It's Britney bitch! announces Britney Spears straight out the gate (Track 1,  0:00 - 0:02) on her brand new album, "Blackout"  on Jive/Zomba (available at each Amoeba Music store) which, in reaction to fear of internet leaking of songs, was released on October 30th - a couple of weeks early of its initial street date.  The big surprise is that the album is actually pretty darn good - a tight dance-pop collection on which the heavily processed voice of Brit often lashes out at the mean media - like in the vocoder-fed song "Piece of Me" - as heard in the above "non-official" video version that displays the Tabloid Britney that we are all too familiar with - like it or not.    But putting aside all the tabloid self-references and all the other superficial stuff,  what really strikes me most about this new Britney Spears album is its production, the music itself and just how expertly its producers (Danja and others such as Timbaland and Pharrell Williams) effortlessly channel pop's golden past.  Take for example "Heaven on Earth" (scroll  all the way down for still YouTube clip to hear audio) is a straight homage (rip-off?) to Donna Summers' 1977 Giorgio Moroder produced dance masterpiece "I Feel Love." 

Meanwhile the first 30 seconds of Blackout's track #10 "Ooh Ooh Baby"  (streamed below on YouTube still)  borrows its drum rhythm from Gary Giltter & the Glitter Band's "Rock and Roll (Part II)" - the 1972 hit and sports anthem while Britney's lyrical delivery in the track echoes the melody straight from the Turtlles'  1967 classic "Happy Together."   In fact I recommend for a bit of fun that you play around with hitting the start buttons on the two videos below - Britney's Ooh Ooh Baby with the Turtles (on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour) doing "Happy Together"  and try and make your own impromptu video mash-up. I suggest starting the Britney song about five seconds before the  hitting "Play" on the Turtles. And if you go off beat or get bored with one of the two songs, hit the pause button one video - especially since you cannot control volumes on YouTube when embedded like they are here.
And if you hear any other obvious past pop influences heard on this album - please add in COMMENTS - thanks!

Have you noticed how many cool in-stores Amoeba has been having lately? Well add tonight (Friday Sept.ember 14th)  to that list when the wonderful Kinski play for free at 6PM at Amoeba Music San Francisco in support of their recently released SubPop album "Down Below It's Chaos."  For more information on tonight's show and the new album (which was recorded in their hometown of Seattle, WA) click here. And if you miss the free show you can always catch them later tonight at San Francisco club Bottom of the Hill with Unnatural Helpers opening for them. This show will probably sell out so get to the club early and/or better still, try and make it to the Haight Street Amoeba at 6PM.


Unfortunately the scheduled White Stripes NorCal show at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on Sept 21st has been canceled, along with several other Stripes' tour dates including San Diego and Inglewood, because drummer Meg White is reportedly suffering from acute anxiety and consequently unable to travel.  "We hate to let people down and are very sorry,"  Meg is quoted in a statement on the White Stripes website. Ticket holders should return tix to place of purchase........In other artist-burnout news after last  Sunday's VMA MTV show it seems that Britney Spears has generated the most ink. And perhaps the most compelling editorializing of all on the topic of Britney's career status comes from blogpshere-YouTube star Chris Crocker whose posting from a few days ago (below) has received a stunning five million plus viewings to date!  Plus it has generated a ton of responses and spoofs on YouTube. Now if  Ms Spears label Jive Records could sell even close to five million copies of Britney's next album (as they have with past Britney hits) all concerned parties would be happy.  Maybe they should sign Chris Crocker.

Many years ago when I was interviewing Too $hort he told me how an important part of his recording            process involved testing every track, as the new album recording session progressed, by taping it onto cassette and then bumping the tape at full volume in his ride. "Cos this is how most fans will listen to it...in their cars," he explained at the time.  Traditionally many studio engineers would do a similar playback-test by listening back to tracks on a small tinny speaker (akin to an AM radio) with the assumption that this would be how many folks would listen back to the songs being recorded. But these days recording engineers/producers/mixers are gearing their music for iPods (or MP3s vs CDs) and as such are radically changing how the music sounds. On Wednesday the Wall Street Journal (of all places) ran a wonderful piece on this new trend (the compression of music files onto MP3 format) that most audiophiles find most disturbing. The article is well worth reading and can be found online here.