Britney Spears - I'm a Slave 4 U

A 10 year reappraisal of an underrated classic

McLovin

With the build up and hype mounting to hysterical levels for Lady Gaga's Born This Way premiere this coming Friday, I thought it would be interesting to look back at I'm a Slave 4 U. It was the launch single for Britney's third album, aptly named Britney, and joined ...Baby One More Time and Oops!...I Did It Again as defining her oncoming output of singles and videos. Although Born This Way will technically be Gaga's second album after The Fame, the eight track Fame Monster is such a wonderfully cohesive body of songs. As such, it feelsfeelsfeff like Gaga's third time out. In this way, Born This Way will join Just Dance and Bad Romance to complete her hat trick of launch singles.

I'm a Slave 4 U was the first time a Britney song had been overtly sexual rather than naughtily suggestive; as such, it caused quite the stir. Her performance of it with a giant snake and all at the MTV awards in September 2001 created a media frenzy, with animal rights group, parental concerns and a general dismay at the sexual exploitation of a 19 (!) year old singer. From my perspective (and 13 year old eyes), it is no exaggeration in saying that this performance was a seminal moment in my life. But separated from the performance and video, my overall feelings about the song at the time was a disappointed 'meh - what kind of a chorus is "I'm a slllaaaaaaaaave for you" anyway?'. As a Neptunes production, it didn't have the instant appeal of Max Martin's bombastic late 90s/early 00s work (the second single from the campaign Overprotected did the job there). Ten years on, how has time treated this sweaty dancefloor filler?

I'm a Slave 4 U is a far more interesting and subtlety complex song than I appreciated at the time, and the apparent lack of immediate hooks may well be its most enduring aspect. Although I still think the chorus is the weak link, I've started to find a lot of pleasures elsewhere. The spoken word intro has a mission statement-like quality, playing with Britney's established image ('I know I may be young') whilst firmly stating that this song is going to be a departure from her previous recordings (the spoken intro trick was repeated a year later in Justin Timberlake's debut solo single Like I Love You, another Neptunes production). The 'get it get it, get it get it' part, which still sounds like 'kitty kitty, kitty kitty', has a tight rhythm in line with the hypnotic beat, and an almost imperceptible harmony is heard when it's repeated for the second and fourth time, adding a delicate variation to the proceedings.

But the real high point is her questioning 'baby don't you wanna dance upon me?' (or is that 'up on me'?) followed by the whispered 'I just wanna dance next to you', which to my horny hormonal ears, I’m embarrassed to say, sounded like ‘I just wanna have sex with you’, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one! Accompanied by the rising synths, it’s the most expansive moment of the song and the only time that it threatens to leave the grimy dancefloor behind and take us ‘to another time and place’. That it is only repeated twice demonstrates the incredible restraint of the song. Aside from a couple of overplayed moans and groans, everything is held back. The excessive display of sexuality is in her dancing and revealing costumes; away from the images, the song revels in the play of suggestion over explicit description.

With this track, ‘Innocent’ Britney past the point of no return – each new album campaign launched with a single and video designed to provoke and outrage (Me Against The Music– snogging Madonna! Gimme More – arse hanging out whilst pole dancing! Womanizer – naked in a sauna!). Sweet ballads like Sometimes and Born To Make You Happy were condemned to the past. Although I nostalgically yearn for those heady days of pre-Slave 4 U Britney where not every single had to be ‘controversial’, I honestly believe that without this song, her 2007 masterpiece Blackout wouldn’t exist.

Lady Gaga has already achieved so much and gone so far in the past two years, I’m struggling to think how she will manage our expectations. But if Born This Way causes the same fuss as Britney did with I’m a Slave 4 U ten years ago, then very exciting times lay ahead for all of us.