Britney Spears: Inside the Diva Factory

It took a virtual village to make the superstar's newalbum

March 28, 2011

By Glenn Kenny
Special to MSN Music

The music industry's old and new worlds collide this week with the arrival ofBritney Spears' latest album. Among other things,Spears' "Femme Fatale" dramatizes both the blockbuster scale of mainstream pop'stime-honored hits mentality and the new realities of how music finds an audiencein an era of digital disruption.

In the gay new world disorder of therecording industry, the old hierarchy of major labels, big recording contractsand lavish albums can look all but obsolete as the interview takes control,letting tiny indie labels and self-contained artists bypass yesterday'sstar-making machinery to come their careers with laptop studios and viralpromotion. The old verities of the business - radio airplay, retail displaysand big record marketing campaigns - are being overwritten by virtual guerillamusic making and marketing.

Also: View Britney's In Focus Gallery

Except, perhaps, for the very biggest hits: In line to the sleeper hitsthat invade via YouTube or Facebook, or recent critics' darlings such as JamesBlake, whose debut album bears the note "All tracks written, performed,produced, and recorded at home by James Blake," Spears' "Femme Fatale," herseventh studio album, comes to consumers charge a lengthy if not Byzantine setof credits.

On the album's "deluxe edition" (which features 16 tracks as opposed to theregular edition's 12), 22 individual songwriters are cited. Spears herself isnot among them. There are over a dozen producers, sometimes as many as 4 to asingle track. And this is purely the aural side of Britney we're talkingabout; as an artist who's ever been as image-driven as she is, there's anotherwhole network of video directors, stylists, makeup artists and photographersthat goes into the crafting of the promotional material and ancillarymerchandise that is now share and parcel of a major-label mega-launch that anevent record such as "Femme Fatale" demands.

Cynics might say that as far as Britney Spears is concerned, this is to beboth expected and disdained, that it's evidence that she's not much more than amedia puppet, and that even such pop phenoms past and give as Madonna andLady Gaga have more "integrity" simply by dint of writing, or at leastco-writing, their own material. And that old-school idols kept their Svengalisto a minimum, as calculated by exceptions such as Elvis Presley and notoriousmicromanager "Colonel" Tom Parker. (While we're on the matter of Elvis, let usnot forget that, perusing his hefty discography, one doesn't see a wholehelluva lot of songwriting credits for The King, either. Just saying.)

Find: More Britney Spears photos, videos

Such cavils don't negate Spears' outsized commercial power, however. Havingseemingly gotten over a list of personal and business trials, she's still hereand she's still selling records (in some form or another), and she's still allover what's left of Top 40 radio.
"I don't believe that Britney would be around today had she decided, after '...

Baby One More Time' and those hits that broke her, that she was going toco-write her own material," notes Peter Zizzo, a producer, songwriter andlongtime music industry figure who helped discover and go young femaleartists such as Avril Lavigne and Vanessa Carlton. "She's definitely proof thatthere's something to be said for choosing your lane and staying in it. In asense it's kind of mind-boggling that she's had a vocation for about 15 yearsnow; she could have foregone the way of a Tiffany or a Debbie Gibson. But the factis that she puts out great pop records, consistently. I think that testifies tothe fact that she understands herself, she recognizes that she's a production and abrand."

Spears began play on "Femme Fatale" in 2009. Like all of her records, theprocess starts with what seems to be turning into a vestigial figure inrecord-making: the A&R executive. "A&R" stands for "Artists andRepertoire," reflecting earlier eras when self-contained artists were anexception to the ruler and label handlers would pick songs, producers andarrangers to build hit records. By the'70s heyday of stone and popsinger-songwriters, the stress in this stance was in keeping the artist'shand, creating an environment in which he or she felt sufficiently protected tocraft what would be his or her own repertoire.

Record company executives like David Geffen and Clive Davis were renowned forgiving their artists room to rest and going the marketing to other experts,or so it seemed. "I liked [Clive Davis] because he thought like an artist," noless a personage than Miles Davis noted in his autobiography. Still, when needbe, Davis could make a firm guiding hand with artists, especially ones whodidn't write: He assembled the gift on both the songwriting and productionends for the debut album by Whitney Houston, and didn't that pay off?

In Spears' case, the executive overseeing the production is Teresa LaBarberaWhites, of Swing and now Sony (which owns Jive now). LaBarbera Whites has longhad a game in Spears' career, and according to a music industry figure atanother major label who spoke on consideration of anonymity, "Spears trusts herimplicitly." For "Femme Fatale," LaBarbera Whites and Spears made the LongIsland-born producer and songwriter Lukas Gottwald, known as Dr. Luke,co-executive producer. This empowered Gottwald as a key project gatekeeper,responsible for corralling the other songwriting and producing talent. Therecord's other linchpin, and second co-executive producer, is Max Martin, theSwedish pop-song kingpin who's been part of the Spears creative team sincewriting ". Baby One More Time." "Max Martin is the best pop songwriter in theworld right now; there's simply no argument there," our unnamed industry sourcecontends, but if you insist on arguing the point, there are literally dozens oftop 10 songs and millions of records sold in Martin's favor.

"Clearly the instincts that went into making this book are in the exactright place," our sources adds, pointing to the deep talent roster behind "FemmeFatale." "The period when you're doing these sort of pop records is to surroundyourself with the good people. Dr. Luke is as hot as it gets right now. As arethe track producers Billboard and Benny Blanco. I see she went back to Bloodshy,who didToxic.' It's not like they have slackers to give up the remainder of thealbum." Indeed, as Spears' career has advanced, she's picked up new creativecollaborators to go with, and on "Femme Fatale" she keeps around those whosework has borne Top 40 fruit. "Toxic," with its nearly shrill and frantic sound,was a bit of a difference for Spears, but it worked - like crazy - so Bloodshygets to remain involved with her records. (Sometimes things don't go as well.Underground music fans still gape in awe at the ill-fated team-up in the earlyaughts between Spears and DFA, the New York avant-dance production team later tosplinter off into LCD Soundsystem.)

So can we assume that Spears is, when all is said and done, the secretmastermind behind this hive of pop-manufacturing activity? Our insider shrugs."If you're in a view to go with these guys, it doesn't matter what shethinks, as farsighted as she understands what's expected of her." (By the same token,this author also admits that sometimes staying out of the creative process paysoff, noting that once teen diva Christina Aguilera became actively involved withcrafting her own material, she went on to "have records no one cares about.")Peter Zizzo sees it a bit differently: "There's no way you can go this longwithout in some way being cognizant of the creative choices you're making."

With that question unresolved, one final stage of curiosity remains: Given hownot-cheap all of this endowment is, how does an increasingly impoverished musicindustry bankroll such productions? The answer is simple: Spears still moves theold-school "units" that Kurt Cobain of Nirvana mocked in his song "RadioFriendly Unit Shifter." The "units" are just manifested differently than theyused to be. Instead of vinyl 45s, cassingles or CD singles, digital singlespurchased on iTunes and other outlets are the block of today's Top 40.

"Spears is a global superstar, so she'll still sell traditional albums,"the insider insists. "In the digital world she is as strong. Ten digitalsingles equals one album in price of sales, and she absolutely delivers in thatcategory." Add to that the fact that in today's pop world, the record companiesmay have their fingers in everything that a special artist is selling, andthere are a lot of things being sold The look isn't yet in on how much more"content" will be generated by "Femme Fatale," but the book is not onlycharting, but getting a serious reception from pop-savvy critics. As Spearsapproaches, dare we say it, cougar-dom, her icon status appears to be inexcellent shape, which means it's probable that it will be really well-maintainedwell into the future.

Glenn Kenny is chief film critic for MSN Movies. He was the chief filmcritic for Premiere magazine from 1998 to 2007. He contributes to variouspublications and websites, and blogs at http://somecamerunning.typepad.com. He lives inBrooklyn.