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I blogged previously about my intention to write “In Depth” reviews of all the tracks on “Blackout”, and the project is now well under way. As I work my way through the album, listening repeatedly and analytically to every song, I discover just how much edge, attitude and vigor Britney injected into her singing. Despite all the assumptions based on an inaccurate view of her probable state of mind when the album was made, this is some of her most characterful and charismatic singing ever to have been placed on record.
It’s ridiculous to imply, as some have done, that somehow the album could have survived without Britney. She DOMINATES. But others have made massive contributions too, and I’ve been trying to give them full credit for that. If you’ve been reading the “In Depths” so far, you’ll have seen that my approach is to try and get to the heart of what makes each track what it is, what gives it its character and appeal. I’ll leave the history and statistics to others, such as Wikipedia.
Actually, it’s where Wikipedia departs from history and statistics that a little crusade begins for me. In the article on “Piece of Me”, the writer comments that “Spears's voice is heavily synthesized, and is constantly pitch-shifted. The track consists of over-the-top vocal distortions, causing a split sound effect, making it difficult to discern which voice is Spears's.” To my ears this is simply wrong and nonsensical. However, the writer gives citations in an attempt to back these remarks up.
The problem is that the citations happen to be some sloppily conceived and misguided reviews. For instance, Laith Al-Msaibeeh, writing a generally complimentary review for the Oshkosh West Index, is the person who talks about the “over-the-top vocal distortions, causing a split sound effect, confusing the listener into which voice is the real Britney”. But Laith Al-Msaibeeh also thinks “Heaven on Earth” is a ballad and, moreover, remarks elsewhere that “The album relies on vocal distorters and bizarre noises to get by, and most likely does so because Spears' hard partying ways finally caught up with her "singing" voice.” Which is questionable reportage, to say the least.
The deluded notion that Britney’s voice is “heavily synthesized” comes from Kelefah Sanneh in the New York Times. But Sanneh isn’t exactly a reliable pair of ears, talking about Danja’s “melancholy, robotic sound”, which is complete rubbish. And “The electronic beats and bass lines are as thick as Ms. Spears’s voice is thin” is just plain wrong, since beats can’t actually BE “thick” and the bass lines are either sparse or virtually non-existent on many of the tracks.
As for having a “thin” voice, this criticism is practically meaningless, since it could be flung at anyone with a preference for singing softly and sweetly. Sanneh is obviously quite happy to contrast “thin” with “thick”, so presumably it would be valid to ask why these songs would sound better sung in a thick voice.
Elsewhere, Sanneh remarks “there are times when it scarcely sounds like a Britney Spears album at all. Even when not buried in electronics, her distinctive singing voice sounds unusually vague, and sometimes it’s hard to be sure it’s hers. It isn’t always.” But look: you can’t have it both ways. Either it IS recognisably Spears, with all her regrettable “thinness” of tone or all the other singers on the album whom we’re mistaking for Britney ALSO have “thin” voices.
Mix engineer Tony Maserati (who worked on “Heaven on Earth”) has expressed his doubts about how much of what he puts into a recording is actually being heard by an audience that relies increasingly on highly compressed and frequency-limited formats like MP3. Maybe this is why people like Kelefah Sanneh can’t tell the difference between “heavily synthesized vocals” and deliberately robotic vocals overlaid in a couple of brief passages by a tiny bit of electronic buzzing.
Wikipedia comments that “Those who gave the album mixed or poor reviews were mostly critical of Spears' highly publicized personal troubles at the time - insinuating that her "icy cold" and "withdrawn" singing style on the album was the product of her "chaotic" life, thus resulting in the need for so many collaborators to mask her less-than-energetic vocals.” I’d have preferred “less-than-energetic” to be in quotes too, but Wikipedia has put its finger on the problem, while oddly failing to notice the need for caveats it implies.
In other words, some people, including reviewers who should have known better and taken the trouble to listen to the music without prejudice, were actually reviewing the mythical “tabloid headline Britney”, getting confused over dates and timelines and coming to all the wrong conclusions. These sources may be cited as examples of negative reviews to contrast with the positive ones, but should not be included as authoritative references to the nature, content or quality of the music. When I was a Masters student I was taught not just to quote but to evaluate and validate my citations or end up looking as if I didn't know what I was talking about.
A little more care taken by reviewers to discover when the tracks were laid down would perhaps have led to some totally different perceptions. This was not “crazy, shaven-headed” Britney. Most of the recording took place when she was pregnant, happy, energetic and full of optimism. To quote another source cited by Wikipedia - the high-class UK “Guardian” broadsheet - “It's a bold, exciting album: the question is whether anyone will be able to hear its contents over the deafening roar of tittle-tattle."
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Since it's wikipedia, you could do a little "editing" yourself, if you wanted
I think also with most music being heavily auto tuned these days, people actually cannot tell the difference between synthesized music and a softer voice. Plus, as it's always been, if she's not belting Christina style, it's not "real" singing