Album Club: 08.11.2011: Britney Spears - Blackout (2007)
Britney Spears - Blackout (2007)
http://open.spotify.com/album/1MLQLTepJnkvGxa4Oe6Tzr
Well I suspect I will be able to count on one finger the number of people who will appreciate this week’s reserve Album Club choice… Me! And as for everyone else, the one finger will probably be the middle one, pointing up - and aimed in my direction!
As you will have seen, I have chosen Britney Spears and her fifth studio album, Blackout. I suppose the first question most of you will be asking after “WTF!?” will be “Why?” Well, ok, I will try and explain why…
You may or may not have been aware of the terminal meltdown that Ms Spears appeared to be in immediately preceding the release of this album – but if you do remember then you may have seen some of the images… yes – THOSE images of the previously squeaky clean American darling emerging from a limo in a short skirt, but also the ones of her rushing from a hairdresser’s having completely shaved her own head. The distraught pictures after the court appearances - having lost custody of her children, the numerous literal car crashes and motoring offences – the disastrous comeback on MTV. Interestingly, the Guardian review at the time, suggested “By contrast with poor old Britney, everything in Amy Winehouse's world is going just swimmingly.” Oh, the irony of hindsight…!
And in part, that’s why I chose this album – the juxtaposition of everything going disastrously in an artist’s private life, whilst the commercial machine of the record industry continues to demand its pound of flesh. Undoubtedly “poor old Britney” was in a very dark place, but at the same time, she was being wheeled into a recording studio, no doubt hardly knowing where she was at times, let alone who she was – and yet… this “comeback” album, whilst being one of her weaker selling titles, was very well received by the critics at the time. Just how much of that was down to “poor old Britney” rather than the collaborators that were bank-rolled in to write and produce the album would of course be pure speculation… Interesting too, the amount of vocal processing that is easily audible on this album, leaving one to wonder if she was just too far gone to even sing for her supper…?
But, despite all of the crassness and controversy that surrounded Britney and this album, to me it still manages to be a great pop record, full of state-of-the-art production techniques at the time, yet harking back to glam rock, disco and new-wave in a surprisingly accomplished dance album. And yet underpinning all of this, is the personal story – a young woman going through the breakup of her second marriage and losing her kids whilst still only in her mid twenties – limitless wealth, a supposedly loving family, and here she is, her life on a knife-edge.
If you look beneath the surface of the glossy production and processed beats, there’s an uneasiness to it, a darkness that is sometimes revealed in the lyrics, but perhaps more tellingly in the subtlety of it – the disassociation of the star of the show, who no matter what, had to be seen to be putting out a great record.
By the way, I'm adding a zero option to the scoring system for this week!
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No way, I can't listen to the "toxic" one 
Isaac Bashevis Singer
You gotta be jokin'
