The Bottom Line
As a heavy-breathing dance track, "Gimme More" is nothing special. What does make it more unique is that this is the big Britney Spears comeback single. Her voice, with that little grind at the turn of a phrase, is unmistakeable. Timbaland protege Nate Hills lends a serviceable beat, and pop radio is jumping on the bandwagon with lightning speed. However, Britney will need to show us more talent to match the glory days of her early career.
Listen to "Gimme More"
- Britney's unmistakable come-hither voice
- Predictable but effective dance beat
- Spoken intro and outro
- Nothing original in the disco-style heavy breathing
- Wears thin after repeated listening
Description
- Spoken word intro
- Retro sounding disco-ish beat
- Teasing vocals backed by moaning and heavy breathing
Guide Review - Britney Spears - Gimme More
Back in the mid-1970's Donna Summer and her producer Giorgio Moroder shocked the pop music world by releasing an extended dance track called "Love to Love You Baby" that essentially amounted to the wispiest of lyrics welded to an insistant disco beat and punctuated by Summer's sexually aroused moaning. Britney Spears' high profile comeback single is essentially one more use of this timeworn formula. It will work well in an overheated club atmosphere, but is likely to wear thin with anything like close listening.
Nate "Danjahandz" Hills seems a strong choice to help put together this return to the charts for Britney Spears, but "Gimme More" does pale compared to Hills' work with Timbaland on Justin Timberlake's return to the top of the charts with "SexyBack." On the up side, it does seem that Britney's bump-and-grind singing style that we first heard 8 years ago on "...Baby One More Time" is still intact, and the "It's Britney, bitch" announcement that opens the song implies a significant amount of fire remains. The opening alone bumps the song's rating up by half a star.
The promised full-length album will tell us much more about the return of Britney Spears when it appears later this fall. This first single could have been much worse than it ultimately turned out. For now, "Gimme More" is definitely Britney, and it does have a good beat you can dance to, but it easily misses the high-water marks set by "Toxic," "Oops! I Did It Again," and "...Baby One More Time."
