BRITNEY SPEARS – Hit Me Baby One More Time
Classic pop? What, have suddenly all the music journos, pop pundits and sad indie wankers realised that their pet bands were churning out crap guitar fellatio? Lost in the desert of piss poor music they stumble across this seemingly innocent tune – and notice – to their glee that there is a nubile young female with tits behind this whole malarkey. What’s more she dresses like a schoolgirl in the video. Balls drop to round their ankles and all of a sudden everyone is proclaiming that this is a slice of purest classic pop. In as much as there is an okay tune, a chorus as lyrically dubious as the rest of the song and oh – did I mention the tits?
For all their jangly sensibilities, your indie girls just don’t have the jubblies. Or at least they might have them but are either too busy disguising them so you concentrate on the music, or hiding them with a guitar strap or two (which really cannot be healthy). Now I daresay the mellifluous tones of my namesake Tanya Donnelley has caused many a young indie kid to whip himself up a fervour of tip-top, but she never bounced around in a shiny come hither halter top. Lush bemoaned being Single Girls, never realising that if they had slung away those guitars, bounced a round a bit and flashed their yams there would have been a queue right round the door (this is England, we still queue for some things). Britney does all the above, and there was no other indie music of note around at the time. Instant pop classic, and critical success. Coincidence – I think not.
The sad truth is that Britney’s song is successful merely for encouraging the saddo paedophilic woman beating lust of yer average consumer. However I can save you from this dangerous fixation before you go the whole hog and get yourself an ill-fitting and rather unattractive boys PVC catsuit. The very beginning of the song, when she proclaims in that strangely seductive (strange because I don’t find it seductive) voice – “Oh Baby Baby” – try saying “Oh Jewellery Jewellery”. Suddenly Britney will vanish in your head to be replaced by Jimmy Savile – marathon running octogenarian ex-wrestler and Disc Jockey. Admittedly it won’t remove the subject of paedophilia from your brain, but the song will lose all of its attraction.