Britney Goes Trance With Moby
Britney Spears has enlisted Moby, the Matrix and R. Kelly to produce tracks on her next album, due in November. She describes the new material as a departure from her previous three records.
“I’d describe it as trance-y,” Spears says. “Kind of a vibe record. Something you could listen to that’s not so song structured.” After getting personal on her last album, 2001’s Britney, Spears says the new album is a little more distant. “This record is definitely personal to me,” she says. “But it’s not shockingly personal. I think once you start being so self-serving with your music . . . I did a little bit of that with my last record, and I really didn’t want to put myself out there that much.”
Spears has spent much of past year in New York working on record. The Moby collaboration, “Early Mornin’,” sounds like the aftermath of one of Spears’ much publicized late nights at bars. “It’s about going out at night and feeling like shit the next day,” she says.
The Matrix production and songwriting team contribute “Shadow,” which sounds like a mid-Nineties Aerosmith ballad, while Kelly wrote and produced “Outrageous.” And the lyrical fare is considerably less innocent than that found on Oops! . . . I Did It Again, with lines like: “Oh, it’s so hot, and I need some air/Boy, don’t stop, ’cause I’m halfway there . . .”
“Of course I’m not doing ‘. . . Baby One More Time’ and those big, massive hits anymore,” Spears says. “I think this record is where I’m at right now in my life. It’s sensual, it’s sexual . . . I’m probably writing about that subconsciously because I don’t have that right now.”