Pitchfork finally reviewed “Blackout”

[willys]

A woman drives fast along the California freeway with the radio screaming, delirious with grief. She does this every morning, dressing quickly in her Beverly Hills home so as to leave no time to think. Changing lanes is like a dance the way she’s trained herself to do it, seamlessly and to the beat. She walks barefoot into gas stations, rinsing down pills with warm Coca-Cola and chatting mindlessly with the attendants. Her marriage is over. Her showbiz career is dead. Her child has been taken away. She is known to cry at parties or get carried home; close friends have come to believe she’s insane. It is only on the freeway, when the music is loud, that she can forget what’s become of her life. To fall asleep she imagines herself on the road: “The Hollywood to the San Bernardino and straight on out, past Barstow, past Baker, driving straight on into the hard white empty core of the world.”

 

How chic the story sounds the way Joan Didion tells it in her 1970 novel Play It As It Lays. The woman is a trainwreck but a sharp and glamorous one, numbing out on pills as a critique of moral rot in 1960s Tinseltown. Books are great that way. Played out in real life in the year 2007, the tale loses its cool; now the woman is a punchline whose endless personal disasters keep a burgeoning new media economy afloat. It seemed that every week, or sometimes even every day, brought a hysterical new headline regarding the downward spiral of America’s pop princess. (“HELP ME!” “INSANE!” “OUT OF CONTROL!”) “We serialize Britney Spears. She’s our President Bush,” said TMZ founder Harvey Levin in a gruesome Rolling Stonecover story from early 2008, which began with Britney wailing in a San Fernando Valley shopping mall as a crowd closed around her with their Sidekick smartphones brandished. “I don’t know who you think I am, *****,” 26-year-old Spears snarled to a shopgirl approaching for a photo. “But I’m not that person.”

 

What had become of the Southern sweetheart was not a symptom or appraisal of a new century’s decay but the foremost emblem of it, or possibly its cause. A New York Timesessay that summed up 2007 as the year of the trainwreck, in which “prominent figures from every arena of public life did harm to their reputations and livelihoods in devastating fashion,” led with a description of Spears’ lifeless performance at the VMAs that fall. “Is there any measurable way to prove what many of us feel in our gut,” the article went on, “that 2007 was the year when the excesses of our most reliably outrageous personalities finally started to feel, well, excessive?” Or was it that the billion-dollar gossip industry, newly powerful online, had willed this chaos into being? It was the dawning of the era of perpetual surveillance, and websites once considered too sketchy to break news were scooping the “real” outlets when it came to all things shallow and macabre.

It had been nearly four years without new Britney Spears music. She remained the defining figure of American pop culture, only what that meant had changed, and by then the image of the happy blonde from Kentwood, Louisiana had been replaced a few times over. “Have you ever gone further than you wish you had?” Diane Sawyer asked the singer gravely on Primetime in 2003, whipping out the pages of a recent Esquireshoot which styled her in little more than a dozen strings of pearls. Its accompanying story, written by Chuck Klosterman, opened with the sentence, “Britney Spears is pantless,” and went on to conclude: “She is not so much a person as an idea, and the idea is this: You can want everything, so long as you get nothing.” On the cover she was made up like Marilyn Monroe, with whom she shared a knack for articulating her own myth with more profundity and wit than most smug writer types.

In the years since her last record, 2003’s In the Zone, Spears had married a dancer from Fresno, gave birth to their two sons, negotiated a divorce, lost custody of the babies, went twice to rehab, shook off her management team, and spent her days hunted by cameramen through the gas stations, pharmacies, and drive-thrus of L.A. She also wrote a blog. For $25 a year, you could read the singer’s musings on the fearsome beauty of tigers (“their eyes, their stripes, their constant quest for survival”) or poems she’d written: “Manipulation is the key/They screw it in/Because you’re naive,” went one from 2006. Other times she’d weigh in on her latest dramas with good humor and startling self-awareness. “Recently, I was sent to a very humbling place called rehab,” she wrote in spring 2007. Three months before, she’d shaved her head bald at a hair salon in the Valley as the paparazzi snapped on. Headlines called her crazy, but she looked strangely serene. “It felt almost religious,” Spears described the moment in her 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me. “I was living on a level of pure being.”

In a blog update from June 2007, Spears appeared in a cheap wig and elbow-length white gloves, posing like she might have circa Oops!... I Did It Again. “I’m asking my most die-hard fans for some assistance in order to name my upcoming album” the post read, presenting the following titles for fans to vote on:

1. Omg is Like Lindsay Lohan Like Okay Like

2. What if the Joke is on You

3. Down boy

4. Integrity

5. Dignity

As a riff on her own image, it was better satire than the cheap shots at the star that pervaded late-night TV. In any case, she named the album Blackout.

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

In a ritualistic deflowering ceremony stretched out across three years, millions watched as Spears transformed from a shy schoolgirl to a sweat-slick jungle queen, writhing beneath a python onstage at the VMAs. I can’t count the times I’ve replayed these performances—1999, 2000, 2001—trying to articulate what made her such a star. Her melismatic voice, sung from her nose and not her chest, lacked the power of the divas of the ’90s, trembling instead with plucky naivety. But beneath her confidence and cheery disposition, the pathos of her best songs (“Sometimes,” “Lucky,” “Everytime”) always seemed to trace back to the loneliness of being misconstrued. “Notice me,” she whimpered on the first line of the latter. In the 2004 video, she drowns in the bathtub of a hotel room from injuries sustained in a paparazzi chase while a baby is born in a hospital nearby. Spears wrote the treatment herself.

By September 2007, four years had passed since Spears’ last VMAs appearance, where a campy kiss with Madonna had triggered lesbian rumors and conservative talk show ire. Compared to the promo blitzes for her previous albums, she had so far done almost nothing to advertise the long-awaited Blackout, her fifth album to be released later that fall. Her performance of its lead single that would open the awards show was hyped as the equivalent of Elvis’ 1968 comeback special. “My team was pressuring me to get out there and show the world I was fine,” wrote Spears in her memoir. “The only problem with this plan: I was not fine.”

Sleepless, under-rehearsed, and fresh off a backstage run-in with her ex Justin Timberlake, who’d take home more awards than any other artist that night, Spears had a panic attack. With messy hair and denim-blue contacts, she staggered around the stage, shimmying miserably to a song called “Gimme More.” “I knew it was going to be bad,” she described in the memoir. “I could see myself on video throughout the auditorium while I performed. It was like looking at myself in a funhouse mirror.” The camera panned the crowd: Rihanna stifled a giggle, 50 Cent arched a brow. Spears looked so tragic up there that I doubt too many viewers were paying much attention to how nuts the music sounded. Her voice stretches and smears and splinters, interrupted now and then by a man who sounded like Satan, or perhaps Dracula. It’s a song about surveillance in the guise of a song about s**, showing you how it feels when the two topics are entwined—a pole-dance number for the panopticon. “They want more?” she gasps over the beat’s zombified thud and the creepy oohs and ahhs of the spectral background choir. “I’ll give them more,” she promises, whispering it like a threat.

 

Read the full article here:
 

Britney Spears: Blackout Album Review | Pitchfork

PITCHFORK.COM

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Read Meaghan Garvey’s review of the album.

 

Edited August 4 by willys

[Red Wine Supernova]

8.1? That’s what the Pop Bible gets? 

[Britney671]

6 minutes ago, Red Wine Supernova said:

8.1? That’s what the Pop Bible 

Yeah a lot of reviewers don't give pop music the credit it deserves just because it's supposed to be fun. They'll give rappers critic acclaimed status for ripping other men to shreds but when women do it, theyre sassy and mean, not to be taken seriously. 

In Britneys regard, this album changed an entire music environment. It shaped fashion, music videos, trends, decades later; they dared give it an 8.1? However, any rap music and sad boy music gets a 10?, lol.give me a break. If this album got released by Kendrick Lamar it would be a 10.

 

This is a masterpiece, and I'm glad these reviewers aren't taken serious anymore. 

Edited August 4 by Britney671
More thoughts to add

[willys]

5 minutes ago, Red Wine Supernova said:

8.1? That’s what the Pop Bible gets? 

That is a high note tbh

[CenterofAttention]

Yeahhh… I’m gonna need to see at least a 9.0 here.

Like, what albums would be a 9, then? Or a perfect 10?! 

[PokemonSpears]

I read all that and I'm still waiting for the review

They didn't even mention Break the Ice

[Crayboy]

If I had to quickly critique Blackout, it would be that the lyrics are just not that real. I think there was an opportunity to go the route of Piece of Me, and have lyrics with real meaning behind them, which they didn't go for.

 

That, and why should I be sad is the worst song on the album, and could've been replaced by some of the demos.

 

For me it's an 8.5 though.

[RogerJohnson]

I’ll never have as much fun in my life again listening to an album as I did at 21 with Blackout so for that alone I give it a 10

[alexbickle]

I would rate it a bit higher, but then I remember they gave Ray of Light the same score, do it's fine I guess. 

 

Also, VERY IMPORTANT! e-mail metacritic telling them to add the new review. Pitchfork reviewed avril lavigne's debut a few months back but metacritic didn't add it because they didn't know about it. 

[Imnotcrazy]

My god, 8.1? 9.0 at least.

[YellowPaperSun]

1 hour ago, Crayboy said:

If I had to quickly critique Blackout, it would be that the lyrics are just not that real. I think there was an opportunity to go the route of Piece of Me, and have lyrics with real meaning behind them, which they didn't go for.

 

That, and why should I be sad is the worst song on the album, and could've been replaced by some of the demos.

 

For me it's an 8.5 though.

The essence of Blackout is literally it's escapist lyrics and hedonistic sense of self, Piece Of Me wouldn't be the standout track it is if all the songs were as bl**t and straightforward.

Blackout reflected Britney's life philosophy at the time: Giving herself to the nightlife and all it's forbidden pleasures as a way to cope with her life falling apart, and honesty, that's what makes it such a spectacular album, because no one else but Britney could've done such thing.

[Lucky☆]

This album is a 9.5 for me 

[Red Wine Supernova]

3 hours ago, Britney671 said:

Yeah a lot of reviewers don't give pop music the credit it deserves just because it's supposed to be fun. They'll give rappers critic acclaimed status for ripping other men to shreds but when women do it, theyre sassy and mean, not to be taken seriously. 

In Britneys regard, this album changed an entire music environment. It shaped fashion, music videos, trends, decades later; they dared give it an 8.1? However, any rap music and sad boy music gets a 10?, lol.give me a break. If this album got released by Kendrick Lamar it would be a 10.

 

This is a masterpiece, and I'm glad these reviewers aren't taken serious anymore. 

No shade to rap but most rap songs nowadays have no substance at all. I’m so sick of hearing people flaunting their wealth, threatening with violence or bragging about how wet their cooter is. In retrospect, an aspirational rapper who literally raps about fart and poop got a 7.6 from Pitchfork. That’s only half a score lower than the pop perfection that blackout is. Pitchfork is losing its credibility. I can’t take them seriously anymore. At least blackout is part of the rock and roll hall of fame. That’s something they can never take away from the legendary miss Britney Spears. Blackout is the Blueprint of Pop even to this day. 

[Red Wine Supernova]

3 hours ago, CenterofAttention said:

Yeahhh… I’m gonna need to see at least a 9.0 here.

Like, what albums would be a 9, then? Or a perfect 10?! 

In my opinion, Blackout is a solid 9.5. A 10 would be something like Thriller by Michael Jackson if we’re talking about pop music only. 

[Red Wine Supernova]

3 hours ago, willys said:

That is a high note tbh

Mind you Ice Spice got 7.6. Only half a score lower than Blackout. 

[Yasux34]

I actually agree Blackout is not a 9 or 10 8.5 for me

[Dark Willow]

Solid score, not bad.

I think all Britney albums wouldn’t do so well with critics these days for one simple fact: she doesn’t have writing credits for most of the songs.

If Blackout had way more than two songs co-written by Britney, I think people would give more credit and praise for her.

Still, Blackout is great.

Edited August 4 by Dark Willow

[Lemon]

I'm glad they officially reviewed it, the text is really good too.

This original "column" (in itself a review) is still the best Blackout review in my eyes.

Britney in the Black Lodge (Damn Fine Album) | Pitchfork

PITCHFORK.COM

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Sour secrets of the suburban everygirl, virginal beauty off the rails-- it's a well-worn cliché that informs art from "Twin Peaks" to Britney Spears, and, oddly, in both of those cases, it helped...

 

[SwiftSpears92]

While  for me it’s 10 out of 10. I think an 8 is pretty big for pitchfork. Aren’t they kinda hard pressed to give anyone over a 6? So this is great coming from them 

[Style.]

2 hours ago, Dark Willow said:

Solid score, not bad.

I think all Britney albums wouldn’t do so well with critics these days for one simple fact: she doesn’t have writing credits for most of the songs.

If Blackout had way more than two songs co-written by Britney, I think people would give more credit and praise for her.

Still, Blackout is great.

Beyoncé has 107 writers on "Renaissample," yet everyone hails it as a groundbreaking masterpiece, both critics and fans alike (lmao). So, the "she doesn't write" argument really doesn't hold up here.

Fun fact: Gimme More alone is out streaming the whole Renaissance album alone, and that’s what she deserves tbh!