As any fan of pop music knows, pop divas aren’t evergreen. They are for the here and the now, as fashionable as a Prada pump, as accessorable as a Gucci bag, as beautiful as the vintage scarf, chasing the pop popularity of our times. As with all things fashionable, the pop diva is only as popular as the trend she is chasing and like the stilletos on her heels, this popularity ages fast. When that happens, what’s a poor pop diva to do than to chase the next big trend, claiming it as her own, confidant it will secure her to the top once again?
The current pop trend happens to be of the Lady Gaga/Katy Perry variety ie. singing increasingly large amounts of obvious sexual innuedo into a sugar-coated, cotton-candy dance-pop song. It is this trend that Miss Britney Spears ie. “Queen of Pop” happily skirts with her latest single, Three, a single that is currently sitting pretty at number one on Billboard and according to USA Today, 10/19, it is the most downloaded single online.
This song wastes no pretense over its topic. I don’t have to explain what it’s about since the song cheerfully invites people to figure it out on their own: “One, two, three, baby, not just you and me. . .merrier the more, triple fun that way. . .twister on the floor. . .living in sin is the new thing. . .” Produced by Max Martin, the hitmaker behind Baby One More Time, Oops I did it again, and the recent If You Seek Amy, which this track serves as a more explicit sequel, the song is designed as a flirty, fizzy, club-jammer, that you can’t help but sing along, making you unable but to blush and giggle over the naughty entrendre you just said.
Compared to this song’s carefree concern over its topic, If You Seek Amy was a subtle kindergarden chant by comparison. If You Seek Amy’s guilty pleasure was how carefully it wrapped its meaning around like a swiss chocolate, its unapologetic approach to teasing you to guessing its meaning and then hiding an embarrassed wink once you caught on. Because Three is serving as a more accessible, naughty sequel to Amy, Three loses the campy fun Amy invited us to revel in. Instead, it’s a coldly calculated single designed to wrest the tiara off Gaga and Perry.
For the tiara Spears desperately craves to resnatch from her contemporaries, this song pulls off all the stops. The production is as slick and addicting as a Gaga-track and the lyrics are as coy and uncouth as Perry. And for good measure, it copies completely obscure, strange, and head-scratching pop culture hip-hopisms, reciting an oblique Peter, Paul, and Mary reference that is so left-field West, it would make Kanye West proud. But that unnecessary (and weird) reference serves as a reminder to how unnecessary the song is.
Spears is not the first pop diva to chase the latest runway pop models, all of Mariah Carey’s recent albums share a similar conceit. Just like Carey, Spears doesn’t realize how far behind she is on the trends. She’s singing with the desperation of a sorority leader squaring off against her rivals. Spears missed out on five years during her musical hiatus while Gaga, Perry, the Pussycats, etc. have caught on to similar success and now she and her music production team are playing catch up, hoping to prove that the Queen of Pop is still now, she’s still with it, she’s still the hottest thing to graze the pop scene.
Problem is, Spears, aside from If You Seek Amy, has never done a full-on risque double-entendre pop single. In the past, she preened, she courted, she teased, but she was always discreete. By being dolled up as a sex kitten, Spears’ awkwardness shows through. She doesn’t have the vocal or lyrical chops to strut and shock as Gaga and like Gaga, make it sound as ordinary as a simple conversation. But maybe that’s the intention behind the song, to let the obtuse shine through, to shock and awe.
It won’t matter because the track’s current success proves Team Britney right on their fashion model. They’ve reentered the pop glam scene, the pop culture bash, as if Spears never left. It won’t be long until malls, shoe advertisements, and Gossip Girl picks this song up.
To hear the song yourself, here’s the link below:
