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I have to be careful about what I say here. Skipping around the internet I note that “Freakshow” has plenty of fans and some who positively rave about it. Sadly, I am not one of them. In fact, I skip this Bloodshy and Avant track so determinedly that I’d never actually heard it right through till I started my research for this review. And now that that’s over, I can go back to skipping...
I have to admit, my views on “Freakshow” were somewhat prejudiced by hearing the “instrumental” track before I ever heard the completed version with Britney’s vocal. I thought it was an insult, to her and to her listeners. It sounded like one of those plinkety plonkety little doodles you end up playing when you’re trying out a child’s keyboard in Toys-R-Us.
And this is odd, because real instruments and instrumentalists are employed on “Freakshow” where they are absent on many Britney tracks. Keyboards and “additional” bass and guitar are played by Bloodshy and Avant, and (presumably) the substantive bass and guitar by Henrik Jonback. He should be ashamed.
Maybe my heart would have warmed to the track if Britney’s vocal line had had a decent melody, but it just doesn’t. Most of it is spoken or chanted, rather than sung, and such tune as there is amounts to little more than alternating, repetitive 2 and 3-note sequences. I guess the window-cleaner could whistle it from memory after one hearing, but if he did so repeatedly in my hearing, I would attack him with a bread-knife.
OK. I am a humble person and if so many people love the track it must mean that I’m missing something. Maybe it’s the lyrics? I mean, it took five people to write them, including Britney herself. So let’s study them. Hmm..... I wonder why none of the regular lyric transcribers seem to have bothered to get them right? Could it be that... oh hell, I’m trying to be positive here. Anyway, here’s how it sounds to me:
10 pm to 4 and I came to hit the floor
Thought you knew before but if you don't then now you know
Yo tonight I'm 'bout to mash make them other chicks so mad
I'm 'bout to I shake my ass, snatch that boy so fast
It's all about me and you doin' how we do (do)
Tear the floor up up (up), tell 'em to make room (room)
If they wanna know, tell 'em mind their own
But if they wanna look, we can give 'em a encore
Make it a, freakshow (freak) freakshow
We can give 'em a peepshow, (peep) peepshow (peepshow)
Don't stop it let it flow, let your inhibitions go
It's a crazy night, let's make a, make a freakshow
Make it a freakshow (freak)
A freakshow, a freakshow
Make it a freakshow (freak)
A freakshow, a freakshow
Make 'em they clap when we perform
Wanna be crazy we can show 'em
Dancin' table top freaky freaky so outside the norm
On some super-star ish, pushin' hot Bugatti whips
Rockin' new designer fits, we can do it if you wish
It's all about me and you doin' how we do
Tear the floor up up, tell 'em to make room
If they wanna know, tell 'em mind their own
But if they wanna look, we can give 'em a encore
Make it a, freakshow (freak) freakshow
We can give 'em a peepshow, (peep) peepshow (peepshow)
Don't stop it let it flow, let your inhibitions go
It's a crazy night, let's make a, make a freakshow
Make it a freakshow (freak)
Freakshow, freakshow
Freakshow (freak)
Freakshow, freakshow
Me and my girls like to get it on
Grab us a couple boys to go
Said, me and my girls like to get it on
Grab us a couple boys to go
Me and my girls (etc etc)
Freakshow
Make it a, freakshow (freak) freakshow
We can give 'em a peepshow, (peep) peepshow (peepshow)
Don't stop it let it flow, let your inhibitions go
It's a crazy night, let's make a, make a freakshow
Make it a
Make it a
Me and my girls (etc etc)
Freakshow
I guess there’s some kind of attitude of defiant hedonism in there, but the words don’t seem particularly interesting, nor resonant - with my tired old psyche anyway. The only line that makes me smile approvingly is “Dancin' table top freaky freaky so outside the norm”. That’s worthy of jokey ole Britney, but the five-person writing team could have scribbled the rest on the back of a cigarette pack during a 10-minute smoking break.
I owe it to the academic traditions of this site to provide a more forensic description of the track. Unfortunately there isn’t that much to say. Imagining your head as a soundstage and using headphones, the song opens with a soggy-sounding one-note bass riff at center, to which are soon added some rather violent handclap effects in a narrow “V” to either side of center. Britney begins with some spoken lines, also at center.
The spoken section ends with a deeper bass note and Britney begins the first sung section “It’s all about me and you...” with her vocals now presented as a widely spread stereo pair, as the violent handclaps and monotonous bass continue, the latter expanding to a slightly more generous use of two notes. This pattern is repeated throughout.
And thus the soggy bass and handclaps persist as the song develops, but soon some uninspiring synth phrases and effects enter at either side, and gradually become more prominent, culminating in a siren-like figure that is echoed more quietly later.
The track ends abruptly and randomly, in a manner that gives the impression that it was never more than a studio jam anyway.
Britney herself doesn’t get much of a chance to show off her subtle vocal skills but manages to sound suitably vixenish and bratty. Although not credited, she provides almost all of the vocals herself. The other backing vocalists, Candice Nelson and Ezekiel Lewis, don’t seem to have received their instructions on the bratty attitude, with the result that, on the rare occasions when they are heard, they sound smooth, proficient, beautifully harmonised and.... totally out of place in the midst of this stramash.
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I guess we should just be glad we got Freakshow instead of this travesty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4Pe8iWxTAE