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Music News: Britney Spears - 'Femme Fatale'
Member Since: 8/18/2010
Posts: 6,060
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ATTENTION, STANS.
You don't like Exhale?
Do we have any Exhale members here?
We need some extra help,
cos Exhale stanbase + ATRL stanbase = #holditagainst ___ trending topic.
We're much stronger that way.
Exhale is closed for non-members which means only registered members can enter the boards right now. Do we have any prominent exhalers here? If we do, go over there! Let's make this work.
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/8/2006
Posts: 42,086
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Quote:
Snap Judgment: "Hold It Against Me" by Britney Spears
January 10, 2011 | 12:30 pm
It's fitting that the latest provocation from America's sexpot sweetheart Britney Spears should surface the same week that both Jennifer Lopez and Gypsy Rose Lee are in the news. Brit's new single, "Hold It Against Me," has leaked a day before its official release. The song finds its plasticene soul somewhere between the soft sexiness Lopez employed in her vintage singles and the tough-minded wit of Lee's self-protective burlesque routines.
Think of it as a new version of the hard-soft dynamic employed by Nirvana. Instead of remaking rock by marrying punk's crashing chaos to invitingly Beatlesque melodies, Spears -- or really, her billion-dollar producers, Max Martin and Dr. Luke -- sustain her career on the cutting edge of dance-pop by blending the near-industrial beats and breakdowns of English grime music with a beatifically insipid chorus worthy of Martin's recently minted star, Taio Cruz.
How does this relate to Lopez and Lee? Both offer fine examples of what it takes to survive in the novelty-obessed pop world, a matter that's also long preoccupied Spears, and which must feel even more pressing now that the Louisiana-born proto-nubile is getting uncomfortably close to 30.
Lopez's musical efforts may have recently flopped, but her comeback via "American Idol," ramping up in light of the show's return on Jan. 19, reminds us that the right kind of female pop star -- the flexible type, with enough personality to keep her distinct from newer rivals but not so stubbornly committed to herself that a fresh context can't upgrade her -- can have a longer public life than anyone expected. And a just-published new biography of burlesque legend Lee again brings to mind the most salient fact about American sex symbols: Given the nation's repressed attitudes about genuine public displays of sensuality, the best method for mass seduction is a massive brain-tease.
"Hold It Against Me" hardly offers the most original come-on of recent years (or weeks, really; not with Katy Perry and Ke$ha bouncing around out there). But it's a classic. The song takes its title and lyrical hook from the kind of line Rose might have uttered, though it suggests a joke of Groucho Marx's, who'd wag his eyebrows at pretty female guests on the television program "You Bet Your Life" and say, "If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?" Howard Bellamy, a major Marx fan, took the sexual revolution to Margaritaville in the 1979 Bellamy Brothers hit based around the phrase, and the gentler elements of the Spears single have a similar soft-rock tinge -- it may just be studio trickery, but the chorus seems to substitute a flock of feather-haired warblers for Spears and her drawling sneer. (My excellent critical friend Maura Johnston has pointed out on the new website Popdust that the chorus' melody may be borrowed from the hard-to-take synth-pop chestnut "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" by Cutting Crew.)
Brit's sneer makes a slight comeback on the verses; Spears further proves her spiritual affinity for fellow trash icon Axl Rose when she turns the phrase "a little hazy" into a tiny heavy metal explosion. And then there are the breaks that come late in the track -- the places in a dance song where the beats turn around and take over, and which, in this particular effort, offer the promise of something more.
Finally trading in gloss for sonic adventure in the song's last few seconds, Martin and Gottwald slice and dice Spears's incitements ("drop it like a hood," she sneers, adding just a drop of hip-hop attitude to the mix) into a rapidly shifting mix of dry-ice synth lines and ammunition beats. Everything jumps. "Hold It Against Me" briefly transforms from the kind of pop smoothie whose invetable omnipresence will soon make us want to vomit into a hit that actually could take the charts somewhere new.
But it's just a couple of moments. The glove drops and Spears' latest routine ends. It's offered just enough to bring the paying audience back for more in March, when her seventh album hits retail. Nice bait and switch, Britney -- Gypsy would have been impressed.
-- Ann Powers
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Los Angeles Time
Very objective critic  , still positive 
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Member Since: 7/15/2010
Posts: 3,610
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Quote:
Originally posted by RyanC
Loves it. I'd kill for a Britney/Gaga collabo. It would SHATTER records.
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I don't want one. There voices are too different it would sound miserable. And there is no way they would be able to make a song big and glorious enough to handle these two superpowers.
Madonna+Britney have similar voices so "Me Against The Music" worked terrifically. Beyonce+GaGa each have large voices so their song worked (and cause Bey was just in the bridge or whatever)
Meh maybe I do want one but my expectations would be too high hehe
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Member Since: 5/22/2010
Posts: 9,633
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Omg this is slaying my life, i have been repeating it FORVER
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Member Since: 11/6/2009
Posts: 7,375
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Quote:
Originally posted by Patrick
How anyone can say this song lacks a chorus is completely beyond me.  This has one of the most sing-along-worthy choruses of the past few months. |
The problem is that the chorus sounds like a bridge, a buildup to something that simply doesn't show up. Where is the killer chorus Martin is known for?
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Member Since: 3/19/2007
Posts: 158
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Calling all miami stations and requesting the best song of 2011!!!! They shall play it until their ears bleed and they get shut down! Lol
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Member Since: 2/6/2010
Posts: 27,892
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Member Since: 4/9/2009
Posts: 3,283
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The song is a major grower !
It has leaked 70 pages ago (I think ?) and many of those who were so so about it at first are now conquered ! 
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Member Since: 10/2/2009
Posts: 18,322
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Britney is cool and I love her, but she's so overrated here.
I better exit this forum before I start hating her 
Still need to listen to the song, got yelled out in class for using my laptop 
Gotta wait till I finish class
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Member Since: 6/15/2009
Posts: 12,195
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I'll let them know. What's the new hashtag we wanna try?
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Member Since: 6/5/2009
Posts: 13,743
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I don't care what y'all say, this single is experimental. I don't hear any other mainstream songs that use legitimate grime/dubstep.
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Member Since: 9/21/2010
Posts: 29,122
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Quote:
Originally posted by Wick
I love the fact that the chorus isn't one where people SCREAM to like "FIIIIIREWOOOORK" this is actually, dare I say, beautiful! It requires SINGING! This song is so perfect and that bridge is phenomenal and does NOT feel out of place.
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I will not let you come for Katy like that.
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ATRL Moderator
Member Since: 11/22/2010
Posts: 10,782
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Quote:
Originally posted by Blueberry Kisses
Gworls, may I express my one concern with the amazingness of this single? What if she pulls another Circus on us, and gives us the best song by far as the lead single and then the album is still fantastic, but nothing as good as the first single?
I'M SO SCURRED GURLS.  |
I'm scurred too. Maybe they will have learned from their mistakes.
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Member Since: 2/6/2010
Posts: 27,892
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Quote:
Originally posted by staracademy1990
Britney is cool and I love her, but she's so overrated here.
I better exit this forum before I start hating her
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IF you are going to hate...
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Member Since: 7/15/2010
Posts: 3,610
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hustle.
The problem is that the chorus sounds like a bridge, a buildup to something that simply doesn't show up. Where is the killer chorus Martin is known for?
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The chorus is FRESH and doesn't sound so predictable like every other chorus out there.
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Member Since: 8/18/2010
Posts: 7,401
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Quote:
Originally posted by Britneyfan09
I'll let them know. What's the new hashtag we wanna try?
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#HoldItAgainst
But go back a page, copy Lem's post and make a thread over there. :nod:
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Member Since: 2/6/2010
Posts: 27,892
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Quote:
Originally posted by Deemy
I will not let you come for Katy like that. |
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Member Since: 7/15/2010
Posts: 3,610
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Quote:
Originally posted by Deemy
I will not let you come for Katy like that. |
Erm, I love Katy, I was saying when that song is at clubs everyone is just screaming. This is a song that will have people SINGING.
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Member Since: 2/16/2010
Posts: 69,775
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Quote:
Originally posted by Patrick
Only Girl .
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Quote:
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Originally posted by Patrick
Horrible.
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These two phrases shall & never will belong in the same sentence. Not too much now
About this song, love the verses & that beat drop after the second chorus. The third chorus is amazing, I just wish the first two had picked up as well.
Overall Grade: BC (which stands for better than Circus)
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Member Since: 7/15/2010
Posts: 3,610
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Quote:
Originally posted by thegmangrant
I don't care what y'all say, this single is experimental. I don't hear any other mainstream songs that use legitimate grime/dubstep. |
What are they experimenting with that has never been done before? You don't know what you're talking about. The bridge is a deviation from what we typically hear on the radio but it is not experimental.
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