For a while there, both fans and casual Britney Spears listeners alike were growing wary of the Southern pop/former trash princess’ output. With the scourge that was “Pretty Girls” last summer, it seemed as though it might have been time to give up just a little bit more on the potential of Spears signaling trends in the pop music scene the way she once did with the likes of the Max Martin-produced …Baby One More Time album and even the Neptunes-produced beats of “I’m A Slave 4 U” from Britney.
But the confidence displayed during the medley of hits she performed for the Billboard Music Awards back in May indicated a shift back to epic pop brilliance on Spears’ part. Hence, her release of the first single, “Make Me,” from her forthcoming ninth album is in keeping with the renewed commitment the honorary Vegas showgirl has to sustaining her revered place in the annals of pop music history.
Like many artists who have been in the game for as long Spears, she has chosen to enlist the help of someone younger and newer to the music industry, G-Eazy, fresh off the success of “Me, Myself & I.” His vocal sensibilities serve to anchor the slow groove of Spears’ distinctive lyrics (distinctive in that “Just want you to raise my roof/something sensational” is something only Spears would carry off), while also imbuing her style with an altogether vibrant appeal.
Although Spears continues to sing about a subject she’s addressed throughout most of her career–lusting after the perfect tall dark stranger to turn her world upside down–the delivery is executed with a new level of maturity and yearning never before present in Spears’ canon.
Expressing, “Friday, I’m dreaming a mile a minute about somebody/This feeling I wanna go with it ’cause there’s no way…/I just want you to make me move/Like it ain’t a choice for you/Like you got a job to do,” Spears maintains the exuberant tone of her more youthful tracks, while lending to it an added level of nuance. And then, of course, there is G-Eazy offering, “See I could tell that you’re a dangerous woman/That means you’re speaking my language, come on/Now follow me, let’s go/Like Penelope in Blow.” And indeed, in this instance, it is as though he is describing the Spears of the moment with pinpoint accuracy. And inevitably, Ted Demme owes both parties a favor as Blow is going to have a renaissance as a direct result of “Make Me.”
