“Piece of Me” became the second single and remains the rare Spears song that directly addresses the specifics of her public life. She is present and accounted for before her recognizable breathiness morphs seamlessly into a bass-toned, male sounding gurgle, then into a chorus of Britneys and back again during the repetitive chorus of the song. That’s one of the more practical reasons that the opening line of the first song, “Gimme More,” is brilliant: “It’s Britney, bitch.” Instantly quotable, yes, but also a mere disclaimer-yes, this is actually Britney Spears. Whether Spears could sing didn’t matter her producers played her like an instrument. Blackout offered crunchy beats that sounded like they were coming from a broken computer, classic dubstep wobbler effects, and Spears’ voice intentionally distorted in every way possible.
Pop radio had remained steeped in the pop-R&B influences that had also driven Spears’ music until then: The top songs of the year were Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable” and Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” both beautifully sung grooves. In 2012, it became her sole album to join the archives of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.Īt the time Blackout dropped, it sounded like it came from the future-a dystopian and warped future, but nevertheless interesting. Now, as Blackout turns 10, it stands as a masterpiece of her extraordinarily resilient career, a perfect piece of pop art of its time as well as a trend-setting record that brought EDM elements into the mainstream, where they still permeate today.
Who better to express this than those watching it happen, rather than the one experiencing it? She had become more concept than person, Spears Inc. And given that Spears herself had been decimated by her own media narrative, this seemed like the perfect artistic expression of Spears at the time. The resulting album gave us a refracted view of Spears’ life, a group art project about what other people thought being Britney Spears was like. The album astutely strips Britney’s persona down to two main priorities, often repeated throughout: shaking her ass and making sure the male she’s addressing “rise(s) to the occasion.”Īnd in “Piece of Me,” producers Bloodshy & Avant, with cowriter Klas Ahlund, took a chance by giving Spears a kiss-off track that broke the rule about mentioning her personal life (“I’m Miss American Dream, since I was 17"). “Radar,” “Get Naked (I Got a Plan),” and “Freakshow” depict Spears as having the voracious sexual appetite the public had been projecting onto her since she was a teenager.
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