Britney Spears - Blackout (2007) vs. Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster (2009)

"Heaven on Earth" and "Piece of Me" are stronger than TFM's offerings but TFM is shorter and has no real duds. Ugh.

out of control > in control

otm

at least in this case

on the face of it this is hard but it's actually blackout easily, even at gaga's best there's still the occasional bit that grates (eg the diana reference). blackout is just a masterpiece

I'd inclined to say that the highs on TFM are higher but Blackout is the better album.

This may, however, simply reflect the fact I hear the TFM singles more at parties etc. but I, like, actually listen to Blackout.

Blackout in every way. Lady Gaga has just never clicked with me, musically.

Blackout easily. ILX's early attitude to Gaga has always been the right one.

"Bad Romance" and "Telephone" over everything else by miles and miles and miles

I really dislike the chorus of Bad Romance, it's got a kind of Uptown Girl naffness that I can't stand. Telephone is alright though.

i pity the fool etc

i wd say it's melodramatic obviously but not really anything like "Uptown Girl"'s fixed chirpiness

i love melodrama more unreservedly than Britney's clipped robogroove era even tho i love that "you want a piece of meat" iciness too

Wait, what? Blackout is more melodramatic than a gang of teenage boys on Facebook!

drama's not the same as melodrama. now i want to invent metadrama.

I think Lady Gaga is more Metadrama than Melodrama, and I don't think I like Metadrama.

metadrama is the annoying video for "Telephone" maybe

anyway i've listened to nothing but morton feldman and stars of the lid all week, i shd probly not be thinking about this whole conundrum, ignore my vote

TFM by a minute whisker

i love blackout to death & have listened to it a zillion times, gotta vote for it on affection alone. but this is an interesting match-up. if we were comparing the singles off of each i might give it to TFM, but part of blackout's awesomeness is how consistently good it is from beginning to end.

eh -- "Gimme More" and "Why Should I Feel Sad" drag.

may be in the minority on this but i LOVE "why should i feel sad" -- talk about melodrama, with the whole endpiece of "it's time for me to move along" and "britney let's go."

"gimme more" was as ubiquitous house party-wise as the gaga singles in its time - though admittedly blackout doesn't translate as PARTY ANTHEM FUN as readily as gaga. though i'd disagree that she's naff, i think the gothicky monster imagery she plays with - and the fact that she takes herself SO seriously, never has anything other than a puh-puh-puh-poker face on - averts that quite easily

i mean obviously uptown girl, come on eileen and adam ant and that other stuff you refer to should burn in hell, obviously

Would love to hear "Gimme More" more often at parties these days.

5 years on is a weird period in that it's not old enough to be hailed as a forgotten classic but not new enough to be in the first flush of enthusiasm

If it comes down to minor songs then Blackout easily takes it, from the ridiculous Britney-less hook of Get Naked (I Got A Plan) to *wub* *wub* Freakshow *wub* *wub*

And that nine minutes Gavin Russom remix of Piece of Me stands as the soundscape of a crumbled pop empire.

Gimme More is such a drifting drunken zombie of a song, it's the perfect opener for that album, but isn't exactly a big party record.

some parties you end up as the drifting drunken zombie yourself

Gimme More is such a drifting drunken zombie of a song, it's the perfect opener for that album, but isn't exactly a big party record.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, September 12, 2012 12:01 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this statement seems internally contradictory.

xpost!

Then it's a song for 4.30am when everyone's discombobulated, it's not peak-time.

That's when I'm imagining it being played, yeah...

Drifting Drunken Zombie is a perfect description of Blackout.

idk it's a bit witch housey, no? too passive. britney's no wraith on this

She prowls.

It's not really a case of being passive or active, more... being totally out of control.

ok but drifting is a bit...slow. she's out of control but moving fast and also trying to dance

This is Brit, no contest really, even though TFM has the best song of the bunch ("Bad Romance").

still lol that on this album with britney in this state half a song title is "I got a plan"

ime coked-out binge drinkers have many, many plans

it's true

many plans, all at once

Gimme More feels slow even though it isn't though. Some zombies can move pretty quickly I suppose.

Got to be Britney.

I really despise "Piece of Me"

omygod

Not to make light of a young mother's complete emotional breakdown, but also... I think Brit's bald-headed rampage was the most shocking, subversive act any pop icon has done in decades. I feel that Gaga's persona addresses this sort of ugliness and tragedy, but Brit in 2007 was the real unvarnished thing. It's also difficult for me to see how Gaga's reign would've come about with Britney's collapse setting the stage.

Something that I think separates these two artists is that Britney could always be enjoyed (if you're into her brand of music) on an immediate surface level, no questions asked. Then this phase came along in her life... this album has many layers that one can read into the music if one so chooses. Gaga strives for this, and often succeeds, but I think her music often gets weighed down by all this intentional(/forced?) 'metadrama' that she stuffs into her work.

It's also difficult for me to see how Gaga's reign would've come about WITHOUT Britney's collapse setting the stage.

I've never gotten past my aversion to Britney, her frog croak is so gross. Anything I've liked by her has been in spite of her presence, not because of it.

TFM is where i started to come around on gaga and has her best work on it but 'blackout' still wins this for me

I know it wouldn't stand a chance on this board, but I think The Fame seems more like a post-Blackout album to me, musically and lyrically.

The Fame Monster is an evolution over both of those IMO.

I think Gaga gets a bit too much credit for being post everything, in large part because she simply hasn't been around that long. Yes, Britney's prime was in a very different (earlier) time, but I'd argue that many fans probably thought she went too far with Blackout. To my ears, nothing Gaga has done sounds as far out there as most of Blackout. I mean it's probably as black-hearted and alienated as The Knife's Silent Shout.

I doubt this is how it played out, but, I can almost see Gaga thinking, "Ok, Blackout may be a radical new way of showing us an ugly truth about celebrity, but it's a bit too morbid; I'm going to reign in the tragedy and psychosis and build on something more approachable and sustainable." So, I suppose you could say that her music is in some sense an evolution from Blackout. But I think Blackout is more revealing, more adventurous and innovative, and goes much further down the rabbit hole.

I guess what I meant is that Blackout vs The Fame seems like a better poll, although we already know which one would win.

this talk of "blackout"-era britney reminded me of my favorite artifact of that time period, this poll that legit appeared on the official britney spears website:

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ma8ib2wCdH1qafurwo1_1280.jpg

i still have "blackout" demo tracks in my itunes that i bundled into one album called "omg is like lindsay lohan like okay like"

omg I forgot about "omg is like lindsay lohan okay like"

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