Ringmistress

Isn't this a great song? I ask the question with absolutely no trace of a snicker. I am humble before it; I marvel at its feat. Ever since Britney's "comeback" she has hit a note that is absolutely right for her, one that threatened ever since "Baby One More Time" but was watered down by the necessities of the late-90s pop idiom. Now, technology, the world, whatever, has caught up with her, and she can finally make the music she was born to make. She has tried on a huge range of personas, from coquettish schoolgirl ("Baby One More Time") to doeful virgin ("Sometimes") to panting sexpot ("Slave For U"), but in her newest incarnation she has found the one that fits: consummate entertainer. The new songs get this cold, and "Circus" is the culmination of them all.

As I go back now and listen to "Gimme More," the song that got her back into the game, I think I'm already starting to forget how fresh and how strong it was when it first came out. This was a new Britney, confirmed by the fact that nobody ever called her "Britney Spears" anymore. Whatever else the paparazzi years did for her, they put her and the world on a first-name basis. Most pop stars are strangers; but we've known Britney for a decade now, from pop girl to messed up mom, and we know her too well not to care - even if we pretend not to.

But I wanted to talk about the music. Circus is so complex that it is easier to approach obliquely, through earlier songs that contain seeds of its genius but fall short of its audacity and achievement. Britney's songs have always had moments of inspiration that absolutely work - for example, when the main motive in "Toxic" appears in retrograde:



Or this inspired falsetto lick at the end of "Gimme More":



But her songs have also had a tendency to over-electronicize, and this is a mistake. "Toxic," for example, suffers from too little Britney. The electronics overwhelm her airy, thin voice, and half the time it sounds not like Britney but a chorus of two or three girls, none of them Britney. What's needed is the edge and provocation, the menacing, more grown-up quality that the electronics provide, but with Britney still running the song.

Which brings us to "Circus." Immediately we have a throwback to an older time - the title, the accordion boom-chuck-chuck that opens the song. But there is also the menace of the 21st century in the beat, which is electronic only in the sense that it resembles the hum of machinery, or the off-stage whir of an engine on standby:



This is how to use tech in Britney: not with your typical dance/techno manipulations, but as the evocation of something alive.

Now look at the video. The beginning of the song crackles with energy, but the video is patient - look at how slowly she puts on her jewelry, how we follow every movement. The first 25 seconds of the video average out to an astonishing 2.25 seconds per shot, unbelievably slow for this kind of music video. Now watch the montage at 0:25. There is a move away from the high-gloss polish of her earlier videos; here, the scene engages with its liveness. Notice the vibration around the edges of the shot, the unsteady camera, the erratic centering of the subject.

And then the song begins. For such an explosive, energetic song, the first half is remarkably spare - if you listen carefully to the verse there is really only Britney, the whir of the machine and an incredibly compact percussion track. Lyrically, the song is insiduous. It begins narratively ("There's only two types of people in this world...") and then reveals itself to be a story about herself ("Well I'm a put-on-a-show kind of girl"). "Piece of Me" was also a story about herself, practically to the point of autobiography, but you realize that Britney doesn't work best when she is being defensive or too "real." At a deep level, what we want from her is entertainment, and that "Circus" provides in spades.

There's only two types of people in the world
The ones that entertain, and the ones that observe
Well baby, I'm a put-on-a-show kind of girl
Don't like the backseat, gotta be first

I'm like a ringleader, I call the shots
I'm like a firecracker, I make it hot
When I put on a show...

Here we see a pretty typical device, which is to follow the verse (first four lines) with a couple of lines that then provide a transition to the chorus:

I feel the adrenaline moving through my veins
Spotlight on me and I'm ready to break
I'm like a performer, the dance floor is my stage
Better be ready, bet you feel the same

But is it the chorus? What it sounds like is actually a break in the momentum, a slight side-track into what I think of as an epic pop mode before returning to the song. In other words, it's what is usually the third verse, the "different material" that offers a contrast in melody, mood, theme, before the chorus returns and seals the end of the song.

The result of all this mucking about with structure is a tremendous anticipation, reflected in the scenes shot in the music video: you get only half glimpses of Britney backstage, or in a strange corridor that seems just off the ring. Where a pop song normally culminates in a chorus and then deflates slightly on return to the verse, "Circus" has found a way to bristle with potential energy and then release it in a would-be chorus, essentially getting us to lower our guard. And then, where we expect a return to verse, the real chorus comes in, with an energy I find shocking no matter how many times I listen to it:

All eyes on me in the center of the ring
Just like a circus
When I crack that whip everybody gonna trip
Just like a circus

Where a chorus is normally more melodically interesting than a verse, this one compresses the energy of the song into a flat line. I'd like to take a moment here to comment on how brilliant the rhyme is. Aside from the fact that there may be no word in English that rhymes with "circus," let me ask: what would be gained by finding a rhyme for the second line that is not already achieved - or indeed better achieved - by simply repeating the word? Instead, the rhymed word is one that has an effect: the internal "whip"/"trip", all the more effective for being unexpected, since there is a deliberate lack of rhyme in the first line. The over-repetition of the choruses of "Gimme More" and "Womanizer" (which basically consist of the titles on endless loop) here finds a subtler incarnation; "Circus" knows exactly its own limits and strengths.

I mentioned before that the start of the second verse in a pop song is usually accompanied by a letdown in energy. In "Circus," it becomes a reevaluation. You hear the verse with fresh ears, knowing how far this song is willing to go; and when Britney says "There are two types of guys out there," guy or girl, you realize the implicit challenge to yourself: which category do you fall into? The first time she says

Don't stand there watching me, follow me
Show me what you can do

it sounds just like your typical pop song rhetoric - but when it comes again at the end, you feel it as a real and frightening invitation to test your strength against hers.



She can say "Don't stand there watching me" because she knows that you are; she is such a good entertainer that you have to rise to her level just to follow. In the last chorus, when the shrill sirens from "Toxic" come in, it's like a final nose-thumbing, a last ballsy move - an assertion, if there still needed to be one, that she can get away with anything and make it work.