Britney Spears' Britney Jean album from last year had a long list of notable producers and songwriters to its credit — will.i.am executive produced it, with assistance from Dr. Luke, David Guetta, Diplo, Katy Perry, Sia and many others. But one name was missing from the final product: indie pop hero Devonté "Dev" Hynes aka Blood Orange.
The Solange and Sky Ferreira-collaborator had worked on some songs for the album that he told the Guardian last year he was "actually so stoked about," but they didn't make the final cut. Those songs remain widely unheard until now, as Spin reports, when on Monday they were discovered on an anonymous SoundCloud user's page.
Though just demos, the recordings hint at a far darker and brooding Britney Jean record that could have been. Listen here:
A lot of the demos weren't finalized for two reasons: either they were running out of time in coming up with the lyrics, or the songs finalized were much too personal for Britney (ironic considering how it was marketed I know). The songs that were left were stuff that were disposable, and that Britney could easily tack her name onto for writing credit without upsetting the creators.
I mean these was exactly what almost everyone wanted from the album, some few dark deep tracks and other urban beats in other tracks, no one wanted an electro-pop superficial album and was exactly what they delivered.
There was a lot of crap on BJ, but neither of these sounds particularly striking. I'd like to see her do something like this on the next album though. I really hope she sticks to the idea of doing something out of left field.