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30 Nov 2003 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimorenea coupla more positive reviews for britney's new album from
MTV: Britney Moans Herself To The Top Of The Album Charts
The most adult Britney Spears album to date, In the Zone, arrived with an ecstatic moan to nab the top spot on the latest Billboard albums chart, selling more than 609,000 copies in its first week, according to SoundScan figures released Wednesday (November 26).
On 2001's Britney, Spears proclaimed "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman." Now she's all woman, and her rite of passage was a very public event. Long before its release, the tastefully risqué pop star sucked face with Madonna (see "Madonna Smooches With Britney And Christina; Justin, Coldplay Win Big At VMAs"), discovered low-cut pelvis-revealing pants and posed almost naked for various magazines, all of which whet people's appetites enough to keep her in the public eye.
In the Zone is the third-strongest debut of the year, behind "American Idol" runner-up Clay Aiken's Measure of a Man, which entered the chart in October selling almost 613,000 units, and 50 Cent, who debuted in February with 872,000 in sales. Britney's first-week figures are more than respectable, but the numbers might be perceived as disappointing compared to her last two releases, 2000's Oops! ... I Did It Again, which sold a whopping 1,319,000 copies its first week, and 2001's Britney, which moved almost 746,000 units.
Blender Reviews Britney's 'In The Zone' Album
Britney Spears doesn’t have to pretend she’s a virgin anymore, and on her fourth record, she takes full advantage of that freedom. The most loveable and still the biggest former teen-pop superstar almost can’t help making music that is at least in some small way delightful. Though you can’t tell it from the lackluster first single, “Me Against the Music,” featuring her erstwhile makeout partner Madonna, In the Zone has its share of delights.
As Stripped was for Spears’s fellow former Mouseketeer Christina Aguilera, this is a record of personal liberation. Spears has been in the news not only admitting to having sex, but also drinking, smoking, breaking up with Justin Timberlake and possibly hooking up with Fred Durst.
Appropriately, she has made a (literally) heavy-breathing record — the hard-candy, primary-color vocals of …Baby One More Time and Oops!…I Did It Again are rarely heard on these tracks. But when they are — on the Newish Wave “Brave New Girl,” the album’s most explicit declaration of independence — they’re as zesty as ever. For the most part, however, Spears pants, moans and even raps over a smorgasbord of club beats, and there’s absolutely no “oops” about what she’s doing.
Furthermore, there’s nothing ambiguous about what zone she’s in: “I don’t want to be a tease/Undo my zipper, please,” she sings on “Showdown,” one of the record’s numerous lyrical references to her hips, her ass and her low-rise jeans. Spears is growing up, and if she’s a little too abrupt about it in places — “We’re going to the club to get crunk with Britney,” the opening line of “(I Got That) Boom Boom,” featuring the Ying Yang Twins, does not fall naturally on the ear — she does it with style and a lot of dirty giggling.
Two of the best tracks are the ones on which she takes the biggest musical risks. Listening to “Early Mornin’,” an ode to 5 A.M. debauchery produced by electronica chrome-dome Moby, is like calling the Britney phone-sex line without a per-minute charge — a sensuous, swaying beat accentuated by a wash of strings that comes and goes like a slow inhalation. “Outrageous,” an R. Kelly club number, has a hot, odd compulsion and lyrics that are practically big-pimpin’, Spears-style: “Take trips around the globe/Tints on the Jeeps so nobody knows/It’s so hot got ya comin’ out of your clothes.”
Stylistically, In the Zone recalls various stages of Madonna — there’s a hint of “Oh, Father” on the better of the record’s two ballads, “Shadow” (cowritten and produced by Avril Lavigne hitmakers the Matrix), and a little bit of Erotica’s sweaty, layered funk throughout.
As a career move, though, it’s closer to Janet Jackson’s Control — a transition from pop poppet to adult woman, living large and in charge. Because Spears was the biggest teen dream, she was also the one most saddled with the imperative of repeating commercial successes by repeating their formula — an up-tempo pop-and-ballad one-two punch coupled with a safe, coy, generous, videogenic appeal that together made her a superstar, with 26 million sales of her first three albums.
Unlike her parent-friendly past work, this is neither safe nor coy. “Breathe on Me” starts with Spears declaring that she’s halfway there, and concludes with her letting her lover know he doesn’t even have to touch her, he can just (in a reference to Lauren Bacall’s career-making line in the World War II romantic thriller To Have and Have Not) put his lips together and blow. Both “Touch of My Hand” and “Girls and Boys” are about masturbation.
Spears has her hand not only on herself, but also to some extent on the wheel — she has cowriting credits on nine of the record’s 13 tracks, which is, to do some fancy math, nine more than she had on her debut (as well as eight more than on her sophomore effort, and four more than on her previous release). Even more telling, she’s no longer working with producers like Sweden’s Max Martin, the type known for leaving little for the artist to do other than lay down her vocals.
This I’m-coming-out record is an unhesitant move from songs of the heart to songs of the groin, for which “I’m a Slave 4 U,” the first single from her previous release, 2001’s Britney, was a tentative test balloon. The girl who started her career looking up at you from her first album cover with a Crest-fresh smile and her knees together now has her legs open wide — and, on more than one occasion, something all her own between them. You can’t get any more in control than that. No longer a girl, freed from slavery, now fully a woman, she makes a pretty convincing mistress.
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MTV: Britney Moans Herself To The Top Of The Album Charts
The most adult Britney Spears album to date, In the Zone, arrived with an ecstatic moan to nab the top spot on the latest Billboard albums chart, selling more than 609,000 copies in its first week, according to SoundScan figures released Wednesday (November 26).
On 2001's Britney, Spears proclaimed "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman." Now she's all woman, and her rite of passage was a very public event. Long before its release, the tastefully risqué pop star sucked face with Madonna (see "Madonna Smooches With Britney And Christina; Justin, Coldplay Win Big At VMAs"), discovered low-cut pelvis-revealing pants and posed almost naked for various magazines, all of which whet people's appetites enough to keep her in the public eye.
In the Zone is the third-strongest debut of the year, behind "American Idol" runner-up Clay Aiken's Measure of a Man, which entered the chart in October selling almost 613,000 units, and 50 Cent, who debuted in February with 872,000 in sales. Britney's first-week figures are more than respectable, but the numbers might be perceived as disappointing compared to her last two releases, 2000's Oops! ... I Did It Again, which sold a whopping 1,319,000 copies its first week, and 2001's Britney, which moved almost 746,000 units.
Blender Reviews Britney's 'In The Zone' Album
Britney Spears doesn’t have to pretend she’s a virgin anymore, and on her fourth record, she takes full advantage of that freedom. The most loveable and still the biggest former teen-pop superstar almost can’t help making music that is at least in some small way delightful. Though you can’t tell it from the lackluster first single, “Me Against the Music,” featuring her erstwhile makeout partner Madonna, In the Zone has its share of delights.
As Stripped was for Spears’s fellow former Mouseketeer Christina Aguilera, this is a record of personal liberation. Spears has been in the news not only admitting to having sex, but also drinking, smoking, breaking up with Justin Timberlake and possibly hooking up with Fred Durst.
Appropriately, she has made a (literally) heavy-breathing record — the hard-candy, primary-color vocals of …Baby One More Time and Oops!…I Did It Again are rarely heard on these tracks. But when they are — on the Newish Wave “Brave New Girl,” the album’s most explicit declaration of independence — they’re as zesty as ever. For the most part, however, Spears pants, moans and even raps over a smorgasbord of club beats, and there’s absolutely no “oops” about what she’s doing.
Furthermore, there’s nothing ambiguous about what zone she’s in: “I don’t want to be a tease/Undo my zipper, please,” she sings on “Showdown,” one of the record’s numerous lyrical references to her hips, her ass and her low-rise jeans. Spears is growing up, and if she’s a little too abrupt about it in places — “We’re going to the club to get crunk with Britney,” the opening line of “(I Got That) Boom Boom,” featuring the Ying Yang Twins, does not fall naturally on the ear — she does it with style and a lot of dirty giggling.
Two of the best tracks are the ones on which she takes the biggest musical risks. Listening to “Early Mornin’,” an ode to 5 A.M. debauchery produced by electronica chrome-dome Moby, is like calling the Britney phone-sex line without a per-minute charge — a sensuous, swaying beat accentuated by a wash of strings that comes and goes like a slow inhalation. “Outrageous,” an R. Kelly club number, has a hot, odd compulsion and lyrics that are practically big-pimpin’, Spears-style: “Take trips around the globe/Tints on the Jeeps so nobody knows/It’s so hot got ya comin’ out of your clothes.”
Stylistically, In the Zone recalls various stages of Madonna — there’s a hint of “Oh, Father” on the better of the record’s two ballads, “Shadow” (cowritten and produced by Avril Lavigne hitmakers the Matrix), and a little bit of Erotica’s sweaty, layered funk throughout.
As a career move, though, it’s closer to Janet Jackson’s Control — a transition from pop poppet to adult woman, living large and in charge. Because Spears was the biggest teen dream, she was also the one most saddled with the imperative of repeating commercial successes by repeating their formula — an up-tempo pop-and-ballad one-two punch coupled with a safe, coy, generous, videogenic appeal that together made her a superstar, with 26 million sales of her first three albums.
Unlike her parent-friendly past work, this is neither safe nor coy. “Breathe on Me” starts with Spears declaring that she’s halfway there, and concludes with her letting her lover know he doesn’t even have to touch her, he can just (in a reference to Lauren Bacall’s career-making line in the World War II romantic thriller To Have and Have Not) put his lips together and blow. Both “Touch of My Hand” and “Girls and Boys” are about masturbation.
Spears has her hand not only on herself, but also to some extent on the wheel — she has cowriting credits on nine of the record’s 13 tracks, which is, to do some fancy math, nine more than she had on her debut (as well as eight more than on her sophomore effort, and four more than on her previous release). Even more telling, she’s no longer working with producers like Sweden’s Max Martin, the type known for leaving little for the artist to do other than lay down her vocals.
This I’m-coming-out record is an unhesitant move from songs of the heart to songs of the groin, for which “I’m a Slave 4 U,” the first single from her previous release, 2001’s Britney, was a tentative test balloon. The girl who started her career looking up at you from her first album cover with a Crest-fresh smile and her knees together now has her legs open wide — and, on more than one occasion, something all her own between them. You can’t get any more in control than that. No longer a girl, freed from slavery, now fully a woman, she makes a pretty convincing mistress.
posted to
sparkly_girls by ilovethebooti.
