Original Doll... What if we have all been wrong?

[Alexa James]

Of all the conspiracies and controversies linked to Britney, the unreleased original doll album is by far the most fascinating. Many fans think that her record company refused to let her release it, which in turn contributed to her downward spiral. It’s been suggested that the album is locked away in the basement of Jive Records, never to see the light of day.

Im starting to think that we have all been wrong. Original Doll may have actually been repurposed into Blackout and Circus.

Although Britney claimed that the album was “halfway done” on the famous radio interview, it’s possible that might not have been precisely true. Perhaps, she had just recorded demos of some songs and was being more experimental but had not done anything solid. Even the radio version of Mona Lisa was very raw.

Blackout and Circus captured the themes that Britney was trying to convey. The music and feel of these albums were much more edgy and original than anything she had done in the past. I’m guessing that songs like Freakshow, Radar, Get Back, Circus, and Mannequin were songs that might have been intended for original doll. 

The real reason why very little has been revealed about original doll is because there isn’t much information on it to begin with. If this story was similar to the Smile album by The Beach Boys, people would have leaked the details. If Original doll came to fruition it would have been a combination of Circus and Blackout. 

In this respect, we might have been looking at Original Doll this whole time! I mean there’s a reason why those albums have received so much praise. It’s what she probably envisioned when she was planning original doll. 

What do you all think?

[studlygeorge]

....that’s exactly the case lol but so many people deny it. We of course don’t have any definitive answer but this is the most likely scenario. Also, Britney kinda notoriously talks out of her *** when put on the spot in interviews. Remember when they asked who she wanted to collab with and she started naming off tons of people, even like Celine dion lmao

 

2005-2007 is an interesting period for Britney. She was recording a bunch of different material. From slam poetry ballads that sampled an array of genres (Rebellion with Mozart, All That She Wants with Ace of Base, Baby Boy with a song from the 60(?)), covers of Otis Redding and Elvis, a ballad about her children (Someday), to the urban inspired material that we got on Blackout. It’s definitely her most musically diverse and experimental era. But that is exactly what she was doing: experimenting. Even the Blackout demos, the ones that werent released (State of Grace, Just Yesterday, Sugarfall) don’t necessarily fit in with the overall vibe of Blackout. Even though Britney is listed as EP on Blackout, there’s been much speculation about her actual involvement on the album in recent years. There’s been stories that Britney just dropped a bunch of demos off at Jive and they were the ones who selected the final track list. 
 

Long story short, I and many others agree. Original Doll never existed and was just the very early stages of what would eventually evolve into Blackout. Fan compilations are typically Blackout, In The Zone, and Britney outtakes even though the only confirmed track for “original doll” is Mona Lisa

[Circuit]

It’s because people want to believe that things are more interesting than they are. Conspiracy theories like “Britney’s creative freedom was suppressed” or “Britney was going to expose the music industry” are more interesting than the very big possibility that things just didn’t work out lol

But there WAS an original fifth album that was submitted to Jive. The Red Hot Lipstick producer confirmed this.

[Goten21]

It’s because she had to go out of her way to publicly “leak” what would’ve been the lead single off that album? Blackout itself didnt have label support either. Some stuff from original bled into blackout, but its very obvious why stuff like mona lisa and rebellion didnt get a green light.

[Alex_1991]

6 hours ago, Alexa James said:

Of all the conspiracies and controversies linked to Britney, the unreleased original doll album is by far the most fascinating. Many fans think that her record company refused to let her release it, which in turn contributed to her downward spiral. It’s been suggested that the album is locked away in the basement of Jive Records, never to see the light of day.

Im starting to think that we have all been wrong. Original Doll may have actually been repurposed into Blackout and Circus.

Although Britney claimed that the album was “halfway done” on the famous radio interview, it’s possible that might not have been precisely true. Perhaps, she had just recorded demos of some songs and was being more experimental but had not done anything solid. Even the radio version of Mona Lisa was very raw.
 

Blackout and Circus captured the themes that Britney was trying to convey. The music and feel of these albums were much more edgy and original than anything she had done in the past. I’m guessing that songs like Freakshow, Radar, Get Back, Circus, and Mannequin were songs that might have been intended for original doll. 
 

The real reason why very little has been revealed about original doll is because there isn’t much information on it to begin with. If this story was similar to the Smile album by The Beach Boys, people would have leaked the details. If Original doll came to fruition it would have been a combination of Circus and Blackout. 
 

In this respect, we might have been looking at Original Doll this whole time! I mean there’s a reason why those albums have received so much praise. It’s what she probably envisioned when she was planning original doll. 
 

What do you all think?

Original doll was never a real record. She was having fun in studio during the onyx tour and she was rebelling against her company. She premiered the mona lisa demo out of the blue, but there was no real project behind it. It was just an act of rebellion. All the leaked tracks fans commonly attribute to OD are either off the original, discharged recording session of in the zone which her company rejected in full (welcome to me, money love and happiness, take off, ecc.), In the zone outtakes and b sides (Chaotic, over to you now, and then we kiss...) or tracks she recorded for the record that turned out to be Blackout (rebellion, state of grace, ecc.) 

[Goten21]

12 minutes ago, Alex_1991 said:

Original doll was never a real record. She was having fun in studio during the onyx tour and she was rebelling against her company. She premiered the mona lisa demo out of the blue, but there was no real project behind it. It was just an act of rebellion. All the leaked tracks fans commonly attribute to OD are either off the original, discharged recording session of in the zone which her company rejected in full (welcome to me, money love and happiness, take off, ecc.), In the zone outtakes and b sides (Chaotic, over to you now, and then we kiss...) or tracks she recorded for the record that turned out to be Blackout (rebellion, state of grace, ecc.) 

 

"it's halfway done" "to be released in fall or early summer" (implying the fall and summer of 2005)

This is a huge contradiction with the info on Blackout's wikipedia

Quote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackout_(Britney_Spears_album)#Release_and_promotion

Earnest recording of the album began in 2006, according to a Spears representative.^[18

 

It's obvious SOMETHING happened. Saying they ended up just going onto Blackout is weird. Why would you sit on your demos for 3-4 years? The music industry moves much faster than that... Blackout was already really ahead of its time, I doubt most if any of it was ever ready to see the light of day in 2005

 

 

And I feel like no one's saying it was a literal record that was ready to be released. I feel like when you're talking about Original Doll, you know that. You're talking about a bunch of demos that Britney seemed passionate about yet never saw the light of day properly like she seemingly envisioned.

[MeAgainstTheMusic_]

I think Original Doll probably only existed in Britney’s vision. She probably only recorded a handful of songs with very dark lyrics which reflected her life at that time. She was breaking from the very polished “Pop Princess” persona. She wanted to have a voice and be in complete control over her music - are rightly so. 

I imagine her label seen it as too out there and I’ll be really honest - I don’t love Mona Lisa or Chaotic. Someday I Will Understand, My Prerogative, Do Somethin’, I’ve Just Begun are good solid tracks and combined with some of the rejects from the ITZ recordings I think she could have had a really strong album. And Then We Kiss, Strangest Love etc would have made good additions to the album. 

I think once her label pulled it she probably lost all motivation and hence why we eventually ended up with Blackout which is a fantastic album. I think people overhype the actual Original Doll songs. There probably wasn’t that much material and what was there was very demo like.

[Frankie8]

I think what you're saying is a real possibilty. Also I think there was an album almost done and Brit liked what she did, but the label wasn't feeling it.

Could you imagine the album leaks and we are like wow all this time it sucks. Would be such a letdown

[J in the Mix]

Maybe The Original Doll is like, the original “project rose” or “project RED/Pink” ... Not real projects but Britney seems to think so LOL

I’m sure she was recording - we know Mona Lisa was part of that vision. But for all we know it could’ve just been Britney rebelling against the industry and talking out of her *** on the radio just to piss off JIVE. 

 

[Isla]

You might be right. Mona Lisa is the only known song for the album, the rest of Britney's unreleased songs that have leaked are from other albums. Even if fans want to believe The Original Doll exists, we don't know much about the album at all and it's not like some unreleased albums that actually had confirmed release dates/tracklisting/artwork and even had promos issued. For all we know the album may have just 'evolved' into Blackout. 

Edited April 9, 2021 by Isla

[Isla]

7 hours ago, Goten21 said:

 

"it's halfway done" "to be released in fall or early summer" (implying the fall and summer of 2005)

This is a huge contradiction with the info on Blackout's wikipedia

 

It's obvious SOMETHING happened. Saying they ended up just going onto Blackout is weird. Why would you sit on your demos for 3-4 years? The music industry moves much faster than that... Blackout was already really ahead of its time, I doubt most if any of it was ever ready to see the light of day in 2005

 

 

And I feel like no one's saying it was a literal record that was ready to be released. I feel like when you're talking about Original Doll, you know that. You're talking about a bunch of demos that Britney seemed passionate about yet never saw the light of day properly like she seemingly envisioned.

I think Wiki isn't wrong to an extent, as all of the songs that made it onto Blackout were recorded in 2006/2007, nothing on the album is from 2005. The earliest song on Blackout to be recorded is Everybody which I think was done in early 2006. 

Edited April 9, 2021 by Isla

[Oxic]

I thought we all knew that? I've never heard the theory of the album being locked somewhere on a basement

Nah Circus didn't get any involvement from Britney, she said it herself. Probably Blackout though. 

[Goten21]

22 minutes ago, Isla said:

I think Wiki isn't wrong to an extent, as all of the songs that made it onto Blackout were recorded in 2006/2007, nothing on the album is from 2005. The earliest song on Blackout to be recorded is Everybody which I think was done in early 2006. 

Yea my point is none of the songs she had recorded as of that interview made it to blackout, so the notion that the original doll demos saw the light of day through blackout is not true at all

[Isla]

16 minutes ago, Goten21 said:

Yea my point is none of the songs she had recorded as of that interview made it to blackout, so the notion that the original doll demos saw the light of day through blackout is not true at all

Oh I see, but I'm not sure, I feel like most of the stuff from 2005 might be different from Blackout? I think the album still 'evolved' into Blackout at some point though.

Edited April 9, 2021 by Isla

[studlygeorge]

13 hours ago, Circuit said:

But there WAS an original fifth album that was submitted to Jive. The Red Hot Lipstick producer confirmed this.

That’s what I remember. They said they were promised the track was going to appear on the album and Britney submitted the songs but they rejected all of the work. 
 

I feel like when that happened Britney was fed up and at a loss. Then the whole thing with Battle of the ***es happened with JT/Timbaland and when Timbaland vowed to never work with her she went under him and got Danja + the whole team from Shock Value to produce Blackout. She didn’t necessarily write or care what was going in the album, but she did pick who was going to work on it. Like the whole album was made out of petty revenge lol. Then again this is just my own theory. I could be wrong. 

58 minutes ago, Oxic said:

I thought we all knew that? I've never heard the theory of the album being locked somewhere on a basement

Nah Circus didn't get any involvement from Britney, she said it herself. Probably Blackout though. 

This! I feel like the songs from OD era were long forgotten by the time Circus was being produced. They seemed to just have her record as many songs as she could to roll out an album as fast as they could

[mannequin19]

i think britney definitely was working on an album and made some decent progress on it. however, she became pregnant very soon after doing the mona lisa radio interview & i think starting a family + not having the label support her vision/direction of the new record caused her to abandon it. i don't think it was her label suppressing any "messages" she wanted to send like a lot of fans believe, just that they were used to pop britney with some urban influences and that was as far as they wanted to let her go. a lot of britney's leaked demos from this era were very creepy and unsettling so i don't think they were comfortable with her going in a new direction. i do feel her pregnancy was the main reason, though

[jordeezy river red]

Original Doll is simply a collection of demos besides "Rebellion", "Someday", the released "Mona Lisa". 

[NewDisplayName]

Many of fans believe that blackout tracks meant for original doll but I don’t..

there was an interview of person who worked on original doll and said it was experimental for Britney more like lyrical wise.. she was singing about many problems and sharing her thoughts..

blackout is experimental music wise not lyrical

✌️

[Look But Don't Touch]

On 4/9/2021 at 2:16 PM, Alex_1991 said:

Original doll was never a real record. She was having fun in studio during the onyx tour and she was rebelling against her company. She premiered the mona lisa demo out of the blue, but there was no real project behind it. It was just an act of rebellion. All the leaked tracks fans commonly attribute to OD are either off the original, discharged recording session of in the zone which her company rejected in full (welcome to me, money love and happiness, take off, ecc.), In the zone outtakes and b sides (Chaotic, over to you now, and then we kiss...) or tracks she recorded for the record that turned out to be Blackout (rebellion, state of grace, ecc.) 

Do you have Instagram?  Cause I want to see 

[Goten21]

22 hours ago, Isla said:

Oh I see, but I'm not sure, I feel like most of the stuff from 2005 might be different from Blackout? I think the album still 'evolved' into Blackout at some point though.

I lowkey don't know if you're agreeing with me or not lmao or maybe my point wasn't really clear

 

My point is

Original Doll was "halfway done" in December 2004 according to Britney herself.

Britney envisioned Original Doll to be released by mid 2005.

Blackout's earliest recordings were early 2006 according to its producers.

This means NONE of the Original Doll tracks Britney was referring to in that interview made it onto Blackout.

 

• The only release we had in 2005 was the Chaotic EP, in which Chaotic, Someday and Mona Lisa were released. This means there are at the very least 3 songs Britney had for the Original Doll that were never released officially.