing his own music, and so he can't be considered a one-trick pony in my estimation.)

"(* Yes, Buckley did a covered Cohen and is well-known (arguably) because of it. And he covered a plethora of songs by other artists (Van Morrison, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, etc.) But he established himself as an artist by writing and performing his own music, and so he can't be considered a one-trick pony in my estimation.)"

Even then, he gave a reinterpretation of it that said more about who he was than who Cohen is. That's the beauty of good music. It's self-expression, even when expressing yourself through other people's art! That's why Britney Spears cannot be good music (not like she cares anyways). She does not self express, and when she tries to the results are, artistically speaking, disastrous.

Just a reminder: Tim Buckley is ranked higher than his son on the list...

I'm gonna disagree with jonmarck and Anthony...I don’t really expect to convince anyone of this, but I believe it’s true:

Music is not about self-expression, nor is it about the expression of emotions.

MUCH more fundamental to music is what jonmarck pointed out upthread—songwriters and performers working within a tradition (Sinatra's an excellent example). Creating it, adding to it, perfecting it, extending it. This is called genre, and neither pop music nor any other art from would exist, or even be conceivable, without it. I don’t know how well I can explain this briefly, but for any particular artist, the genre they’re working in is a kind of mask they put on, or a kind of pose they adopt.

Unfortunately, both critics and performers tend to perpetuate the myth that “sincerity,” or something like it, is at the root of their music…usually because they want to seem as, well, unBritneylike as possible (comparing her to fast food is code for saying that she’s commodified, and therefore fake). But it’s clear (to me, anyway) that posing and artificiality are much more at the core of art, especially pop music. Sometimes this is obvious (Bowie, Prince, Bono since 1990) but even the musical personas of seemingly very “sincere” artists (Dylan, Springsteen, Bono before 1990) are NOT so much about self-expression, but about public image (John Lydon got that one right).

Understand, I’m not calling these musicians hypocrites; this is just how art works. But, for that reason, direct expression of emotion is not really possible. The purest attempt I know of in pop music is John Lennon’s “Mother,” which, frankly, is unlistenable. And the sweetest love song you can think of is only possible because of a thousand-year-old tradition of romantic ballads.

This isn’t to say that the personalities of performers are unimportant, or that emotions are unimportant—but I think the thing to watch is how emotion is evoked in the LISTENER, rather than the performer.

No disrespect intended, of course, to jonmarck and Anthony; both of y’all are musicians and smart fellas. I happen to disagree with you on this one, but then I’m in a tiny minority in having this opinion (which, by the way, owes a lot to my reading of your fellow Canadian, the literary critic Northrop Frye).

And, to be clear: I would not dream of trying to defend Britney Spears. Apart from “Toxic” (which I think is just ok), I think the proper objection to her is not that her music is “phony” but that her music is no-dimensional—witless, artless, and a failure as both dance music and bubblegum pop.

Schleuse, I don't mean that self-expression is sincerity, I mean it is personality. Pop is one of the most self-expressive U2 records because it has so much personality. Britney either steals her personality from better musicians or has her marketing team draw one up for her.

Again, just like a good portion of pop stars in the past 60 years. In the 50's and 60's pop stars were asked to put on a sweet and innocent facade. It's the other way around now. It's always happened and it shouldn't get in the way of enjoying the music. I don't understand the need to have a personal connection with a pop star. I'm going to go to a pop concert and I'm not going to go out to dinner with a pop star. All I'm doing is listening to a couple songs. I feel no need to connect with the artist on a personal level. Are there artists I connect to? Yeah. But, I don't need to feel that with every person I hear sing a song.

Of all the possible responses to my post, the last one I expected was a defense of Pop--but you're right, jonmarck: it's a severely underrated album (I haven't posted my top 10 U2 songs on that thread because I'm slightly embarrassed that three of them are from that album).

Anyhoo, I think you're right that "self-expression" in pop music is mostly about personality--but in that case, I think it's misleading to call it "self" expression.

To me, Britney stinks of focus groups--it's like ten marketing firms got together to cough up a sexy young nubile pop star. Nothing good has ever, ever, ever come of giving the public what it thinks it wants.

It'll be Hannah Montana next. You just watch.

Nothing good for us, anyways. It's plenty good for the investors.

I think it should be called self-expression because it wouldn't be possible unless the artist was expressing themselves. When U2 switched styles from Joshua Tree to Achtung Baby they weren't saying, "Now we're pretending to be something else for awhile before we go back to being Joshua Tree U2". They were saying, "The Joshua Tree is U2 and now we're going to show you another side because U2 is more complex than what we've shown so far." Of course some artists try to make such a switch without actually being more complex; without actually having talent that extends past their output to that point. Remember Jewel? Folkie singer/songwriter? Remember how she tried to pass herself off as the next dance pop sensation? Neither do I, but she tried. She didn't have the artistic depth to pass it off. In other words, she didn't have the type of skill and talent that the dance-poppers had to make it work. She was expressing something that she didn't feel. She was being fake.

When it comes to Britney, her management team is too savvy to make such a simple mistake. Britney might not be expressing anything herself, but her image is carefully planned for her, just like a mom laying clothes out for her kids. We don't get to know anything about her through her music, except what we're not supposed to know but has slipped in through lack of talent that the more perceptive fans pick up.


John I think that if you don't have that desire to really get to know the artist then you're missing out on a large part of music. Part of the reason why I love the artists I love is because, as people, they're so interesting and unique. No one thinks and acts the way they do. This is why I think it's so important for music to express the personality of the musician.

That's well-put, jonmarck...but in the case of Jewel, I never did (and I'm guessing you never did) buy her as a "folkie singer/songwriter" in the first place. She was "fake" from the get-go.

And, again, in the case of U2--you're right that the best artists tend to be the ones who re-invent (awful term) themselves now and then because they still have more facets (masks?) to show us. If I wanted to be really provocative, I'd point out that R.E.M. has been doing that for at least two decades now...

Any artists’ different facets of self-expression are just the manifestation of the intrinsic artistic “need” to create and do something different than what has been done before. In the cases of U2 and R.E.M., both bands have shown their true artistic natures by expanding their creative palette through the exploration of different musical styles. In the case of Britney, however, any attempt at diversity is only the result of her puppeteers telling her “this is the direction your career should go.”

Jewel, I believe, is an artist at heart, but like jonmarck correctly noted, just not an overly talented one.

P.S. Get ready for the new incarnation of Jewel – country crooner. (A recent Billboard article tells of a switch to a Nashville-based country label.) *rolling eyes*

The only Spears album I have os the Greatest Hits one. I like a few of the tracks, and can listen to a handful of others. But, overall, the music isn't anything notable. Have you heard Cathy Dennis' demo of "Toxic"? It shows how little Spears beings to the table- doesn't even have to be songwriting, just the delivery- nothign special going on there.

Even as a performer, she's not that graceful or interesting to watch- robotic dance moves usually dominate (when she's coherent, that is). Not saying she wasn't sexy or anything, but, combine the mediocroty as a performer, with the bad miming and/or singing, with the fact that she doesn't seem like a very creative person- and you get a non-special artist (who, frankly, based on the overall output, is ranked way too high on AM, me thinks).

I refer to her latest track as "Gimme a Migraine"- no less than 70 times (more, I think), is "gimme" heard throughout- a monotonous bore, really- not a bad beat to ti, but I'd bbe AWFULLY surprised if this ended up anywhere near the most acclaimed tracks of 2007.

Music - it shouldn't be overthought,it doesn't really matter to me whether people write their own songs or not - damn it,if a song is good,it's good and if a song's bad,it's bad - just listen to THE SONG without having any thoughts about the artist's coolness level or anything. It's so easy to bag successful people but remember - Britney has sold a lot more records than anyone here,who's laughing now? She doesn't give a damn if critics don't like her records - it's a lot more important to be successful with the fans than with the critics...I'm sure an artist would rather have a string of #1 albums than a string of acclaimed albums that sold poorly

Thanks Amy. And thanks, no more typo bohemians requested/

On the contrary, artists like Britney are like tourists. They dip into the industry for a few years then check out and move on.

Critical favs tend to be career artists, regardless of sales. They're the ones who play music for the love of it, not the exploitation.

The problem with the former group is that they're the exploiters, while the latter group are the constructors. The critical favs work so hard to make this thing called music so cool and substantial. Kids base their teenage philosophies around their statements! Then idiots like Spears disguise themselves like real musicians, trick a bunch of kids into buying their albums and give shortchange them with crap in return. Spears is the butcher who slaughters the calf that real artists spend their lives nurturing.

'Spears is the butcher who slaughters the calf that real artists spend their lives nurturing.'

LOL - now that's class wordplay

I really agreed with something Schleuse said above; what makes music succeed to me is not self-expression, and I don’t think there’s a more over-rated quality to be found in music than sincerity. Olivia Newton-John cried on the Tonight Show when she sang I Honestly Love You, which presumably meant that she was oozing sincerity at that moment. That definitely doesn’t make me like her performance more than I would have if she hadn’t meant it.

What makes music succeed or fail is the level of craftsmanship, and on that level I don’t think being a great musician or songwriter is too radically different from being a great carpenter or draftsman. It’s mainly about constructing something that has the qualities that succeed within the parameters you’ve set for it. The parameters that please me tend to be ugliness and repetition, and performers who excel within those boundaries are the ones I like the most.

It certainly exists within a different universe from what I tend to listen to, but I think that, judged by the level of craft, Toxic is a fantastic song, one of the best of the last ten years. Sure it may be music by focus group, an aural equivalent of a Big Mac, but so fucking what? Big Macs are fun to eat sometimes – I wouldn’t want a steady diet of them, but I wouldn’t want to deprive myself the pleasure of tearing into one now and then either.

i have just one reason for disagreeing with schleuse: nirvana - where did you sleep last night.

seriously though, i don't think that sincerity of whatever is the heart soul of music... but sometimes it works, and for some songs it's the only thing that does.

That's a hell of a song, Moeboid--certainly the best thing on the Unplugged album.

Speaking of musical tradition, "Where Did You Sleep" is about 120 years older than Kurt's performance--it's even 20 years older than Stagger Lee! (going by Wikipedia here)

I wonder how many of the AM Top 3000 are older. (nicolas, this one's in your ballpark)

Well, like I said, I don't mean sincerity when I talk about self-expression, I mean personality. In fact some of the most expressive music I know is ridiculously sarcastic, like Randy Newman's Political Science. The amazing thing about such a song, is that only Randy Newman could have done it! This is what I mean by self-expression. We get to know the musician through the music. I await Spears' cover version.

Toxic is a good song and I don't care if it's by Britney.

In answer to Schleuse

It's difficult to precisely date a folk song, because they are like trees : from a leaf you get to a branch then to a trunk then to several roots.
Sometimes the oldest are ancient British or Irish ballads that crossed the ocean and were played in America (often Appalachia, which was a remote land where traditions were kept)
Among the old folk songs in the top 3000, there is another one, although the lyrics might be a little more recent
- "House of the rising sun" (according to Alan Lomax, which was, with his father John, one of the best folklorists of the XXth century, the melody was taken from a traditional English ballad and the lyrics written at the beginning of the century, although it's difficult to say : the guys who got credited are the ones who published it first)
- "Goodnight Irene" sung by Leadbelly (one of my all-time favorites)according to Wikipedia it's from 1888, but according to other sources (at home) it goes back further to the mid-19th century.
These are the ones I think about right now.
I don't remember Nirvana's rendition, but Leadbelly's version (1944) is extraordinary powerful and evocative, like all his repertoire.

funny to talk about old folk songs and Leadbelly in a thread called Britney !

She does credit him in the liner notes.

If Britney sang some Leadbelly it would be a step in the right direction.

Britney Spears Covers Leadbelly (2007):

1. Careless Love
2. Where Did You Sleep Last Night
3. My Baby Quit Me
4. You Don't Know My Mind
5. Mothers Blues/Little Childrens Blues
6. Take a Whiff On Me
7. Big Fat Woman (I don't acutally think she's fat, but apparently the media does)

Now THERE'S an album worth buying!

Haha, that's brilliant. I'd buy it.

No reason Britney Spears can't record good singles. It's easy when you buy all your songs from Berklee grads who live in Nashville, use voice modification technology, and have no input whatsoever over the production of your songs.

Heard the album twice now, can't help but compare with Madonna, the albums Ray of Light and Music to be more specific. The same dance music style, similar voicing. It's quite fun to listen to, not super, not irritating.

The major difference between the two is, I think, that Madonna is (or at least has been) more creative and trend-setting, whereas Britney seems to prefer to follow trends.

Yeah, I think that's the main difference. Madonna has paved her career by being up with the latest trends when they are happening. Britney (or her handlers...whatever) kind of rides on the coattails of trends. The music is comparable in the fact that it's fun pop music but Madonna is a creative force who is always taking risks with her music.

It got a 60 on metacritic didn't it? Even for a pop album that's not too high. I think it's her best reviewed album to date I believer but even Whitney has scored higher.

It's at 66. That's above 3 stars out of 5. Considering there were a bunch of people out to trash it from the beginning and only one that gave it a rave review that's not bad. Generally favorable reviews according to Metacritic.