I feel like "Oops" has been a lie...

[Sia]

I was listening to the newly leaked "Oops!...I Did it Again" stems and I have to say that I was kind of disappointed to hear that some of my favorite parts in the song were so overproduced. Now don't get me wrong, I know that almost all songs are modified and altered to sound perfect, but it's still nice to know that the song as a whole is true to the artist's capabilities.

For example, the higher notes in the bridge/chorus after the talking section are so obviously auto-tuned and the longer notes she holds out aren't even real. You can hear in the stems where she hit the note for a short second and they just cut and pasted it to extend it and make it sound like she's holding the notes out.

Again, not the end of the world, but after hearing those elements so clearly, it just takes away from the song now. 

Anyway...rant over....

[HisNameisChase]

I mean, Britney's music has always been overprocessed and edited.

I think something to soothe the blow of this discovery is the fact she could have hit those back in the day and even now.

But she most likely wasn't ALLOWED to.

Remember: she said her second album fell into her lap and it all happened so fast.

[jordeezy river red]

Just imagine if u knew all the tricks they use in the studio now in 2022 lol the sound engineers are modern day miracle workers 

[BritneyGXKB]

The word “autotune” often gets said here when clearly “vocoder” is what’s being referred to, along with vocal production and background vocals? The stems sound great, she is hitting every note with complete control. Not a flat moment. Not many can say that about their studio stems.

[JeniLeeSK8]

Sorry I missed these stems I guess...can you link them please?

[Sia]

3 hours ago, BritneyGXKB said:

The word “autotune” often gets said here when clearly “vocoder” is what’s being referred to, along with vocal production and background vocals? The stems sound great, she is hitting every note with complete control. Not a flat moment. Not many can say that about their studio stems.

I'm sure you're listening to something else. You can HEAR the pitch correction and it's most noticeable in that her entire tone changes when the note hits. You can hear the slide where the autotune kicks in. Also, a vocoder doesn't correct pitch, it modulates the voice to give it a synthetic sound. 

The pitch correction doesn't bother me as much as the long notes not even being real. Granted it was late 1999/early 2000 when they produced it, but it clearly was not done smoothly lol.

 

[I Can Bang]

I kinda feel the same tbh, cause I've noticed that too!  Btw when you say pitch correction are you referring to the "I'm NOT THAT Innocent" part? After the spoken section?

And when it comes to the long note, yeah it felt a bit weird, cause you can clearly hear where they cut the voice just to paste it again... I was actually thinking and hoping for Stronger and Where Are You Now to not be the same, if we'll ever be able to listen to a proper acapella or stems of those gems  but yeah, it left me a little bit... Idk, I'm still enjoying the song but whenever I listen to it I still think about the bad edit/production of that long note lol

[studlygeorge]

I find stuff like this quite fascinating honestly. I’ve heard Britney did over 100+ takes of this song and what Max Martin did was stitch the best words from each take into its own take. So it’s not necessarily that it was one or two takes, it’s a bunch of takes spliced together. This is best heard in the chorus. Yes there is those fake long notes but part of me wonders if that was done as to just add more layering. This song is so richly layered with so many different takes from a choir, max, and Britney. Also you have to remember that this album was extremely rushed. So you also have to ponder if the decision to add high notes to the song was made after Britney was already done recording. 

This is supposedly what happened during the recording of Circus’ bridge. It’s no secret now that Myah Marie is singing the higher notes in “I feel the adrenaline flowing through my veins” part and Britney is singing the mostly unnoticed portion. Dr. L*ke once said the decision to add a higher pitch take was done *after* Britney was done recording so he called in Myah Marie to complete the backing vocals that Britney was unable to complete (ironically I would argue Myah‘a take in that part of the song is lead vocals, but I digress). Funnily enough though… that was also a very rushed album! 
 

this type of producer magic is also done various times during Femme Fatale, most notably in Hold It Against Me’s last chorus. Her vocals are manipulated so it sounds like a different take, despite being the same take just with vocoder/pitching effects to just add variety to the sound. 
 

Aside from Britney’s unique tone and extremely interesting voice, what I find so fascinating about her music is the way her producers produce her voice. Each track is different and it shows so much magic and talent in their end. Her voice becomes this own unique instrument in every single song

[MissSpearsSaysSo]

We all know Britney doesn’t have the strongest voice, and her team was ultimately selling a product. So that doesn’t ruin it for me, her music is still great. I’ve always loved how she sings, but also how she’s produced and how her vocals really become part of the instrumentation and blend with her songs. It’s very cool. 

[BritneyGuy]

11 hours ago, JeniLeeSK8 said:

Sorry I missed these stems I guess...can you link them please?

There you go...

 

[Louis-j]

Yeah when I heard it, almost seems like she recorded the song very quickly.

[Oprah Winfrey.]

5 hours ago, studlygeorge said:

I find stuff like this quite fascinating honestly. I’ve heard Britney did over 100+ takes of this song and what Max Martin did was stitch the best words from each take into its own take. So it’s not necessarily that it was one or two takes, it’s a bunch of takes spliced together.

That’s interesting to read I actually remember P!nk saying back in the day that she could never work with max martin because he makes Britney record every word over and over till it’s right. This didn’t just happen with Britney seems to be common in pop, this Also happened with one direction. I was watching behind the scenes of one of their tours, and when they weren’t performing at night, they were recording there follow up album. (I believe oops was recorded during the bomt tour) If you paid attention you noticed they made the boys record  every verse or word over and over again till it sounded just perfect. You can literally see the frustration in zayns face after a while of doing the same highnote over and over.

in the rushed manufactured world of pop this just seems to be how it goes especially for new young artist. The team strikes while the iron is hot! While you’re still young, fresh, and very popular so that equals over worked and a  time crunched schedule for the artist

[BritneyGXKB]

19 hours ago, Sia said:

I'm sure you're listening to something else. You can HEAR the pitch correction and it's most noticeable in that her entire tone changes when the note hits. You can hear the slide where the autotune kicks in. Also, a vocoder doesn't correct pitch, it modulates the voice to give it a synthetic sound. 

The pitch correction doesn't bother me as much as the long notes not even being real. Granted it was late 1999/early 2000 when they produced it, but it clearly was not done smoothly lol.

 

You said it yourself “her entire tone changes when the note hits” her tone changes the pitch does not change meaning there was no “pitch correction” or autotune. 
 

And these “fake” notes are pretty standard in the production of a song, using the voice as an instrument includes distorting and manipulating it. Oftentimes these notes are hit exceedingly well in the studio but the producers and everybody else involved decide to stitch together some more “perfect” sounding vocals to approximate the original recording.

[Puppy]

This reminds me when Cyndi Lauper said Max Martin would make Britney sing every word so he can splice together a perfect take.

[JeniLeeSK8]

5 hours ago, BritneyGuy said:

There you go...

 

Thank you!!!

[GlitterSlayDExhaleHI]

This song is a ******* masterpiece. Objectively lol. It’s so good. If anything these stems make me respect the song even more. I (thought I had) have a keen ear but I have never heard some of these sounds within the master. 

[Risorius]

I listened to the stems. I agree that there are many glitches, but given how buried her lead vocal was beneath the choir, the producers probably knew we wouldn't take notice.

By the way.. how do all of these old, old studio stems end up online?

[Tear the floor up up]

On 7/19/2022 at 6:31 PM, Puppy said:

This reminds me when Cyndi Lauper said Max Martin would make Britney sing every word so he can splice together a perfect take.

On 7/19/2022 at 4:27 PM, 3IsACharm33 said:

I actually remember P!nk saying back in the day that she could never work with max martin because he makes Britney record every word over and over till it’s right.

Did both of them actually say the same thing regarding MM? 
 

[Puppy]

14 minutes ago, Tear the floor up up said:

Did both of them actually say the same thing regarding MM? 
 

At least the common thing is that Max makes her do it many times and demands perfection even Britney said it.

 

[shanemw1]

there are many things I hear that I have never heard before but there are also a lot of things missing that are in the song like ad libs and runs that I just assume are on a different layer of the track. I know when they remastered ITZ the engineer said that it was a very difficult album to remaster because of the complexity of the song layers.