With the “Framing Britney Spears” documentary now making waves on both sides of the Atlantic (and across the world) Matthew Roberts commandeers the TWM Time Machine™ and brings us his favourite five Britney Spears singles.
5. Evertyime (2004)
USA BILLBOARD HOT 100: #15
UK SINGLES CHARTS: #1
From the Album: In The Zone
Why its Great: You don’t really need to go into the media’s treatment of Britney Spears, or the behaviour of her ex Justin Timberlake, to feel the emotion of this song. If I’m being honest the “pop singer does a ballad” thing has never been a favourite trope of mine. But throwing around lazy arguments of “manufactured pop” is a trope that probably annoys me even more. Some of the lyrics are a direct response to Timberlake’s Cry Me A River (even if Britney herself has never confirmed that publicly), a fact that seemed to go unnoticed at the time as everyone was in thrall to the (very) thinly veiled accusations of the Timberlake song.
Whereas most of her ballads/slow songs to this point had been the traditional “he doesn’t love me, oh what am I going to do” things this isn’t. If someone more critically favoured had done this music journalists would have been singing it praises from the rooftops for its emotional pull.
Alternative Album Cut: Breathe On Me (Jacques Lu Cont Remix) – Stuart Price (The Killers, Pet Shop Boys, Madonna) under another name turns a lustful and, well, breathy album track into a dancefloor epic.