"It's Britney, b*tch!"

Roger Freidman on the new Britney;

Britney Spears Uses F-Word on New Track

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

By Roger Friedman

Britney Spears wants publicity so badly, we will give to it to her.

On two new tracks that have been leaked on the Internet, Spears uses the F-word on one and the B-word on another.

The song that will cause the most uproar for the former teen role model is "Cold as Fire," a fairly standard pop dance tune produced by hip-hop artist T-Pain.

In it, Spears cautions the listener not to "f---" with her. OK, we won't, but radio programmers will have to if they want to comply with the FCC.

On another track, called "Gimme More," Spears announces, "It's Britney, b-tch." The former Mouseketeer is tough, you see.

What's clear is that Spears is looking for still more attention as she swings from custody battles to public bouts of drinking, breakdowns and other miscellaneous craziness.

The irony is that both tracks are pretty good, catchy and destined to be pop hits. "Gimme More" is said to be produced by Nate "Danja" Hills, a protégé of Timbaland, the man who's made Justin Timberlake a sensation. Indeed, Hills is said to be the architect of Timberlake's "SexyBack" and other recent hits.

How the rest of Britney's new album will sound is still a mystery. Hills, according to Remix magazine, uses a laptop, an Edirol MIDI controller, an Akai MPC4000, an Alesis Andromeda A6 synthesizer, a Korg Triton and a Yamaha Motif. Musical instruments are so yesterday.

The album is set for release Nov. 13. But one thing's for sure: Spears — now said to be guided by The Firm's Jeff Kwatinetz — is at least trying to do something interesting with her fifth album. No, she's not a great artist. But then again, she can't be so out of it to have participated in these two recordings.

Wouldn't it be funny if most of her shenanigans were simply staged to stoke the fires of a comeback? Stranger things have happened.

Spears, by the way, is not the only artist to use Internet "leaks" to kindle interest in new recordings. Alicia Keys' new song, "No One," can be found on zSHARE, while Bruce Springsteen's "Radio Nowhere" is also floating around — officially on iTunes and unofficially elsewhere. Each of them is a solid pop effort and seem to use actual instruments. How old-fashioned of them.

I think whether or not Roger Freidman thinks these tracks are "pretty good" it isn't going to matter. Media Access has it on 48 stations right now and it debuted on their airplay chart at #45 on the Top 40/Mainstream chart. Not very impressive but its still early...