Switched on Pop - Listening 2 Britney: Gimme More

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

There’s no more iconic Britney lyric than the opening of “Gimme More.” It's 2007, four years since her last album In The Zone was released, and Britney is affirmatively back with the uptempo track leading off her album Blackout: “It’s Britney, Bitch.” The song echoes the dance-pop Neptunes sound of “I’m A Slave 4 U.” It's built around a driving riff and off-kilter drums produced by Floyd Nathaniel Hills AKA Danja. Each time Britney sings “more” her voice is pitched down to a devilish growl. This disturbing vocal processing mirrors the vulgar paparazzi and public scrutiny in her personal life. On the fourth and final episode of our series Listening to Britney, we want to once again focus on her voice, how it's manipulated, how it’s evolved, and where it might be going. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched-on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. Nate, I would argue that there is no more iconic Brittany vocal than the beginning of Gimme More. And you would hear no objection for me in the courtroom, Charlie, because I agree completely. That is an iconic moment in the history of pop music. Yeah, it's 2007. It's been four years since your last one.

album in The Zone was released, and she's affirmatively back with an uptempo song opening her album, Blackout. It's built around this driving riff and off-kilter drums that's produced by Floyd Nathaniel Hills, known as Danger. The maniacal laughter. Like the Neptunes, who work with Brittany and I'm a slave for you, Danger's a Prodigy of Teddy Riley hailing from Virginia Beach. What? The Virginia Beach conspiracy continues.

Yes, from episode two. but on the fourth and final episode of listening to Brittany, I want to focus in on her voice and especially how it's manipulated. Give me more serves multiple purposes. It's a musical reminder of some of her earlier work that dance pop sound. And it's also a reference to the increased public and paparazzi scrutiny that she's receiving after a mental health crisis in 2007. It's a dance floor banger with a meta message.

But the way that her voice is produced hints to the start of Brittany's next major sonic evolution from R&B dance pop into the world of EDM, a genre that's going to dominate pop in the 2010s and a genre that privileges synthesizers and production so much that we lose a meaningful part of what you and I have discussed so thoroughly on this series, her voice. So I want to go into the music and listen closely. Let's check out the first verse and tell me what you're hearing. One thing that stands out is something I think we've heard over the course of her career, her ability to change the sound of her voice over the course of a song over the course of a single phrase. She starts singing in this kind of high, delicate register. And then when she descends, when she sings the word mile, go to that extra mile, her voice becomes like kind of raw and gritty.

And it's like, whoa, how did you just do that? For me, the way that I experience the verse is the voice is right in front of you. It's centered. It's quite direct. And when we get into the pre-chorus, the whole panorama of the song changes. It's worth listening with headphones so you can really capture the nuance. I am listening on headphones, and I think I hear. what you mean. In the verse, her voice is kind of in the center of the mix. It's very direct.

And then in the pre-chorus, it expands out to take up the whole stereo field. It's like you're surrounded by a sea of Britney's. On its surface, the song might just be a dance floor anthem. But in a way, her voice is mirroring the direction of the song. The last line of the first verse is feels like no one else is in the room but you. And to me, I can see it as like two people on a dance floor, seeing each other. And as they get closer, her voice envelops you. And it becomes both bigger, but also more intimate. Even as cameras are flashing all around, the experiences is just these two people dancing. You are completely surrounded by her voice. But when we get to the chorus, that intimacy kind of disappears. This is cool, because I've heard this song many times,

but I've never thought about how she sings at the end of the pre-chorus. You know, she hears the crowd going, give me, give me more. And then the chorus hits, and it's like every time we hear the word more, it's being sung by, it sounds like it's being sung by someone else. It's like the crowd is actually there.

It's both very hefe, maybe, is how I would describe it. And also like a little unsettling. It's a little paranoiac or something. I like that read of it. It sounds like we're losing Brittany into the crowd, especially on that really low war. The first time I heard the song, I was very intrigued. Not just because of the dance floor message, it's seductive, etc., but that sound.

And it's not the weirdest manipulation of the voice in this song. Hmm. Let me take you to the bridge. to the bridge, Chuck. Hmm. Just like I never expected to hear Bollywood strings and surf guitar in toxic, this kind of vocal performance is something I had never heard before in pop. This kind of chopped up, glitched out, stuttering mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, that sound.

People chop up vocals a lot in pop music, but if you'll allow me a brief digression, this reminds me of a much older vocal technique called hocketing. I'll allow it, continue. I've been known to hockett now and then. I've been known to hock it with a hot pocket on my docket while listening to Herbie Hancock's rocket and playing rock and socket robots. As a musicologist, I'm surprised that you would make light of such an important musical concept where musicians break up melodies and have them sung or played by different musicians

in an entangled melodic conversation. Yes, don't let my humor deceive you. I am a big fan of antiphany, as we might call it. Is that another word for hocketing? Well, it's like singing, it's like singing back and forth, essentially. Call and response, perhaps. Okay, got it. Antiphony.

I don't know if I've ever said that word out loud, actually. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. So, Hawkett, break it down for me. Well, you actually had a useful piece of information in your little running rhyme. Uh-huh. You had a Herbie Hancock reference. Okay. Which is important because Herbie points to the likely originator of this form.

While Hocketing has been spontaneously co-created in multiple places in the world, credit is given to it originating amongst African pygmies. The Cameroonian musician Francis Bebe explains this style really well in a video. I think you actually shared with me a while back that I love. This is one of my favorite. One of the best things on the internet. It's a bamboo flute playing only one note. that's the only note you can get out of that flute.

The pygmies, you ask the flute to speak to you. The flute says something like, and you reply to the flute by saying, it's an intoxicating sound, and it really pulls you in. There was a recording of Babanzale, pygmy musicians from the 60s, which was the inspiration for one of Herbie Hancock's biggest songs

that popularized this sound. Watermelon Man. Okay, let's go one step deeper. This hawketing technique isn't just found in pygmy flute and funky Herbie Hancock. The version of it that I hear on Gimme Moore reminds me a lot of 13th century French vocal music, which also used a lot of hawketing. If you'll allow it, maybe this is getting a bit esoteric here. But even contemporary indie pop bands use hawkening.

Like take the dirty projectors cover of, Black Flaggimmy, Gimmy, Gimmy. Funny enough, this song was actually released two weeks after Gimmy More, so I'd say that late summer 2007 was a great time for hocketing in pop music. What? No. Well, that was unexpected, deeply groovy, and incredibly satisfying little rabbit hole we just burrowed through.

Well, it serves a purpose, actually, because it makes me ask a question, where's Britain? I just can't have me. You can't help yourself. Hmm. Where is Britney? While there are moments of her manipulated vocal sort of popping in and out, the backing vocals to the song are sung by Carrie Helson, Jim Beans, and Dangea. I think we're only getting a bit of Britney, some manipulated moments where she sort of like pops in and out very briefly.

But that core hocketing line doesn't sound like her. her voice. Wow. I mean, is it okay that it's actually the 13th century French choir that I'm hearing the most when we listen to that acopella of Give Me More. There's a lot going on there. That's really cool. And as I said, when I first heard the song, it was that deep more and this bridge section that really pulled me in. And yet now that I think about it, none of those moments have to do with Britney.

It's true. I'd argue that give me more, as fun of a song as it is, sets off a trend of producers pushing Britney Spears voice further and further away, manipulating it, synthesizing it. As we listen to Brittany, it sounds like we're losing her. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have a podcaster. Well, you have a to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you.

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The energy of every line pulls us in. And in her early work, she also shows us that she's a ballad singer. When she released, I'm a slave for you, we remarked on how she pulls a lot of the singing quality back and has a sort of Janet Jackson inspired spoken voice. We've gone from being like I'm a little girl Were you ever think it'd be okay for me to step into this world? We've gone from singing to speaking, but with Gimmy Moore, her voice becomes synthesized. All we're really getting of Brittany is Gimmy,

and every other line is her voice synthesized, manipulated, transmuted, distorted to sound like you put it, like not her. Like it's the crowd around her. We're losing that brittiness. That was the thing that first

introduced her and gravitated us towards her. When the New York Times reviewed this song, they said that the electronic beats and bass lines are as thick as Speer's voice is thin. Even when not buried in electronics her distinctive singing sounds,

unusually vague, and sometimes it's hard to be sure it's hers. And I think my initial listening fell into this trap, being seduced by all of the sounds. In fact, an embarrassing admission I made a long time ago a very mediocre. I think it's my first remix I ever made was of Give Me More. And my main insight was get rid of the voice, focus on the manipulated part. Wowza. That's a technical term, Charlie. It's a little much.

It's very cinematic in a way, but I return to the question you asked earlier. It's like, where is Brittany here? Yeah, you know, I actually think this is where the New York Times Review gets it wrong. I don't think this is an issue of locating her voice as much as it is questioning what happened to her voice in the post-production. Because throughout this series, we've really sought to find her agency in her performance, in her voice. And as producers obfuscate it, it becomes harder and harder to locate Brittany. This is something that started at the very beginning. We can hear hints of it in the song, Stronger, off her second record.

The voice is a little bit robotic. The inflections are ironed out. And it works in the context of this moment of Stronger, maybe as a. piece of ear candy. We like ear candy. It keeps us listening. And maybe the repitching on Gimme More is also ear candy. It's fun. These are all engaging musical moments and often work to highlight the meaning of the song. Take for example, Peace of Me, also from 2007's Blackout. What a What a fascinating track, I mean, from top to bottom.

The way the drums almost sound like it's like a chain being dragged along a surface or something. And then the processing of her voice and then this meta commentary again about the price of fame and the scrutiny of public attention. There's a lot going on here. Yeah, I think piece of me is a strong song. The production reinforces the lyric. And this robotic vocal is a cool sound. Like it becomes another important timbre in Brittany's arsenal.

But as she moves into the second half of her recording career, EDM is taking over in 2010s. It's a genre where DJs become artists and drops become more important than the, voice. And as she shifts into that sound, on many of her highest performing singles in the coming years, the processing on Britney's vocal intensifies. You can hear it on the song till the world ends. So this is a really fun song, but the anthemic lead vocal to me feels a bit anonymous. Yeah. And then when the drop hits, the wordless chorus is so chopped up, it could be any single. That's an interesting read, Chuck. It does make me think about how many of the Britneyisms that we have been listening to over the course of this mini-series, whether it's the incredibly articulate pronunciation, or it's the full-throated ballad singing.

Or the vocal fry. Or the vocal fry. It's all been ironed out. And now we have this relatively kind of anonymized. voice. I mean, it's still a very effective song, I think. It hypes me up, but I'm not hearing Britney Spears in there. Agreed. It's not to knock the song. It is incredibly fun. I have definitely danced my heart out to this. But I don't love that the most discerning qualities of her instrument have been flattened out. And unfortunately, this is a trend that we see on many of

her biggest songs in her later career. We can hear it on 2011's. I Want to Go from the album Fum Fatal. On the 2013 Will I Am production scream and shout, first we get this sort of indiscernible European accent, Brittany, something we've never quite heard. When we up in the club, all lies on us, all lies on us, all lies on us.

See the boys in the club, they're watching us, they watchin us. But by the time we get to the chorus, Will I am just reduces her to a catchphrase, throws her into a synth hook. You are now, now rocking with, will I am in trouble? Are we sure that's Britney Spears at the beginning of that track?

I do not recognize her voice at all at this point. Yeah, it is a different vibe for her. Yeah. And look, I've got to be clear. I like these songs. And there are so many others in her discography of this era that I really love. I feel like we could probably run this series for another 10 episodes and still never run out of things to discuss. But I do think that leaning into the style,

of EDM had a trade-off for Brittany, which was a diminished role for the power of her voice, especially on these big singles. And look, I don't know what kinds of conversation Spears is having with her producers about how she wants these songs and her voice to sound. But in retrospect, it's hard not to see the metaphor here, right? Her voice receding into the songs while she's also basically silenced by a conservatorship. So you hear a song like Alien off of 2013's Britney Gene. and the flattened, synthesized quality of her voice kind of makes sense.

You mean we can hear this as a reflection of the loss of control and agency in her personal life. But in 2016, when she's starting to tell investigators she's not happy in her conservatorship, she also puts out an album called Glory. And the single Make Me brings back a lot of her discerning vocal quality. Her voice is front and center. Even if the chorus is lyricless, even if the chorus is lyricless, those ooze aren't chopped up like an edm hit. they're discernibly written.

There's something kind of refreshing listening to this voice that in 2016 we've been listening to for almost 20 years and hearing those recognizable timbers and vocal approaches. I agree. There's like something promising there, a return to form perhaps. I agree. And I don't mean to pass over

much of her later catalog. There are some very catchy songs. There are some good performances. But over and over, in the biggest hits, she seemed to recede into the background. And for someone whose predominant recent narrative has been about agency and freedom, I want to hear more of that voice. Just the other day, you pointed me to her Instagram account, where we get a very raw Brittany showing off all of her vocal runs. Yes.

Give me more of that, Chuck. That sounds like liberation to me. And it's been since 2016 since we've gotten more. Glory was her last album. But Spears is now free of her conservatorship. She's free to sing her heart out on Instagram, free to make the kind of music she wants to make and share it with the world.

We're listening. We can't wait to hear her voice again. Switched on Pop is edited by Joe. Lee Myers, engineered by Brandon McFarland, illustrations by Iris Gottlie, community management by Abby Barr. Our executive producers are Hanna Rosen and Ashok Kerwa, or member of the Vox Media Podcast Network, and a production of Vulture. You can find more episodes of our show anywhere you get podcasts and our website, switchedonpop.com. Hit us up on Twitter and Instagram at Switched on Pop and tell us what is your favorite late Brittany track and what do you want to hear from her next?

We'll be taking a short break back in two weeks on Tuesday. And until then, thanks for listening. Euforia of Calvin Klein, the new collection Elixir, three new elixires perfume intense, solar, magnetic, ball. Pulsa in the banner, do the quiz,

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