Instead of a personal post, I'd like to do something different today and talk about my favorite singer of all time, Britney Spears and, more specifically, my favorite deep cuts off her albums. I've been seing some of your shrines, and it's a really cool concept, so I might do a Britney one in the future. If that happens, then I'll remove this blog post and just put this list on the shrine.
A deep cut, according to Wiktionary (?), is "an obscure song by a well-known musician". I'm not sure what qualifies a song as "obscure", but I'll go with anything I doubt anyone who's not a Britney and/or pop music fan would know.
I'm not linking to any of the songs because the only way I can think of doing that are either YouTube links, which I don't want to do because I'm currently pissed off that they blocked me from watching any videos due to my ad blocker, or Spotify links, which I also don't want to do because fuck technofeudalism.
If you preferred to read me whine about my life and/or mention random things that happened to me, check back next week, I guess?
...Baby One More Time (1999)
Honestly, I don't really like the non-singles in this album. They're all ballads and most of them do not suit Britney's vocal range at all. I appreciate a good cheesy ballad, but you need to put your heart into it, and Brit was definitely not doing that. (Plus, let's be honest; you need to be a strong singer to pull this sort of thing off.)
So I guess my pick is Autumn Goodbye? It's a fun song, at least. Special mention to I Will Still Love You, the song she did with Don Philip, a fellow rising teen star that, unlike Britney, didn't really work out. They later met again when Britney was on The X Factor and it wasn't very pleasant.
Oops!... I Did It Again (2000)
First of all, that exclamation point and ellipsis after "Oops" are genius.
Second of all, it's a tie between What U See (Is What U Get) and Can't Make You Love Me. I wonder why the first one wasn't a single as well, it could've definitely been a minor hit. Special mention to Don't Go Knockin' on My Door, which Britney seems to like, since it's mentioned afterwards in other albums.
Britney (2001)
This is when Britney started shedding her good girl reputation, and also when the trifecta of her best albums began. What It's Like to Be Me is one of Britney's best songs despite featuring known RAT Justin Timberlake. The breakdown at the end is genius, and Britney's voice sounds so sexy and full of attitude. I love it.
In the Zone (2003)
Britney's second-best album, I know that's right! This one is a no-brainer: it's Showdown, although The Hook Up comes really close. I love literally anything about people breaking up and then making up, I don't know why. Also, again, Britney's voice sounds so hot that she can sell some of the most nonsensical lyrics of her career (And when you come, don't get too hot/Butterfly. Um, okay?)
Blackout (2007)
Her best album. Literally changed lives. There's not a single bad song here, although I don't really like Why Should I Be Sad. I could pick literally any of the more obscure songs in this album, but I'll go with Get Naked (I Got a Plan) since it was the first non-single I ever heard from Britney and I became OBSESSED. Danja's voice sounds so warped and weird.
Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it's a tie with Get Back, which was supposed to be the lead single but then just became one of the bonus tracks. God, that song is so good. The ending where the beat slows down and everything goes slow-mo changed my life. I wonder if Ariana Grande used this song as inspiration for the ending of one of her best songs, Bad Idea.
Circus (2008)
I like Circus, but you can tell Britney wasn't feeling it while recording the album, and can you blame her?
Mannequin is my pick because it's such a WEIRD song. I can't believe it was actually featured in one of her albums.
Femme Fatale (2011)
Britney doesn't seem to like this one much, but I'm kind of obsessed with it. It's pure 2010s pop perfection or, as Brazilians put it, farofa ("a strong, dancing electronic song [...] that plays in a lot of gay clubs.")
I was going to pick Big Fat Bass, but it has a Wikipedia entry for it for whatever reason which I guess disclassifies it as a deep cut (again, I don't know what a deep cut really is). I'll go with Seal It with a Kiss because, again, I love any song about people breaking up and then making up.
Britney Jean (2013)
No comment.
Glory (2016)
Her best album since Blackout for sure. You can tell she actually enjoyed working in this one. The album was a flop, though, so I guess everything's a deep cut to the general, non-Britney-fan public, even though its lead single featured the best rapper of his generation, G-Eazy (just kidding).
Fans are obsessed with Mood Ring, but I'll go with Change Your Mind (No Seas Cortes). Latina queen!