Songoftheday 6/25/24 - And no one cares it's whipping my hair it's pulling my waist, to hell with stares the sweat is dripping all over my face...

 

 

"Me Against The Music" - Britney Spears featuring Madonna

from the album In The Zone (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #35 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 3

 

Today's song comes from giant pop stars from two "eras" in pop history, Britney Spears and Madonna, that were both experiencing a relatively dry period. Britney's third studio album, Britney, had sold close to five million copies, but after the lead single, the deliberately over-provocative "I'm A Slave 4 U", stalled down at #27 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 at the close of 2001 (not helped by the label holding back a commercial single to plump album sales), the subsequent released stiffed in the States. A contribution to the wildly successful Austin Powers: Goldmember film franchise, "Boys" with super-hot producer Pharrell Williams, was a top ten hit in the United Kingdom at #7, but while it got to #22 on the Mainstream Top-40 radio chart in America, it only "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #122 in August of 2002.  Meanwhile Madonna, who had seen her renaissance through her Ray Of Light and Music albums, only to have her left-field turn with "American Life", the title song from the album that only spent eight weeks on the whole Hot 100 with one week (jolted by CD-singles sales) in the lower part of the top-40 in the spring of 2003. 

In the summer of that year, the pair came together to open the MTV Music Video Awards show along with Christina Aguilera to sing Madonna's "Like A Virgin", a performance that catapulted her career back in the 1980s. During that performance though, the singing took a backseat over Madonna planting a non-platonic kiss on both Britney and XTina, though it was only the former's that was caught on camera. It created a flurry of both chatter and derision, with the latter only fueling talk about the pair (all gossip is GOOD gossip). 

So to capitalize on this Jive Records brought Britney and Madonna back together to record the lead single from the former's fourth album on the label, In The Zone. The result, "Me Against The Music", was written by producer Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, along with a bevy of stock songwriters - Penelope Magnet, Thabiso "Tab" Nikhereanye, Gary O'Brien, and Terius Nash (aka future hitmaker The-Dream) - as well as Britney and Madonna. With seven songwriters on an "original" track (no samples), the possibility of making "product" music increases dramatically, and here it definitely does. Britney writhes around with nonsensical attempts at being sexual and somehow equating being on the dancefloor to playing a sport (where the album title comes into play). Madonna, who plays backup throughout, comes in at the end as just the hype woman. This wordplay is commonplace in a lot of dance music, even stuff I crave, but this seems so cold and calculated that in the end it doesn't really show anything revolutionary from two revolutionary artists. The production from Stewart is skittish with a disjointed beat that isn't really fit for bopping in the club.  But a limited-edition CD and 12" single with club-friendly transformations kept the fans happy, and the pair at least found themselves back into the top-40. The music video tried to recreate the pseudo-lesbian fantasy from the "Like A Virgin" performance but doing continuous fake-outs of the pair in what seems to be an insane asylum slash speakeasy...

 

 "Me Against The Music" managed to spend a few weeks in the bottom rung of the top-40 on Billboard's Hot 100 in November to December of 2003. On the radio, the song just missed the top ten on the Mainstream Top-40 chart at #11, but did get to #9 on the nascent Dance Airplay list. The remixes of the track, done by the likes of Peter Rauhofer and Gabriel & Dresden (as well as an R&B attempt with Kanye West), helped it top Billboard's Dance Club Play chart for two weeks. Internationally, the duo's star power helped it do much better, topping the charts in Spain, Australia, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, and Croatia, and reach the top ten in the United Kingdom (#2), Italy (#2), Canada (#2 Sales), Norway (#2), Greece (#2), Belgium (#3 Wallonia/#5 Flanders), Austria (#4), Switzerland (#4), Germany (#5), the Netherlands (#5), Sweden (#5), Finland (#5), and Czechia (#9). The In The Zone album, released in November as the single was about to crest, opened at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over three million copies. But that would be due to the singles that would follow. 

Both Britney, Madonna, and the In The Zone album will be back to the series.

(3/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the "electrohouse" remix of the song from Peter Rauhofer that helped the song top the dance charts (and be Billboard's top Dance Single Sales song from the 2004 chart year)...

Here's Britney on her TV promo for the album...

Next up, doing her best (well, half lipsynching for her life) for the American Music Awards...

And finally on the tour behind the In The Zone album in 2004...

Up tomorrow: This British songstress who "stans" surrenders.