I often engage in random musical discussions with my co-worker who apparently is impressed by my so-called “pop music expertise”. Now I like to think that while pop music does remain my forte, it’s not the only genre I’m knowledgeable in but there’s no more need to digress.
Sometime last week he explained to me that had heard Britney Spears’ new tune “Womanizer “off of her upcoming Circus album and wasn’t too thrilled with it. My own listening to popular radio has been sporadic but I did manage to listen to a little of the tune although I was too distracted to really pay attention to what the song was saying or whether it was any good so when he asked me whether I liked it I told him I would reserve my judgment of the song until I actually gave it a thorough listen.
After listening to “Womanizer” I’ve concluded that while it’s not a bad song, it is a bit of a letdown. The song almost comes across like a middle or high school girl calling her boyfriend names in order to hurt his feelings. This could be because the word ‘womanizer’ is repeated so incessantly in the chorus…but then again so was “Gimme More”.
What made “Gimme More” sound a little more grown up was the minimal yet very catchy and sexy beat that perfectly went with the song and evoked the actual setting of being in a club with the temperature set to “borderline stifling” and seeing Ms. Spears getting down on the dance floor.
To illustrate, consider “I’m a Slave 4 U”. I obviously can’t speak for everyone in terms of how they reacted to the tune back when it was released but every time I listen to the song that killer beat by The Neptunes sounds dirtier than it did before, thereby giving more emphasis and credibility to lyrics like “Don’t you wanna / Dance up on me”.
Again I don’t think “Womanizer” is bad. The relatively simple and frequently repeated chorus can quickly become ingrained but I think Ms. Spears could do a lot better, especially after the strength of the follow up singles from “Blackout” like “Piece of Me” which did a perfect job of blending hard beats with defiant lyrics.
Despite being slightly underwhelmed (perhaps my expectations were too high) with the lead single from Circus, I still have high hopes that the Circus album will be an even stronger album than “Blackout” which was sadly overlooked and will help Britney in her slow but steady return to the limelight. She’s proven that when she’s given the right team of producers, the results make for some truly killer pop music.
