How Blackout Has Become The Blueprint For Experimental Pop

[FfFfFfFF 55,180]

I just found a recent article discussing the dynamics of pop in the last decade and I think highlights some interesting things.

In 2007, when Britney Spears dropped Blackout the internet lit up. Long before there was a critical appreciation for pop music, forum users were picking apart the music from a critical lens. Blackout felt like the peak of the forum pop critic. It was a menacing, sexy and celebrity-driven pop record that was infused with gritty electronics. While the critics largely dismissed it, the forums celebrated it.

Blackout wasn’t the kind of pop record that changed the sound for the following year. Pop/rock and hip-hop dominated the airwaves but Lady Gaga’s The Fame, in particular, felt like a graduate of the Blackout school of pop. [...]

Beyond Spears’ sound, the underground popstars of today also find nostalgia in the celebrity of the time. The visual aesthetic of the ’00s party girl, including Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, is pastiched and perfected by these artists. It was initially brought back to life by the PC Music crew, in particular Hannah Diamond whose visuals appropriated shiny flip phones and mini skirts but it’s carried on.

At the time, NME called Spears “a robot” while Pitchfork didn’t review the album at all. 12 years after its release, however, it’s being looked upon more favourably. And for good reason. It’s still ahead of its time and relevant in an era where XCX, Petras and Slayyyter are all finding critical favour with their pop music. It seems we should’ve listened to the forum pop critic back then because Blackout is ageing better than most of its peers.

Source: https://theinterns.net/2019/10/02/how-britney-spears-blackout-has-become-the-blueprint-for-experimental-pop-music/

[Adrenaliner 3,773]

One of the best pop albums ever created

[Addison Rae 16,167]

So true. The underground pop music scene is so inspired by Blackout and the 00s TMZ era Los Angeles celebrity culture/pop music scene. 

[Felix34 45]

Blackout is the best album ever!

[Felix34 45]

On 10/26/2019 at 12:11 PM, FfFfFfFF said:

Lady Gaga’s The Fame, in particular, felt like a graduate of the Blackout school of pop

The Fame Monster was more like Blackout.. I'd say COADF influenced The Fame more

[BabyMario44 82]

BLACKOUT IS THAT ALBUM STILL TODAY!!!!!

[Jose P 23,341]

YASS BITCH! The Blackout haters found fuming 

[bxr 1,016]

On 10/26/2019 at 6:11 AM, FfFfFfFF said:

At the time, NME called Spears “a robot” while Pitchfork didn’t review the album at all.

Random slight aside for reference …

“Britney in the Black Lodge (Damn Fine Album)” [Pitchfork via Poptimist; Nov. 20, 2007]

Sour secrets of the suburban everygirl, virginal beauty off the rails-- it's a well-worn cliché that informs art from "Twin Peaks" to Britney Spears, and, oddly, in both of those cases, it helped liberate something off-kilter and unique.

David Lynch and Mark Frost's "Twin Peaks" begins with the discovery of a body and spends 30-odd episodes on the trail of a soul, both belonging to Laura Palmer, a prom queen of dazzling smile and doubtful habits. The show's most intense moments happen in a strange spirit-world, a red-draped room where a dwarf converses and dances with a pallid, marble-eyed eidolon of Palmer. Their voices are backwards-looped and treated, their dances a jerky shuffle, all adding to a sense of mocking evil that the rest of the show never tries hard to shake.

On one level Palmer's story is a cliché-- sour secrets of the suburban everygirl, virginal beauty off the rails-- but it's a cliché we seem to have an endless appetite for: Witness the fascination with Britney Spears and her messy life. Britney's disastrous VMAs performance-- speaking of dead eyes and jerky shuffles-- has set much of the tone for reviews of her new album, Blackout. However good the music on the record is, and most critics agree it's pretty good, surely this poor half-there creature can't have had much to do with it? I want to hold off the wider question of Britney's agency for a while but simply as a vocal presence she's all over the album. Blackout reminds me how instantly recognisable Britney's vocals are, treated or untreated: Her thin Southern huskiness is one of the defining sounds of 00s pop.

If she seems marginalised on Blackout, it's because her voice is being constantly splintered, chopped, and interrupted. From the moment a chorus of voices barge into "Gimme More" the album surrenders its vocal center-- Britney is subjected to sudden drop outs, octave falls, pitch-bending, stutters and warps, often afflicting only a word or two at once. When people criticize autotune, it's because the technique smooths vocals over to create faultless, airless productions. Blackout is a masterclass in autotune and vocal treatment as a studio instrument, disrupting and jamming the songs as much as it helps them. The effect is oddly sinister. … [ Full Review ]

[Taylorrgh 679]

Blackout is my workout playlist 

[xoxo Craig 55,649]

I don't quite agree... but okay

[GDA878 421]

I'll never regret borrowing this CD from the library. X)

[GreenDiamond 6,286]

I love comparison with Black lodge!

 

its really essentially Britney album that sounds  so different from her previous work but still classic Britney

 

[Jose P 23,341]

Just now, GreenDiamond said:

Ugh that photo shoot  She truly snapped with this album. 

[GreenDiamond 6,286]

2 minutes ago, Jose P said:

Ugh that photo shoot  She truly snapped with this album. 

image if she was in the mode like she was when ITZ rollout was...

oh god imagine the SLAYAGE

[Fame Romance 10,517]

It is indeed a great album but not to Britney’s credit at all. She barely co-wrote 2 songs and the best part of the album is the production in which she didn’t participate at all. Yes her sexy voice and persona made it a the dream album for a gay but Britney had 0 artistic involvement in it like her whole career. 
I love Britney and I know she’s been through a lot and she used to be a great performer but after her crazy era she’s juste pure autotune and playback and lame shows.