Oops...She Did it Again

Many musical artists make comebacks: from Madonna to Eminem, and most recently Duran Duran. But, after the debut of her newest album, Femme Fatale, one can easily say that Britney Spears is the unofficial queen of reinventing her musical image. She has transformed over the years from innocent baby-fat crooner, teenage tease, flawless sex symbol, tabloid troublemaker, to a confident and iconic pop artist. Brit’s image is not the most drastic change that has been made; her music has taken on a new edge as well, leading to its rampant popularity in the U.S. and as far as New Zealand. The CD’s success can hardly be surprising, being that it was produced by Max Martin and Dr. Luke, the same hit-makers responsible for famous American boy bands such as the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, as well as female solo artists including Kelly Clarkston, Katy Perry, and Pink.

Like the production duo’s work on Ke$ha’s hit single, “Tik Tok”, Britney’s two biggest hits on this album (“Hold it Against Me” and “Till the World Ends”) are heavily laden with bass wobble suggestive of the current dub-step craze. Breathy purrs of suggestive lyrics such as “You feel like paradise/ and I need a vacation tonight” (from “Hold it Against Me”) heighten the listeners’ realization that we are being sung to by a seasoned and mature temptress, not a seventeen-year-old virgin. This album has a grittier feel than Spears’ last; Circus, with many industrial beats and fewer up-beat sing-along style choruses. The instruments that can be easily picked up on the tracks include synthesizers, electronic beats, piano and even flute. The pop princess’s voice has been auto-tuned, but I’m pretty sure we all know by now that Brit’s voice has never been lacking; the augmentation is less about correction and more about altering the sound to evoke a more futuristic vibe.

Although she is generally considered a one-woman show, this comeback kid isn’t the only voice who can be heard on the album. The second single, “Til the World Ends,” was written in part by Ke$ha, which is no surprise considering the tune’s eerie similarity to her latest, “Blow”. It may not literally display the artist’s voice, but it clearly seeps through in the song’s theme (a never-ending dance party), bass-wobbling breakdown and thirty-second interlude of “wo-o-o-o-ah”s. The song, “Big Fat Bass,” was written by and features banter from the Black Eyed Peas’ Will.I.Am. It definitely connotes a more playful tone than both singles and one could easily imagine Fergie’s voice instead, but hearing Brit’s voice with Will’s is a much more refreshing combo. This only further solidifies that Femme Fatale has proven to show a new facet of Britney.

The new release’s lyrics are generally just as shallow and hormonal as the last few albums’, but hey, bubblegum is popular for a reason; it’s easily palatable. No one wants to step up and argue that “I wanna go/ back downtown where my posse’s at/ because I got/ nine lives like a kitty cat” (from “How I Roll”) has some kind of deep and philosophical meaning, but there are plenty of tweens to twenty-somethings that are going to shake their booties off to it – including yours truly.

Your BEATsTooBig

F or anyone who has never been to the Subterranean in Wicker Park, it’s a dark flight of stairs up from street level, where one will find they’re inside what seems to be a two-level dive bar that could easily be transformed into a rustic brothel. There’s a slight Victorian feel to the décor; wood paneling and filigreed wallpaper line the interior. Dim lamps light the cavernous room and a giant chandelier that looms over the black and white checked dance-floor. The stage was ringed in red light as the ambient synth-pop headliner, YourFeetsTooBig, began to set up.

The band’s duo; Avery Ju and Kevin Benisheck popped onto the stage seeming to be everyone in the room’s pal. Their image was cohesive; Avery and Kevin were both clad in plain, loose t-shirts and jeans but as they set up the buzzing crowd silenced to the loud bang of a keyboard toppling over. Minutes later, a keyboard, symbol and cowbell faced a synthesizer and MacBook Pro head on and Kevin announced to the crowd that their keyboard had broken in the fall. Still, they soldiered on.

The music began with a simple electronic beat that emoted the exhilaration of a summer night as rhythm and melody rose and fell. I could not help but wonder if ‘80’s movie dancehall montages or Daft Punk’s work on the Tron: Legacy soundtrack influenced them because the listener has instantly entered into digital world full of adrenaline and elation. The band puts a whole new spin on “playing” music in that they were getting down to their own music on stage with passion; it was their own private dance party. The aura of the performers and the music’s Friday-night beats create a show that could easily be the illicit lovechild of Passion Pit and J.U.S.T.I.C.E. One can easily picture a studio apartment filled to the brim with flannel-wearing, gold chain-laden, seemingly sight-impaired hipsters fist-pumping the night away to this music. To top it off, even though each song was spaced out by minor technical difficulties due to the busted keyboard, the set, their songs and the booze flowed with ease.

I found myself waiting for a chorus a few times during the night, but to no avail. YourFeetsTooBig‘s few indecipherable vocals slip in and out of audibility but the tunes remain catchy nonetheless. By the second to last song all of The Subterranean, abuzz with three-dollar Sapporo drafts, was clapping to the beat of Avery’s cowbell and getting down in a jam-packed, pulsating whirr. The crowd screamed ‘encore’, I with them and all broken keyboards aside, YourFeetsTooBig put on an invigorating show at The Subterranean that left not one attendee in low spirits. The musicians kept our attention with their erratic bursts of dancing as well as their hipster style head-bobbing sound. Their performance left me saying one thing… In the spirit of Christopher Walken, the crowd’s got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell.