Britney Spears “3″
For a Hot 100-topping entry that finally sees Britney embracing a more straight-forward approach to her brand of pop sluttery (rather than continuing to feign innocence while hiding behind schoolyard wordplay, Neptunes-assisted Vanity 6 dress-up and wink-wink award show performances), the ménage-à-trois-celebrating “3″ sure doesn’t amount to much.
Some temporary giggle-worthiness does arise from the whole “Peter Paul and Mary” bit (oh Brit, you so nasty-goofy), but, aside from the “let’s slow it down” bridge portion (the makings of a cool song all on it’s own), “3″ mostly comes across as this cheap sounding, half-finished throwaway cut that the powers-that-be unnecessarily “rescued” from the Blackout/ Circus sessions’ cutting room floor. Oh, how Max Martin should leave the crunk-pop stylings to the other folks.
It doesn’t help much that Spears, who has increasingly sounded less and less…well, human, on recent albums, seems to register here as only another low-budget synth noise, or that the recently premiered video (equally as cheap feeling and filled front-to-back with now-signature Brit “choreography” that mainly consists of Cover Girl commercial model poses, sharp arm movements and bored stripper shimmy/ grinds) only leaves us wondering why we ever thought she was this great dancer in the first place.
We know, we know: much shouldn’t be expected from a Greatest Hits add-on, but still…sigh.
I’ll give her this — at least the “Peter Paul & Mary” line suggests a male-male-female threesome instead of the standard “straight dude likes to watch two chicks making out” male-female-female threesome.