Just Keep Dancing

It's looking more and more like Britney Spears is poised for an actual comeback. "Till the world ends," the second single from her upcoming album Femme Fatal, was released Friday (and leaked Thursday) and the 4 minute pop song is Britney at her best.

This may have something to do with the fact that Ke$ha wrote it (incorporating her signature playful crudeness), along with producers Dr. Luke and Max Martin, responsible for the beat that makes "Hold It Against Me" (an otherwise lackluster single with Britney's typical contrived lyrics whose appeal rely solely on a pun. See "If You Seek Amy").




There's nothing original about the content of "Till The World Ends." Dancing and promiscuity in clubs  are the main theme in half of today's pop music. In November's release "Who's That Chick?" (not to be confused with "What's My Name?"), Rihanna sings "I just wanna dance/ I don't really care." Then of course there's Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" and "Telephone." And Usher's lyrics in "DJ Got Us Falling In Love" are pretty close to Britney's when he sings "so dance, dance like it's the last, last night of your life, life"

Britney has always been superbly generic- her voice is nothing special even with autotune and her lyrics are bland and indistinctive as are her melodies which are lucky to be catchy (and other times they're just irritating like "Circus").

But it's not as though the singer is responsible for her product. In fact, Britney Spears is the prime example of industry exploitation. At this point in her life, she's released a smattering of albums of varying quality, been through a couple divorces, popped out a couple kids, had multiple widely publicized nervous breaks and at the end of this year she turns thirty. The poor woman really deserves a hit album.

iTunes calls Britney's songs "bachelorette-party anthems" and I don't think they're wrong. Let's hope this album continues to make for great dance music seeing as, for Britney, that's a triumph.

What I like about "Till The World Ends" is that it abandons any notion of sentimentality ("Lucky") and doesn't try to be clever, or overly sexed up ("3") nor does it try for female empowerment ("Womanizer"). Instead, this song is exactly what it appears to be: something to sing along to in a swirl of alcohol and the lights flashing across a dance floor.