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Originally written June 28, 2005. With this album, the megastar career begun by the mega-success of Britney Spears’ BOMT single really took off and the album has sold mega-millions of copies around the world. But how does it look in retrospect?
Well, it’s interesting to look back on her vocals. At that point she hadn’t quite achieved the full expression of the classic Britney stylings she displayed from OIDIA onwards – for better or worse! There were still throwbacks to her pre-Jive voice that show up on certain songs or in certain phrases, and throughout the album she sounded confident and surprisingly powerful. However, by the time of OIDIA she had learnt a lot more, established her style, and become a more polished performer.
8 of the 12 tracks are of lasting quality, but I regard “Deep in my heart” and “Thinking about you” as filler. “Soda Pop” is pretty awful, to be honest, but it’s fun. “The beat goes on”….well yes, it does, but why?
Let’s look at the good ones. And they really ARE good. Britney didn’t just explode on to the scene because of great marketing – her music was brilliant. Paul Morley, former NME music journalist and now industry insider described it as amazing – and he never even liked pop.
BOMT itself was one of the most impactful debuts of all time – recognisable the world over from the first 3 notes! It also introduced a strange, new and very individual voice to the world. And it raised the still-unanswered question: why does she sing “Oh babin, babin”?
“Crazy” has stayed in her repertoire to this day, and was a beautifully constructed song with an inspired vocal treatment, full of youthful vigour, energy and sparkle. Anyone doubting that Brit deserved her recording contract should listen hard to this. I don’t know how she would go about singing it LIVE in 2005, but it would be a good test of whether or not her vocal powers have really deteriorated, as so many have claimed.
“Sometimes” (which we now know has a disputed authorship) may have weaknesses in its structure but it extracted an excellent, charming and distinctive vocal from Britney, in which a few open-voiced phrases and words showed what a good singer she could have been if her career had taken a different route.
“Born to make you happy” found Little Miss Spears sounding especially youthful and innocent, and again illustrated that halfway stage. It featured many little special moments, like the way she sang the words “born” and “that’s” (as in “That’s the way our love should be”) “night” and “right”. It could only be Britney.
FTBOMBH was very far from the supposedly mechanical, processed sounds of modern Britney. There was raw emotive pleading here and plenty of power along with some sweet falsettos.
“I Will Be There” launched one of Brit’s signature sounds “I will be there-ah!” which recently resurfaced on some phrases at the start of “Someday”. Another good, strong performance, making a somewhat mediocre song seem better than it really is.
“I Will Still Love You” and “E.mail My Heart” were excellent, tuneful songs which persuaded Britney to explore the wider expanses of her range - and she sounded utterly convincing.
At the time it seemed like the beginnings of the career of someone who was, first and foremost, an extremely talented young singer. Those who heard it could never have predicted the strange twists and turns her career and reputation would take in the years that followed.
It was a truly stunning debut.
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