This edition of Pants Optional is going to be a little different. Since I'm feeling rather uninhibited at the moment, this week's column is a rejected music review that I wrote the morning after a raging social event while severely under-slept, and I think it just may be some of the best work I've ever done. So enjoy the 'fail-column' that was my review of Britney Spears' "Circus" (2008):
The album kicks off with the first single, "Womanizer," which, as most who have heard on it the radio know, consists of little more than Spears repeatedly saying the word "womanizer." Why Ms. Spears' pants-on-head-stupid producers felt the need to make a one-word chorus baffles most, and there's a very good chance that the stuttered pronunciation of the word that fills the mundane choruses was simply Spears' first take at saying the word out loud. Words are hard sometimes.
In terms of song structure, "Womanizer" sounds like it was composed by a herd of syphilitic elk. More to the point, as the track progresses, a first-time listener will think that it will eventually evolve into something more than talking and programmed hand-claps, but, just to spite the audience, it never does. Especially for a single, the song has no real hook, no real melody and no real singing, a problem that could easily be solved by Spears becoming a nun and never opening her mouth again for any purpose.
The second track, which also happens to be the second single as well as the title track, "Circus," is just as mundane as "Womanizer," but it is exasperating enough to make the listener drink a pint of Drano for very different reasons. While "Womanizer" is, for lack of better terms, the worst thing since McGriddles, "Circus" can at least claim to have a melodic chorus, but the words contained in that chorus (and verse) are so pitiful and vain that it's impossible to listen to the track without punching someone. Scratch that; it's impossible to listen to the track at all. Ever.
In the second verse, Spears croons, "There's only two types of guys out there/ Ones that can hang with me, and ones that are scared/ So baby, I hope that you came prepared/ I run a tight ship, so beware." The majority of male listeners fall into the latter category, and with good reason: This album may push them to off themselves in ways so creative they're far too amusing to put into words. Like wearing a squid for a hat. A really ugly squid hat. And wearing it so much, you die. Other gems include, "I'm like a performer/ The dance floor is my stage." Note that dancers and performers are different in this scenario. At this point, I want to die.
The album reaches its pinnacle of suck with the cut, "If U Seek Amy." Now, for the astute listener, the pun in the title readily becomes apparently when interpreted in the context of the lyrics, which read: "Love me hate me, Say what you want about me/ But all of the boys and all of the girls are beggin' to if-you-seek-Amy." "If U Seek Amy," pronounced phonetically, is supposed to sound like "Eff You See Kay Me." Go on, say it out loud. Besides the fact that the lyrics make no grammatical sense, it's silly to think anyone in the club is looking to "if-you-seek-A" Spears without the protection of a Hazmat suit.
The beat and musicality of "If U Seek Amy" barely register with the listener after he or she realizes what the lyrics are trying to do, but, on a second listen, it becomes blisteringly obvious that the marching, programmed beat never changes throughout the course of the song.
I can only imagine a dance floor full of people marching on place with incredibly serious looks in their faces. This is serious music. It's incredibly hard to make a song as simply and as poorly as Spears and her producers have managed with "If U Seek Amy;" it's almost as though they just played back all the pre-sets on a 1980s Casio keyboard and played Mad Libs with Jar Jar Binks in order to get the lyrics.
Long story short, don't buy this album. Don't touch this album. Don't be friends with anyone who owns this album. If you're currently friends with someone who is considering buying this album, lock them in your basement and brainwash them until they exist solely to destroy all that Britney Spears stands for.
If you ever encounter a copy of "Circus" in the wild, immediately drop to the floor and play dead, as its less-evolved vision is based on movement, and with any luck it will simply leave you be and continue in search of another soul to feed upon.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call a damn good review. It was piquant, yet esoteric. While its overarching motif is post-lapsarian, the subtle references to Kant can't be ignored.
If you went into reading this column expecting anything that made sense, I hope you've been very displeased with what I've presented. Now go out there and make the world a crazier place.
But seriously, don't buy "Circus." It makes you die on the inside.Sis euisl dionullaore magnibh eum ing ea
Grant Beighley is a senior majoring in English. He can be reached at Grant.Beighley@tufts.edu.
