#40 Britney Spears, "Gimme More"

Cameras are flashing while we're dirty dancing
They keep watching, keep watchin'

Another song I didn't think much of to begin with, but I gradually came around to it and found a good number of songs to enjoy on the album (though I think I need to listen to the other half--not half order-wise, though--properly to know if there's anything worth keeping from it), which was more than enough to please me. Britney (or her producers, if you want to be more accurate, I suppose) delivered a deceptively catchy song that was dance-friendly but also dealt in the darker, kind of insidious sort of pop--this is pure commercial pop, but it's the soundtrack of the dark corners of maybe slightly shady clubs, not high school hallways, a wide-open greenlit dancefloor, or even the glistening white walls of a futuristic club. As much as this song is primarily slick production, there's something kind of appropriate about Britney's messy video--"Gimme More" has a different sort of gloss from many of Britney's earlier hits that is more appropriate to these darkened shots of something that you sometimes feel like maybe you shouldn't be watching but can't tear your eyes away from. Most importantly, though, the song sneaks into your head and stays there, in a good kind of catchy way.

Find it on: Blackout