Britney Spears - Glory Review
Oh yeah, the “Hit me baby one more time” and “With the taste of your lips I’m on a ride” Britney “It’s Britney Bitch” Spears is back at it again with her new album “Glory”. And boy let me tell you that this was something else to sit down and listen to. I remember a little bit about Britney during my childhood when she was known for her hits “Toxic” and “Hit Me Baby One More Time” so I was hoping I would have a nice listen to “Glory” and maybe enjoy something that could be fun. Instead, I listened to an album that was just uneventful and full of bad let downs feeling underwhelming at the chorus, weird vocal rhythms for the lyrics, no real album coherence, and Britney’s not so good singing. (I mean is the last one a surprise or is that a general consensus thing about Spears?) So, let’s start hammering away as to what makes this album work and what doesn’t work.
Straight out the gate, “Glory” starts with the song “Invitation” and this song already suffers from two big things, being a member of the Wideness Wars and barely having a chorus. Little did I know this song would be the start of me having to sift through song after song of let downs and underwhelming choruses. (Seriously, its like when you masturbate and you hit the big-O but you rushed it so fast cause you heard your parents coming to your room, so you started spanking the monkey even faster to finish up, but were left with just an unsatisfactory mess.) Not to mention “Invitation” has a pretty generic beat utilizing the ever so popular high hat triplet pattern used in most rap songs now a days. (normally I’d let it go, but it’s seriously become an overused rhythm and sound, just stop it producers, just....stop it.) One last thing, “Invitation” sounds like a song that should be inviting or sexy, but Spears just sounds like she’s out of breath the entire time instead of trying to seduce the listener or a potential partner.
We then hit the song “Make Me....” (oh yeah, you’re favorite two letter phrase before you head straight into pound town....except not for this song) which again fails in the chorus department by building up to something fun, but instead feels like a half time feel beat that should’ve been used in the verse or something. “Make Me...” also features G-Eazy and he raps a decent verse which lyrically makes sense, but has no flow to it so it felt like a bit of a let down to hear it. (Granted I’ve never heard G-Eazy’s material, so maybe he’s a decent rapper in other songs he’s done, I don’t know.) “Private Show” feels like a song where Spears wanted to show off her, um....vocal...”talent”........but instead she sounds extremely whiny and everything about this song felt like a let down. I think the salt in the wound for “Private Show” was that this was the single Spears released before releasing the album. (Fucking christ)
“Man On the Moon” is the FOURTH track on the album and this is the first song I heard where I felt the chorus was actually something worth mentioning. This is probably one of the better songs on the entire album and takes THREE tracks to get to it. (Man, give Spears the nickname Rihanna cause she sure made me workworkworkworkwork for a decent song to listen to.) “Man On the Moon” features a catchy chorus fans can easily sing along to, a build up to that catchy chorus that feels satisfactory, and a genuinely catchy beat that gives the song a nice ballad type of feel. Of course, then we hit “Just Luv Me” which just like many songs before it has a boring chorus and really nothing to brag about so I’ll spare you the details. (I won’t talk about the whole spelling error on this song just cause it doesn’t seem worth my time and I understand the culture of Pop music that this seems like a trope of the genre, so I’ll let it go.) Then, to finish up the first half we have the song “Clumsy” which albeit has an interesting beat in the verse that gives it a nice “group chant” kind of a vibe that I really enjoyed, but (can you guess it?) doesn’t have a memorable or catchy chorus to accompany it.
So, the first half was just not good, but the second half of “Glory” gave me a little bit more to work with and had a few more songs that were actually enjoyable to listen to.
“Do You Wanna Come Over” has a really upbeat chorus and gives off this really sexy vibe (that could’ve been used more in “Invitation” but whatever), but really only suffers from the strange chord progression that gives this song a strange “stalker-ish” kind of vibe instead of the “Sexy invite” kind of vibe. The next song we hear is then “Slumber Party” which keeps up the pace of songs which catchy choruses. (Whoo two in a row thats a new record) “Slumber Party” is a nice cheeky song that has some Reggae influences in it and feels like a song I would actually enjoy listening, dancing, and singing along to.
The next two songs I feel need to be talked about as a pair. “Just Like Me” and “Love Me Down” suffer from the same problems as all the other songs with one BIG MAJOR PROBLEM THAT BUGS THE EVER LIVING SHIT OUT OF ME. In “Just Like Me” Spears talks about a spouse cheating on her and Spears walking in on it noticing that the girl her spouse is using to cheat looks just like her. (Did you get it? that’s why the song is called “Just Like Me”, you clever little girl you) Alright, well no big deal I can respect a song about a topic like cheating and how it sucks being on the receiving end of that I understand, but then the album follows it up with the song “Love Me Down”. In case you were wondering “Love Me Down” is about Spears wanting her spouse (potentially the same person who we heard just cheated on her) to “love her down”. DID NO ONE THINK ABOUT THIS ALBUM TRACK LIST ORDER OR DID SPEARS NEVER BOTHER WRITING A GOOD BREAK UP SONG TO BE PUT AFTER THE SONG WHERE SHE TALKS ABOUT BEING CHEATED ON.....FUCK ME....
The saving grace of this matter is that these two songs are followed by “Hard To Forget Ya” which is one of the few songs to actually feature a chorus that was fun and catchy. “Hard To Forget Ya” also had good use of lyric rhythms that weren’t awkward to listen to and felt very natural to the beat and not forced because Spears couldn’t write a better line. This entire album is then finished off with the song “What You Need”. Now this song starts off fun and exciting and I was genuinely excited to end this album on a positive note with a song that was fun and left it with a bang. Instead I eventually realize that the intro was actually the chorus and the most exciting the song really ever gets is during the verse and somewhat at the end of the song.
So “Glory” just suffers from having songs (with a few exceptions) that never go anywhere and always build and build but just feel like they hit the mud or have an unsatisfactory climax of some sort that constantly makes the listener feel let down. It also becomes painfully obvious that Britney just doesn’t have the singing caliber that a Pop star should have and should not consider herself to have a singing voice worth bragging about. Not to mention, her lyrics just have weird rhythmic timing and hardly ever feel natural or flow with the music.
Of course, I do like to find the silver lining in any album I listen to and there are a few in “Glory”. While there is no album coherence or decent flow for the tracks, the entire album does center around the same themes of love and sex, which is fine and as long as it’s being fully embraced by Spears works. There are a few songs off this album that are salvageable and I think are worth taking a listen to, but the rest are throw away tracks. While the choruses are let downs most of the time, I will say the verses for most of these songs are very catchy and each song brings a fairly different feel and beat to the table that keeps the album fresh and feeling like its dragging on in an endless loop.
Final thoughts; while I understand Britney Spears has a huge fanbase and everyone who is a fan still is excited to see her back on stage and doing her thing, “Glory” is simply an album not worth checking out. If you absolutely feel the need to hear this album then I suggest listening to the songs “Man On the Moon”, “Do You Wanna Come Over”, “Slumber Party”, and “Hard To Forget Ya”. Otherwise, stray away from this album and let’s hope Britney can bring it back in a future album she ends up making. Until then, let’s hope she can train her vocal chords to be more sustainable and make her singing voice much more enjoyable to listen to.
