BRITNEY SPEARS
Fràn Healy of the band Travis told Spin that if Radiohead singer Thom Yorke had written the phrase I must confess/my loneliness/is killing me, critics would declare it brilliant. Instead, the Max Martin-penned lyric slithered from the mouth of Britney Spears during “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” which, although extremely catchy, never caught on as a guilty pleasure with adults as the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” eventually did. Spears’ goofily titled follow-up, on the other hand, contains no lines that even Yorke could salvage. However, the album does contain immeasurable camp value for a postpuberty audience, thanks to its ludicrous “Omigod”-heavy conversation excerpts that introduce the subject matter of the following song in clumsy, heavy-handed fashion.
The title track, which opens the album, fuses the sultry appeal of “Hit Me” with the punchy hooks of “Crazy” to create an appealing, albeit derivative, hybrid. Like “Crazy,” “Oops” ends effectively with the music dropping out during a reprise of the chorus, although Spears’ production team goes on to beat this tactic into the ground by employing it on nearly every subsequent song. Martin, who makes a spoken-word appearance during a silly Titanic-themed interlude, injects “Stronger” and “Don’t Go Knockin’ On My Door” with stop-and-start R & B flavor, while Shania Twain and her husband/producer Mutt Lange contribute the drippy “Don’t Let Me Be The Last to Know,” which at least allows Spears to showcase her improving vocals. “Where Are You Now” and “When Your Eyes Say It” are passable ballads, with Spears breathily whispering her way through the latter tune.
The low point of Oops occurs when Spears, after (in one of the aforementioned inane dialogues) a friend tells her that she’s never satisfied, launches into an ill-advised cover of the Rolling Stones’ classic diatribe on the subject. Surprisingly, it starts promisingly enough, with Spears cooing “la-las” in place of the familiar guitar intro and poutily describing her plight against a low-key backdrop, but when the weak dance beat kicks in, listeners will find it quite easy to relate to the theme of dissatisfaction, even as Spears amusingly substitutes “how tight my skirt should be” for the original’s “how white my shirt should be.” “Dear Diary,” Spears’ first venture into the world of songwriting, bodes well for her future. Its lyrics are lightweight at best (Dear diary/today I met a boy), but this sweet album-closing tune seems to offer a glimpse at the real Spears, whereas many of her other efforts attempt to make up for in polish what they lack in personality. Without massive career restructing (see Madonna), fame usually proves fleeting for dance-pop icons, and by attempting to get involved in the songwriting process, Spears is preparing herself for the years ahead, when her former audience will have no desire to hear her perform “Hit Me” one more time or do “Oops” again.
