Don't Hold It Against Us

So, a mere four days ago, we promised that Britney Spears' new single Hold It Against Me would be premiering in a matter of days. True to form, the track leaked earlier today. Chances are by the time you read this, the "powers that be" at RCA will have pulled all trace of these radio rips from youtube but we've had a go at embedding a working video below. You're welcome.



A few things to note in the light of the concerns we raised in our "artwork" article.

There is, what we would describe as a below-average amount of heavy breathing on the track. This is partly compensated by Britney's pronunciation of the word "hazy" as "hayzay".

There is still the possibility that we may get a video which is more Toxic than Gimme More. The jury is still out as to whether we have a song which has a similar allignment.

Hold It Against Me manages at the same time to be a significant change of direction for Britney (returning to her dance-ish roots via some dubstep influences) whilst also maintaining a very definite Britney sound. The choruses are fairly anthemic stuff, particularly as they build towards the final chorus in which the beats and the production is allowed to let itself go completely for maximum "hands-in-the-air" effect.

Yet the brilliant climax of the song has to be counterbalanced by the rest of the track which unfortunately has too much "stop and start" to properly get going. Dropping out the beats on the first two choruses highlight the dramatic effect of the final chorus, but it also disrupts the momentum of the track in the early parts. Furthermore, the abstract dubstep middle eights (yes, middle eights in the plural) are, in a way, admirably "out there", but they aren't going to be everyone's taste.

With a few listens the track has undoubtedly grown on us. It's different enough from the direction of Circus to mark a new stage in Spears' career, and it's a great credit to Britney that despite the tried and tested production formula behind the song (yes, folks, we're looking at another Max "Baby One More Time" Martin and Dr. "Teenage Dream" Luke creation) she has definitely incorporated a new sound into her arsenal. At the same time, we were really hoping that we'd see the return of a Britney Spears song which gives you a licence to dance and sing along like a lunatic for the full 3:41 seconds. Instead, it feels like what we get is one amazing chorus, and about 40 seconds of classic Britney-induced euphoria, before the track gets pulled out from under our feet.

Art[work] attack

Exhibit A

Here we have the proposed cover art for Born This Way, aka the upcoming Lady Gaga Album, due to be released on May 23rd 2011 with the single of the same name due to be released on February 13th 20100:

As a bit of a side note we ought to mention that at the Monster's Ball concert last month, we heard Gaga perform You and I which is a track from the album. It managed to be both amazing and not unlike what would happen if Bon Jovi discovered their country side. We were going to write about it but then we fell ill and the moment sort of passed. It's quality and commitment like that which we like to think you've come to expect of The Pop Web over the years.

Exhibit B

This is the cover art just tweeted by Britney Spears for her new single Hold It Against Me. It's due to receive it's premiere in the US any time over the next couple of days.

A demo of Hold It Against Me leaked earlier today. If you want to hear what the song sounds like when it's not sung by Britney (with thanks to MuuMuse), then you can find it here.

Obviously we await with baited breath the actual version, but what we will say is that this better have about 50% more heavy breathing throughout and probably warrants a video which is considerably more Toxic than Gimme More.

If these caveats are borne in mind, it's safe to say that you can go ahead and cancel any plans you might have had to listen to any other pop music until around mid-March.

"Heeee-re in my heart..."

Observant readers of The Pop Web will have noted our sister project "Every 1" which reviews and contextualises every UK number 1. In honour of this quest, we thought we would try and take on a connecting challenge which spans a huge swathe of the history of the UK number 1. The first UK number 1 was achieved by Al Martino with "Here In My Heart" in November 1953. 50 years later, this song was the UK number 1:



Christina Aguilera - Dirrty

Yes, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the UK number 1 was a song with a video featuring bare-knuckle boxing and all manner of hedonistic activity (interestingly, the video for Dirrty was only banned in Thailand after it was revealed that at one point in the video Christina was standing in front of a wall which contained grafiti advertising child prostitutes). Apart from the accidents of history which placed them at these milestones of the UK chart, what else connects these two?

Well... Al Martino, in addition to his singing career, also had a part in the Godfather as the singer Johnny Fontaine.

"Starring" alongside Al was none other than Diane Keaton. But before we hear the hundreds of voices of complaint, bear with us, we haven't turned into a "connect the movie star" blog, the good folks at imdb have already sorted that out for us. Diane Keaton, in addition to being an actress has also tried her hand at directing and crucially, made a brief foray into the world of the music video and directed this 80s classic:



As we've discussed elsewhere, we wouldn't want you to go away thinking that "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" is the unchallenged pinacle of Belinda Carlisle's career but, needs must, and this is the link that the chart web has provided. Belinda Carlisle's career was driven in part by the songwriting genius that is Rick Nowles who, in his time has wrote several absolute smashes (e.g. this, this and this). If that amazing collection of writing credits wasn't enough, he also co-wrote one of the strongest ballads for the Queen of Pop:



Power Of Goodbye by Madonna takes us on to our home stretch. In 2002, the stars (and their schedules) aligned and Madonna teamed up with Britney Spears on Me Against The Music



It's a shame really, you'd think with two of pop's most entertaining and compelling women on a record they'd be able to come up with something a little less... well... a little less "third single off the album", wouldn't you? Sadly, in the world of pop 1 + 1 doesn't always equal 2 so there you go. Anyway, you can probably see where we're going now, can't you? Yes. Well, if not, this picture should give it away...

Britney's career set off in the Mickey Mouse Club in 1993, as Christina Aguilera reached the end of her tenure (Justin Timberlake was also knocking around but forget about that for now). Christina and Britney's career have operated in remarkable parallel with one another in one sense (i.e. the "sense" of most tabloid media), and with completely no correlation in another (i.e. in an actual comparison of the two's chart career). The comparison between Britney and Christina may have been a little fair at the start of their career but as time has gone on, the two have actually traversed fairly discrete routes. In any event, that's an article for another day. The journey is complete. Number 1 at the start of year 1, and Number 1 at the start of year 50, united by The Pop Web.

Al Martino - Diane Keaton - Belinda Carlisle - Rick Knowles - Madonna - Britney Spears - Christina Aguilera

Oh, but before we forget, can we just emphasise that whatever else Christina has relased throughout her career, in our view she's never been much better than she was on this.