While doing my homework for an article I’m writing about the changes in Britney’s singing technique down the years, I quickly realised that I couldn't rely on my memory - I would have to go back and revisit her early albums, and her ballads in particular, because it's in ballads that she has space to show her technique. And going back to those songs is something I usually try to avoid. Shocking, yes? But, to be honest, listening to Britney’s early music makes me tearful.
Then, in the middle of doing this, I happened to catch a TV documentary called “Queens of Heartache”, which described the tormented lives of a number of great female stars - Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, Maria Callas, Janis Joplin... all of them destroyed by men, by drink, by drugs or whatever. All of them died prematurely. And it started me to wondering if Britney was somewhere on this same sad trajectory.
It’s not so very long since fans and media commentators alike were saying that they woke up each morning wondering if Britney was still alive. I think a lot of us had that horrible feeling of impending doom that we also had in the weeks before Princess Diana died. We knew it was going to happen. The sense that everything was spiralling out of control was almost tangible. Almost miraculously, Britney survived. But ever since, there has been that aura around her of fragility, uncertainty, infinite vulnerability. As fans we watch her every move closely and anxiously, hoping for signs of strength and independence of action, while fearing that she’s only being kept going by artificial means. I guess the recent fan neurosis over her dancing is a sign of worrying, fretting, loving and caring too much, and letting it all out in anger and frustration.
Princess Diana’s tragedy was not just a personal one. It was an iconic death - a classic grim reality check on a classic fairy tale. The wave of national mourning was not just for Diana but for the death of a dream. It was a universal tragedy that poured blackness, bleakness, despair and pessimism into millions of hearts. Britney’s early career as a star was a classic fairy tale too - the American Dream, some say. And it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that some of the blackness has already arrived.
So is this why I suffer such sadness when I listen to Britney’s early ballads? Is it because I know what happened next? The break-up with Justin Timberlake that she seems never to have gotten over? Her failed marriages to Jason Alexander and Kevin Federline? The desperately damaging custody battle that she lost? The destruction of her good name and reputation? Accusations of substance abuse? Unspecified mental illnesses? A permanent conservatorship?
Obviously, it’s hard to listen to her early music without being affected by the knowledge that all of this was just around the corner. Is it the sound of optimism about to be crushed? The snuffing out of this young girl’s happiness could not have been more starkly dramatized than by the fact that magazines with covers showing Britney’s smiling face and headlines about her marriage plans with Justin T. were still on the stands for weeks after the break-up had been announced.
But there’s more to it than that. Maybe it’s because the repertoire chosen for her was so different in her earlier years, but her voice back then, as it plays in my head, is haunting, poignant, touching, affecting. And, unlike her present-day musical persona of empowered sexual predator, her early ballads told a tale of the endless search for a boy to love and to love her that seems much closer to her real life.
Such songs portray her emotional vulnerability so perfectly because there is no irony, no knowing sonic winks to the audience, and certainly not the sense you find in most professional singers of running through a bunch of lyrics like they’re a shopping list. Britney’s voice back then sounded almost unbearably young, inexperienced, naive and innocent. At times it was as if, through her music, she was living the childhood she’d never had. It sounded totally heartfelt and genuine.
She had plenty of technique (which I will talk about in another article) but it was unobtrusive and steered away from the habits and mannerisms that place a barrier between singer and listener. With many singers, you admire and you’re impressed, and you may be spellbound by their power, confidence and technical excellence. Britney was the exact opposite. Above all, you felt close to her, intimate with her. You identified with her troubles and her heartaches. You could not observe with detachment. She sounded as if she was confiding in YOU, as if YOU were her BFF.
No wonder so many of her audience began to feel such emotional attachment to her, an attachment that mystifies non-fans but for fans is something that never goes away. A few years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for fans to say that, if Britney died, they would kill themselves too. I remember sitting in my car, praying for her, praying that she’d be OK and that things would go well for her. Those old songs take me back to that place. It was still happening as late as the “In The Zone” album. The innocence hadn't died. That was before the true horror began. I was listening to “Don’t Hang Up” (for goodness sake!) but when Britney whispered “Do you feel it too?” I broke down in tears.
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