Britney Spears may just be a genius.
Disregard stumbling around onstage at the VMAs tranquilized under a thousand different substances. Disregard P. Diddy’s face. Disregard babies left in hot cars and stomachs dotted with stretch marks while a general sadness curves around a spandex one piece. In a Rain Man tactic of assuming vapidness until it comes to hitting the switchboard, “Blackout” is a triumphant return for the pop diva, whose picture is still posted over a thousand bathroom stalls in West Hollywood.
What is most initially striking is the production. With the throbbing synths in “Heaven on Earth” overlapping lyrics of “your perfect skin, your perfect smile,” one thinks of Goldfrapp performing for a Hannah Montana crowd. A slightly more ghetto touch appears on “Tell Me What You’re Sippin’ On,” an unused B-side with Spears unafraid to mimic Beyonce in a bit of a sassy-weave rapport with rapper AC. In taking a top-40 hip-hop song and replacing the ubiquitous degraded female role in the lyrics with a “K-Fed” reference, Britney uses People-magazine Britney-bashing as fuel for a new kind of jam. “Perfect Lover” continues in this thread, with a Timbaland beat allowing the kind of foundation Britney needs to repeat choruses consisting only of breathy huffing. Honestly, so hot.
Britney’s voice has undergone its own sort of transformation as well. She’s got the low notes that bounce along convincingly with a ghetto-tech beat. The national-anthem sort of pop projection is all but gone, as lyrics like “Don’t you want to see my body naked?” are spit with legitimate fire. One even begins to wonder how someone who talks like a Miss America drop-out got such ambition to be faux soul.
Though the record by no means contains a disgustingly catchy gem like “Toxic,” or the kind of bold-faced harlotry of “I’m a Slave 4 U,” Chris Crocker look-alikes nationwide haven’t been tearfully defending Spears for nothing. Perhaps in breaking down her public life in an ethical mire and adopting a sort of glossy, puppy-dog gaze she was planning a comeback all along rather than just being numbed into oblivion by barbiturates.
The beats are memorable and play across genres from new wave to slow jam while still keeping the same cohesive themes of unashamed affairs, strutting at the club and overall just being Britney. It’s mature without being overly intelligent, flirtatious without being trashy and catchy without being trite ““ overall a purification of Britney’s tried and true method of carnality-over-creativity. Burn out, get knocked up, build back, get hot, repeat. Beautiful.
““ Casey Henry
E-mail Henry at chenry@media.ucla.edu.