Hi folks, so with too much time on my hands yet again, I decided to look back at the decade in which I grow up (the 00s) and particularly focus on the female singers of the decade. The criteria for this thread is I will review any single that reached the top ten that was sung completely solo by a female artists; no collaborations, no featured artists, just completely on their own,

 

So sit back, enjoy, reminisce and of course, feel free to contribute :)

29/01/2000

Britney Spears

Born To Make You Happy

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5a/Born_to_Make_You_Happy.png/220px-Born_to_Make_You_Happy.png

 

It seems fitting that our first entry here comes from miss Spears, easily the most omnipresent female artist at the dawn of the new Millennium and the best selling female artists' of the 2000's decade (seriously, what are we calling that decade? Have we decided yet? I feel like it shouldn't be this hard) though she's likely lost her title as biggest of the Millennium judging by her relatively poor chart performance in this decade so far. Now, I didn't really get into music properly and consciously until late 2003, and I am only four years old at this point, but if there's one musical act I do remember from late 1999/early 2000 it is Britney. I guess she must have been played on the radio a lot back then or something because I do have rather distinct and clear memories of this song and various other hits from her early career from the time, though obviously I don't remember how 4-year old James reacted to this track so will have to go with what 20-year old social justice minded James thinks of it and...well

 

Look, before I start bashing this, I just wanna quickly say that I adore Britney. Not just as an artist, but as a person, it's very easy (and somewhat justifiable) to just write her off as a vapid, personality-less pop star who really contributed very little in terms of the actual production of her music. She certainly contributed to the pop culture of the time but more for her celebrity than for any deep and meaningful messages that were hidden in her music. Which is probably a good thing, at least here, because 'Born To Make You Happy' is rather....disturbing when you think about it. Now, I don't want to get into a rant about how popular media directly influences and reinforces the patriarchal roles society has put on women but when stuff like this is about, that claim becomes remarkably hard to refute.

 

"I was born to make you happy" is a statement that takes away Britney's own humanity and purpose, she wasn't here to fulfil any of her own, she was born with the sole responsibility of making this boy happy. She, quite literally, does not know how to live without your love. Now, I know what you're thinking - "James, you're reading far too much into this, it's just a pop song can't you like just switch off your brain and enjoy it?" and my answer to that is a firm no. Why should I? I like my brain and I like using it and whilst I doubt Britney and her umpteen writers created this with the intention of it being deeply analyzed, it's still here and it exists and that makes it open for any kind of analysis in my eyes. And yeah, upon inspection, this promotes some pretty harsh and worrying ideals.

 

Now, that's not to say I dislike the track. For me, what makes a song bad is not necessarily how it sounds or how the lyrics are structured, what makes a song bad or fail for me is it inspires no feelings of anything for me be it love or anger. In other words, boring songs are the kinds of songs I hate. I wanna feel something from my music, and 'Born To Make You Happy' does succeed in that. It may elicit feelings of worry, anxiousness and an overwhelming desire to reach into the telly and tell young Britney she can find self worth without a man but they're feelings nonetheless. And it does sound good too. Like most of Britney's singles from the first 5/6 years of her career, it's immensely catchy and just an all around good pop song. Albeit with some...uneasy themes.

 

 

05/02/2000

Gabrielle

Rise

 

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41-T3lz6tgL.jpg

 

I have always seen quite a bit of acclaim for this record, and whilst I certainly appreciate for as a 19-year old than I did when I first heard when I was around 12/13, I still don't really understand what is quite so good about this. Admittedly, I don't really know much about Gabrielle - as far as I know, she sang 'Dreams' in the 90's which is an absolute cracker, did some other songs that my mum passively liked, did this and approximately one good song following it that we'll talk about more when we reach it but I've no connection to her as a singer.

 

'Rise' is one of those criminal dull records for me - I appreciate the themes of self love, recovery and independence enough but I've always felt ballads aren't really inspired genre choices for those type of songs. If I want to feel powerful, if I want to feel like I'm empowered and on my way back, I want to listen to a big stomping anthem and not a perfectly nice but remarkably twee little ballad. I have no personal use for 'Rise' is what I'm trying to say, but that doesn't and shouldn't discredit the entire thing by any means, I'm aware some probably have a lot of use for this and maybe there is something to be said for a more mellow angle of self reflection and love. Maybe in six or seven years time I'll understand this record even better than I do at 19 but until then I'll be sticking to 'The Eye of the Tiger' for my self-empowerment.

 

 

26/02/2000

Christina Aguilera

What A Girl Wants

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Christina_Aguilera_-_What_a_Girl_Wants_CD_cover.jpg

 

I have....issues with Christina Aguilera, and they're all rather unfairly to do with the fact that she's not Britney Spears. And that really in unfair of me, because any old idiot can see that Christina is about 90% better at her craft than Britney ever has been or will be and if all was fair in the world Christina would probably be the more successful and beloved star, she's got the voice of her generation but she isn't the voice of her generation if that makes sense (neither is Britney, at this point that title belongs to either Pink or Beyonce). Christina and Britney have been in competition from day one, even if they liked each other fine, commercially there has always been a rivalry between them and it's a battle Christina eventually lost, though it's not like she went out without a fight.

 

Image is very important when you're marketing yourself as a pop star, and Britney's image at the time was very good, she was sweet, naive, goofy and seemed like the kind of girl every boy had a crush on school and was universally liked. In other words, Britney could be your best friend whilst Christina came across more as your 'above it' elder sister who would occasionally condescend to your level but would make it very clear she wasn't really chuffed to be there. This whole first album campaign seems very odd and disjointed from Christina's later work, not because of a drastic change in sound, but because it's clear hear that Christina was going through the motions. She was placed into the teen pop sound, and it's not a sound she wanted, which explains why her second album both took so long and was so obviously a 'coming of age, I'm a woman' now kind of deal...but more on that when we come to it.

 

'What A Girl Wants' for me, is the one of the worst teen pop songs ever. Whilst not as lyrically bad as some particularly egregious examples from the era, this fails on every level as a teen pop record because Christina just sounds so utterly bored and disconnected from it all, say what you want about Britney, at this point she was much better at emoting and relating to her material than Christina was (though the tables would turn, and Britney is essentially a computer these days). Going back to the superior elder sister role, Christina very much seems like she's saying "yeah, I can be Britney if you want me to. But I don't want to." Which is fair enough, really.

 

(NOTE: None of these issues were apparent in 'Genie In a Bottle' which, whilst a teen pop song, certainly is more mature than your average teen pop song. Christina excels in the sexual undertones of the song way better than Britney was capable of at the time)

 

 

 

Reviews will continue on Thursday with hits from Shania Twain, Madonna and some woman called Rebecca Wheately