Anthony Preston shares tea on Team Con, what Britney said to him about her situation in the studio & constraints with the BJ album

[Isla]

It’s crazy to think she thought she would get in trouble simply for recording a song.

But this goes to show she did have some involvement in the Britney Jean songs whenever possible. She obviously likes Alien a lot.

[G-unit]

The interesting thing is, Britney has only discussed a small portion of her conservatorship (POM Tour through the forced mental facility).  We have no idea what she really went through from Circus through Piece of Me…she’s maybe shared a couple of details, but not nearly all of what has happened to her.  We don’t know what they did to her during the recording of BJ…but I honestly don’t trust a lot of the people she worked with while recording this album.  They seem to act like they knew it was really sketchy…and they still haven’t said anything.

[PokemonSpears]

9 hours ago, ICouldntThinkOfOne said:

We don't know when officially started recording though, I mean, we have footage from X Factor of her with Darkchild in 2012. It wasn't just Khalifa, Danja, Dev Hynes etc made their involvement known. If I'm correct, so did Hitboi and Naught Dog (factcheck me though!). Britney was also quoted about her album would have different sounds and be more personal. William Orbit is a well documented case of what happened; he made it clear that the final track wasn't what he would have released, specifically blaming will.i.am for it.

In the Original Doll Podcast released yesterday, vocal producer Anthony Preston made it clear that the A&R's were responsible for what happened to this album because they tried to follow too many trends, and it's interesting you listed Passenger and Work *****; both songs involved artists or acts that had huge career popularity in late summer 2013. I'm in noway saying Will.i.am never went for lunch with Britney, what I am saying is position of EP came very late in an album's making.

I think the fact that the IABJ documentary features no live singing or recording footage is proof enough that the team knew to avoid it for whatever reason; even if she was photographed leaving a studio in October that means they were laying down tracks over a month before release. IABJ is also heavily set up for faux drama or tension building.

 

I'm not saying the album was made overnight. What I am saying is that decisions were made to prioritise trends at a time when Britney was already in promotion mode, and couldn't record or didn't have enough material to work with in production, which is kinda damning when we know she was working on this album for atleast a year and a half, but others wanted immediately charting hits 

I'm not saying she didn't work in 2012, or early 2013, we have interviews with Hitboy himself and Elijah Black etc, saying so, but her "team" came up and literally denied they were working on her next album. Maybe Britney intended to do something at the time, but what I mean is whatever she recorded around that time, her team had already decided it wasn't gonna be released since late 2012, so that shift in direction didn't happen in the summer of 2013, they had already dismissed that idea since before the year started. 

Then enters will.i.am, and he's announced as executive producer of B8 in May, and in an interview for Billboard he says they were gonna start recording the following week, explaining they had had the talks for two months already. On May 17, Britney is seen at the recording studio coinciding with what will.i.am said.

 

will.i.am said in that same interview:

Quote

"When people start bringing us stuff, I can say 'Actually we can't have this song. Yes, we want dance songs but that's a little too dark.' I want it to fit with the emotions. I'm really excited about that and honored that she trusts me. I don't want to let her down. I just want to do it the way a brand would do it. They wouldn't say, 'Take this. Put it out.' That's not what you would do. You'd come up with a mood board, the logos, the font, all the other stuff."

We could infer he had already done a little bit of filtering of the songs HE wanted for the record. "that's a little too dark" screams Danja tbh. 

So yeah, it's pretty obvious they wanted to have all the famous producers that made hits in the past year, as Anthony says, Sia, Diplo, David Guetta, etc and it's obvious that they were gonna sound similar to other songs that were being released that year, but those songs could've very well been heard by Britney's team earlier in the year. I mean, they're receiving songs from all producers, they're hearing what is gonna be released before the public does. 

And yeah, maybe it's not an ideal situation to have only a few selection of recorded songs because then you don't have more options, but I think that was literally what they planned since the beginning:

“I want Will to be a central figure in the album; I don’t want to have hundreds of songs sent over.”  - that's what Larry Rudolph said that Britney said anyway, but it also aligns with other comments by will.i.am of being the vehicle between Britney and the producers / songwriters. Maybe they were picking which songs Britney would record according to what was being released at the time, but I genuinely think they must've had these songs with them beforehand. I mean, we would need to get a timeline from every producer/songwriter of every song on the album, but I think the job of will.i.am was precisely to gather all these songs and have them ready for when Britney was available to record, while she was busy doing other stuff. 

 

 

But what I'm trying to say is that POM or not POM show, if that was the case, and these decisions were being made by Larry and Adam, then it wouldn't have made a difference if they gave her a few more months or another year, because they would've kept trying to chase the latest trend every time

So the problem wasn't the lack of time, or the POM show as everybody says,  because we've already seen that a good album, or at least a good song can be done in a short time (literally Oops album was done in like a few weeks or so), but the problem was that the A&R were just bad at making decisions and perhaps how they handled the production. 

 

[Applejack]

4 minutes ago, PokemonSpears said:

So the problem wasn't the lack of time, or the POM show as everybody says,  because we've already seen that a good album, or at least a good song can be done in a short time (literally Oops album was done in like a few weeks or so), but the problem was that the A&R were just bad at making decisions. 

It feels like Britney felt the same way with Femme Fatale, but that album is very nicely produced and assembled and they had way more time. Vegas definitely had a hand on BJ's outcome, I feel. Oops was another time, it was another Britney.

[Richie]

I wanna take this time to just say that  I've always defended Alien and Hold On Tight as the best songs on BJ... I have a sixth sense for britney envolvement in a song 

[JamesRodriguez]

Thank you for listening. Many of the songwriters and producers I have interviewed who have worked with Britney have talked about her being so sweet, kind and professional. (as well as her love of music and thinking outside of the box) They all have talked from their first person point of view, KC Livingston who wrote and sang background for Amnesia and Unusual you, talked about the time KC was flown to Las Vegas to work with Britney in the studio on No Seas Cortes.  Britney recorded the Spanish part, but it was ultimately removed and replaced by someone else.  There are more Anthony Preston episodes coming soon and my exclusive interview with Simon Ellis who was musical director of CIRCUS and FEMME FATALE, we break down each track from both shows and talk Spice Girls.

 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-original-doll-britney-spears/id1528417596?i=1000554903780 

[PokemonSpears]

1 hour ago, Applejack said:

It feels like Britney felt the same way with Femme Fatale, but that album is very nicely produced and assembled and they had way more time. Vegas definitely had a hand on BJ's outcome, I feel. Oops was another time, it was another Britney.

but Femme Fatale had Max Martin and Dr Luke, and they are on another level when it comes to pop music :P (regardless of Dr Luke's alleged issues) 

I'm also seeing that both FF and BJ had a third A&R, besides Larry and Adam, which is different for each other: FF's third A&R was Peter Thea and BJ's was Rani Hancock

[PokemonSpears]

55 minutes ago, Richie said:

I wanna take this time to just say that  I've always defended Alien and Hold On Tight as the best songs on BJ... I have a sixth sense for britney envolvement in a song 

I mean, if that's the case Myah Marie also said Britney wrote Body Ache's second verse, so why believe some people but not others? 

But yeah, they're definitely some of the best songs

[Applejack]

44 minutes ago, PokemonSpears said:

but Femme Fatale had Max Martin and Dr Luke, and they are on another level when it comes to pop music :P (regardless of Dr Luke's alleged issues) 

I'm also seeing that both FF and BJ had a third A&R, besides Larry and Adam, which is different for each other: FF's third A&R was Peter Thea and BJ's was Rani Hancock

Dr Luke worked on BJ as well

[Applejack]

47 minutes ago, PokemonSpears said:

I mean, if that's the case Myah Marie also said Britney wrote Body Ache's second verse, so why believe some people but not others? 

But yeah, they're definitely some of the best songs

iirc anthony preston said the same

[PokemonSpears]

8 minutes ago, Applejack said:

Dr Luke worked on BJ as well

but not as executive producer, he only worked on BMS (unless there are more scrapped songs we don't know of) 

[Richie]

1 hour ago, PokemonSpears said:

I mean, if that's the case Myah Marie also said Britney wrote Body Ache's second verse, so why believe some people but not others? 

But yeah, they're definitely some of the best songs

the problem with Body Ache is not the lyrics, it's that it's ear poison, the beat is dated, and the vocals sound 100% Myah not Britney. For me it's the opposite with Perfume, I like the melody and the vocals, I absolutely hate the lyrics. Who thought it was a good idea to say 'I'm gonna mark my territory' ? I don't care if that wasn't britney or not, I just don't think it's good. 

Other songs from BJ I consider overall good are Don't Cry, Work B and Passenger (if britney sang more of it) 

[Body ache]

On 3/23/2022 at 6:16 AM, blackingouthenegativity said:

Britney Jean really did have potential, but it ended up being destroyed by Larry, Lou and the rest of Team Con. Imagine if she was able to take her time and be motivated when recording songs like Alien.

Also, Hold On Tight is probably the best track that came from BJ, even though I'm not particularly religious. It was truly one of the few genuinely personal tracks we got from her "most personal album to date." 

I really like the eeriness of HOT. Could have easily fit on Original Doll.

[ymusticreateanaccount]

On 3/24/2022 at 1:17 PM, Rex said:

Never thought Hold On Tight was a song about God only because so wicked in the way he moves sounds a little like seduction. Yeah I mean it could pass for it but it sounds like princess in distress needing a knight in shining armor. Of course however, that does make sense for God to save Brit of all the turmoil. And then what about Brightest Shining Star? Sounds like the God song of the album more than Hold On Tight

 

 

On 3/24/2022 at 1:27 PM, Applejack said:

It could be "wicked" in the sense that she has seen some **** in her life that would make her lose faith, yet she didn't. That God works in wicked ways.

But I agree with you that it has a very romantic connotation too -- the "don't be a fool" sounds more like a past lover regretting losing her love. I like how the way she writes gets us to discuss that.

I always thought Hold On Tite (lol) + a lot of the other BJ songs were about her dad/the conservatorship? "So wicked ... Don't miss it/Do not be a fool" .. He comes to me in my dreams and tells me what I need to know" team Con and her dad being up her *** all the time. Also Perfume (3 people in the relationship - Britney + her bf + her dad), Passenger (not in control of her own life) ....

[PokemonSpears]

2 minutes ago, ymusticreateanaccount said:

 

I always thought Hold On Tite (lol) + a lot of the other BJ songs were about her dad/the conservatorship? "So wicked ... Don't miss it/Do not be a fool" .. He comes to me in my dreams and tells me what I need to know" team Con and her dad being up her *** all the time. Also Perfume (3 people in the relationship - Britney + her bf + her dad), Passenger (not in control of her own life) ....

she explicitly stated Perfume and other songs were derived from the breakup with Jason.

 

About the God theme, I've always felt Hold on Tight, Brightest Morning Star and Now That I Found You could very well be interpreted both as songs to God, and/or to a loved one. 

[Applejack]

9 minutes ago, ymusticreateanaccount said:

 

I always thought Hold On Tite (lol) + a lot of the other BJ songs were about her dad/the conservatorship? "So wicked ... Don't miss it/Do not be a fool" .. He comes to me in my dreams and tells me what I need to know" team Con and her dad being up her *** all the time. Also Perfume (3 people in the relationship - Britney + her bf + her dad), Passenger (not in control of her own life) ....

"Comes to me in my dreams and tells me what I need to know" is a reassuring thing, that seems to have a calming effect on her and paints her outlook on life positively. It sounds the complete opposite of the conservatorship and her dad, who was telling her she was fat, a *****, h00ker shoes and so on and forth.