Britney Spears’ “Femme Fatale” plays something like this:
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Everything about “Femme Fatale” warrants the “hyper-” prefix – the lyrics are hyper-moronic, the vocals hyper-processed, the music a hyper-insult to the listener’s intelligence. This is what makes the album so brilliant – it absurdly exaggerates everything that makes pop music profane, and in doing so turns modern pabulum into an art piece of Michaelangelo-sized proportions.
Admittedly, “Femme Fatale”’s charm lies entirely in its production, which surely can be credited to an exhaustive list of engineers, producers, songwriters, co-songwriters and co-co-songwriters. Yes, Britney had minimal hand in the album’s creative direction, but good music is good music even if its goodness comes from a faceless, omnipotent cloud of high-level executives.
Texturally, “Femme Fatale” pops, bounces, and rumbles. On the track “How I Roll”, miniHOmalist 808 beats, OutKast-esque blips and beeps, computerized vocals, and neon synths mesh into a neo-primal, interplanetary ritual for the gods that somehow complements the lyric, “I got nine lives like a kitty cat.”
Literally every track on the album is a party for the synapses. The synthesizers you can touch, taste, and see. It’s just really, really fun to listen to – trust me.
Howard is a member of the class of 2017.
