Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Hold it Against Me

In her newest song, Britney Spears uses the double entrende "hold it against me" to both ask her lover to hold his body against hers and for him to not hold it against her if she wants it.  But there's a third meaning to the title, one that tells critics not to hold it against her if she gets another #1 song (in the vein of "Oops I Did it Again," as in "oops I got another hit again").
According to reports, the song was the most played song in one day.  Not just the day it premiered, but in history.  Reports say the song was spun over 700 times.  The previous record stood at 400+ by Mariah Carey.  That's amazing.
It's also number one on iTunes in America and many other countries (the song just came out at midnight EST on Tuesday and right now it's less than 12 hours since then).  That means in half a day the song hit number one.  Not just half a day, but the half when most people are sleeping.  That means they either a) stayed up to download the song or b) woke up early to download the song.  Regardless of how they did it, it's unprecedented that it was done at all.
Getting a number one single on iTunes in and of itself is not a difficult task, but doing it so quickly and during the night shows the devotion of her fan base and the interest from the general public.
Prior to the song's release, the feeling among her hardcore fans was that Britney, Jive, her management and the producers weren't doing enough to promote the new material.  No release date was given until the last moment (the album still has no release date; in fact, it has no title, either).  The consensus was that without promotion the song would fail, the era would fail and Britney would become a flop (that is to say a failure).
To say these fans were wrong is an understatement.
While "Hold it Against Me" is a surefire hit, is it any good?  According to practically everyone who's listened to it, yes.  What's almost as amazing as the song's ascension up the iTunes charts is how quickly critics from Rolling Stone to the New York Post had a review ready to go mere minutes after the song debuted on radio.  It was as if they were all just waiting.
It's not just that reviews went up quickly, because bad reviews can go up quickly, too.  It's how positive those reviews have been.  And unlike some of her past hits, all the credit has not been given to producers Dr. Luke and Max Martin.  Surprisingly, critics have given Britney a lot of the credit.  They specifically point to the way she enunciates words (in this case hazy, or as Britney would say, hayzay).  She seems to, at times, create words (and not in the Sarah Palin sense, i.e. refudiate).  Perhaps it's safer to say she over emphasizes them (hayzay, crayzay, baybay), giving them more importance, more urgency.
When Britney tells you she's feeling crayzay, you know she means it.
Of course, many thumbs up have been given to producers Luke and Martin for the "crayzay" beat.  She's even allowed a dance break (or perhaps she demanded it), something her fans have been demanding.  Specifically, they said, "We want danceney" (that meaning "we want to see her dance more."  Britney fans have taken to adding -ney to the end of words i.e. Godney, hairney, assney, liveney, etc.).
Overall, the song smacks you in the face, slaps you on the ass, then steals your significant other, takes it home, fucks it, and never calls again.  In simpler terms, if Katy Perry strapped on a plastic dick, screwed Rihanna from behind with it while Lady Gaga took notes and Ke$ha ran the camera, you'd have "Hold it Against Me."
So, really, it's just your average, run-of-the-mill pop song.

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