19
Piece of Me
Britney Spears
Blackout (2007)
“I’m Miss American Dream since I was 17.” The first five years of Britney Spears’s career were a rapid-fire blur of constant “product” — she had 4 albums plus a greatest hits collection and a movie, all by the ripe old age of 22. Then that whole “55 hour marriage-two babies-Federline-shaved head-cooch shot-umbrella car bashing-handcuffed to a gurney-trips to rehab” period of her life happened. Yeah. So it’s no surprise when she released her next album 3 years later, she called it “Blackout” — I wouldn’t be shocked if she was in one that whole time period. What was a surprise was that it was, by a mile, her best album yet. Filled with funky electro, thumping beats, and warped voices galore, it set her up on a return to glory. The strongest song was the second single, “Piece of Me,” the best anti-paparazzi rejoinder since Madonna’s “Human Nature” a dozen years earlier. Sexual moans became part of the rhythm track, and her voice was deliciously manipulated on the chorus – “do you want a piece of me?” Ridiculously catchy, the song simultaneously summed up her career and became one of her finest musical moments.
Also check out: “Get Naked (I Got a Plan)” from the same album — one of several other shoulda-been singles.