Alright, here it is: the much bally-hoo’d Britney post.
I had originally intended a serious and in-depth post on this album, since it seemed to be extraordinarily interesting how its poor reception in the mainstream press was soon eclipsed, in my very particular and limited realm of reading, at least, by ardent praise, especially from K-Punk and Marcello (with even Simon Reynolds giving it a brief nod). Sam’s deliberately uninformed two cents hit a certain nail on the head: considering their staunch objections (quite well-reasoned at that) to the popist Paris Hilton fever, the surprising valorization of Britney’s latest by K-Punk, et al, smacks of a certain resurgence of popism, as if this is the Paris fiasco, but for the cool kids this time.
At the same time, I have to admit: the record is quite good. While I like “Tromatic Reflexxions,” there is a wide gulf between Mark E. Smith-chopped-vocal catchy and Britney Spears catchy. And given K-Punk’s ardor for electro-pop (not to mention his adoration for Britney’s previous work), I have to wonder what Sam was expecting him to say about the album. After all, “Blackout” really does sound like electro-pop, its routine relegation to the “retro” realm suddenly revealed as a grand cultural myth, has been silently gestating along with hip-hop, R&B, and electronica, absorbing their innovations. And while I’m certainly not listening to the album regularly any more, its peaks — “Piece of Me,” “Freakshow,” and “Gimme More,” the latter something like an infinitely superior counterpart to the jibbering sex-machine electro-funk of “SexyBack” — remain addictive, compulsively listenable ear candy for those of us who like that sort of thing. Even filler tracks like “Perfect Lover” and “Radar” are delectable and contemporary, if awesomely vacant, slices of pop fantasia. As a final (serious) word on the subject, I direct you to Tom Ewing’s superb column concerning “Blackout,” which says most of what I wish I could have said first (though I admittedly don’t rate the album nearly as highly as he does).
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And now, for the part you’ve all been waiting for. This is something that I recently described to Rich as “an experiment in laughing, not necessarily understanding or interpreting anything.”
Just how funny is Britney’s album if you imagine that every song is about food? “Gimme More” becomes “Gimme Food,” a perfect tune to sing when you are seized by hunger, while “Piece of Me” becomes either “Piece of Meat” or “Pizza Me” (I prefer the former, but it’s basically cribbed from Tom Ewing’s column linked above).
Of course, this requires no lyrical manipulation on some of the songs. Take “Heaven on Earth,” which for those of us who love food (which obviously includes almost all of my friends from Philly) was always already self-evidently about eating. Or, for those of you who remain unconvinced, the insanely catchy “Ooh Ooh Baby.” Britney works the hunger metaphor from the very beginning: “You know I have an appetite for sexy things.” But the chorus could easily be sung to the cake in the picture above: “Ooh ooh, baby/ Touch me and I come alive” — in addition to being an object of sheer affection, food is after all necessary for survival — “I can feel you on my lips/ I can feel you deep inside.” And all this before the lyrical passage which runs, I kid you not, “You’re fillin’ me up/ you’re fillin’ me up/ you’re fillin’ me up.”
Anyway, this was probably much funnier when I was 1) listening to “Blackout” and 2) hungry while working at my numbingly repetitive winter break job. In any case, I hope this helps your enjoyment of the album. And yes, I’m settled back at school, and will be blogging more. I mean it this time.
