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Originally written August 31, 2005. Some songs are poems set to music. Some are tunes with words added. Me Against The Music is something else entirely.
Nobody really knows which track was originally intended to be the lead single off of ITZ, though rumours abounded at the time. The one thing we do know is that Britney herself pushed for MATM and put some extra weight behind it with a performance (in its pre-Madonna version, with rap by Penelope Magnet) at the NFL kickoff. When Madonna came on board that pretty much settled the matter. Larry Rudolph regarded Madonna’s involvement as a publicity coup, whereas Britney herself simply saw the chance of a collaboration with her idol as a dream come true. Exactly HOW the collaboration came into being is in some doubt, since Britney told at least half a dozen versions of the same story!
Fan reaction after NFL was somewhat muted, to say the least, and Jive’s nervousness is easy to understand. When Madonna’s participation was announced, the majority of fans tended towards Larry Rudolph’s point of view. Britney’s career had been in a slump for a long time, the last few singles off of the “Britney” album were unsuccessful, and anything that could help her next single up the charts – even some secondary purchasing by Madonna fans – was given a cautious welcome. I can’t recall anyone saying Madonna’s contribution was actually any good, and a famous thread in the old Dotforums, called "Hey Britneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....!" expressed with some force the view that it spoiled the whole thing.
What exactly did Madonna mean anyway? "If you think you're so hot...show me what you got" and "Sexy lady, I'd rather see you bare your soul" don't exactly sound like compliments. Some writers speculated that Madonna's words amounted to her endorsement of her probable successor. But others saw it as a warning to her young rival not to challenge the Queen. Madonna's announcement of her 2004 tour plans so soon after Britney's tour was prematurely ended seemed more like rivalry than affection. Whatever!!
At launch, the reviewers weren’t impressed. They didn’t seem inclined to give Britney’s comeback much of a welcome. For months, the press had been full of articles speculating that Britney’s career was so quintessentially based upon the fickle tastes of pre-teens that there was absolutely NO chance that she could develop her appeal to an older audience. So most of the reviewers of MATM simply assumed they were dancing on her grave and that the best thing to fill the column inches was the same kind of self-indulgent snidery we recently saw directed at “B&K: Chaotic”.
Beyond dispute is that MATM was a huge video success. Lavishly (and expensively) directed by Paul Hunter, it begins with Britney’s customary “arriving at a club in a car” opening scene. Britney marches in with plenty of attitude, wearing a black pin-stripe suit, but what she’s wearing under it isn’t the garb of a businesswoman. She looks gorgeously sexy throughout, with her long blonde hair straying over her lovely face. She does some virtuoso ensemble dancing, then catches sight of Madonna on various TV screens and senses her presence nearby. She tries to find her, while always-out-of-reach Madonna, in a white suit, does plenty of writhing and butt-wiggling. At the end, Britney appears to have Madonna in her grasp and moves in for another kiss (joined-up thinking there!) but the lady vanishes. The expressions that flit across Britney’s face at that point should convince even the most skeptical that this girl is a natural actress just waiting to be given her chance in the big league.
The high-class dancing in the MATM video is further evidence of the efforts Britney was making to raise her game throughout 2003. During the ITZ pre-launch period she delivered some of the finest stage work of her career. At Times Square her dancing was fluid, fluent and athletic, although constrained by a very small stage. She looked in amazing physical condition, beautiful, slim, with highly toned abs and her low-cut leather pants constantly threatened to reveal the half of her butt that wasn’t already on view. Wow!!!! Simply……..WOW!!!!!!!
The CD:UK Britney Special featured an “improved” version of the Times Square choreography, and the extra space permitted high kicks, expansive dips and spins, additional struts and poses and more movement in general. Again Britney looked in wonderful condition, wearing a skimpy black top and tight brown pants showcasing her ass once again. It was a breathtaking performance and the crowd were goggle-eyed!
MATM was the encore on the Onyx tour – perhaps a strange choice, in view of the fans’ ambivalence towards the song. For these performances, Britney wore a red suit and hat, but soon removed her jacket to show a revealing top. The dancing on the Onyx tour didn’t really match the ITZ promo period, but it was energetic and fun and a pretty good closer.
Me Against The Music was not so much written as based on one of Britney’s ideas and worked up in the studio by Redzone and Penelope Magnet (who also worked on “Early Mornin’” and “The Hook Up”). There were no less than 5 backing singers, Gary O’Brien played guitar, Tricky Stewart played everything else and plenty of other hands were involved in delivering it to final production.
What makes MATM so unusual is that it’s all about rhythm, not melody or words. The words are there mainly to carry the core rhythm, but rather brilliantly they also convey a unique picture of the moment in a club when the sheer loudness and slam of the music takes you over. That’s only the core rhythm, however! A quick listen on headphones reveals that the track is actually polyrhythmic. For the first part of the song, Gary O’Brien’s guitar plucks are in half time, his role later taken over by snare-drum rimshots. When you can actually hear the spaced-out bass track properly, you realise that it’s in quarter-time (and chills the whole affair). The muted synth chords early in the track are in double time, but the later synth bass is in one-eighth time!
So, rhythmically, there’s a hell of a lot going on – but it’s hard to take it all in. The remainder of the structure of the production is actually fairly simple, with modestly double-tracked stereo vocals from Britney at various points and a central vocal from Madonna. The 5 backing singers are not easy to place on the sonic soundstage but Penelope Magnet’s occasional interjection can be detected.
Rishi Rich’s remix overlays everything with a dominant bhangra-style beat that swamps the polyrhythmic original and synchronizes everything. Unfortunately, since the vocals are no longer setting the rhythm, the “up against the speaker” sections are made to appear needlessly rushed.
In the end, Britney’s instincts about MATM proved to be correct. On the world charts, it was very successful and DID in fact make people sit up and start to take notice of a new Britney. She placed at No.2 in the UK and was very unlucky not to make No.1, since MATM actually sold more copies in its first week than the previous week’s No.1 (Kylie’s dreadful “Slow”). It’s a pity Jive lacked the confidence to release MATM a week earlier - Britney and Kylie went head to head on CD:UK and Britney’s dynamic performance blew Kylie out of the water. She would have done the same in the charts and the additional publicity of a No.1 would have boosted initial sales of ITZ.
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