Why ‘I Wanna Go’ Blew Britney Spears Away
Remarkably few singers from the 1990s managed to adapt to the sound of 2010s music. Incredibly, Britney Spears managed to make the change with some great singles in 2011, including “I Wanna Go.” Spears said that one part of the song blew her away — it blew the world away, too.
Britney Spears’ ‘I Wanna Go’ displays the genius of 1 of her collaborators
Max Martin is a producer who has played an integral role in Spears’ career. After producing her first hit, “…Baby One More Time,” Martin went on to write numerous hits by Spears. He co-wrote “Oops!… I Did It Again,” “Lucky,” “Till the World Ends,” “Hold It Against Me,” and “If U Seek Amy.”
During a 2011 interview with Rolling Stone, Spears recalled the creation of Femme Fatale. “Max played a huge role on this album and he has been there since the beginning so there is such a huge level of trust,” the “Womanizer” singer said. “He gets exactly what I am saying when I tell him what I want and don’t want musically. His melodies are incredible and he is always coming up with weird sounds, which I love.”
Spears seemed especially impressed with one track on Femme Fatale. “The whistle on ‘I Wanna Go’ still gets me every time I hear it,” she added. “Who would have thought of that? There is nobody I feel more comfortable collaborating with in the studio.”
Britney Spears’ 2011 album succeeded and failed at the same time
Spears revealed what she was trying to accomplish with Femme Fatale. “When we first sat down to talk about Femme Fatale, I knew I wanted to make a dance album that was ahead of everything else out there but unique to me which is why I was so picky with the recording process,” she said. “I only wanted songs that I immediately connected to. I also wanted to make sure that this album was completely different from [her previous album] Circus or anything else I had ever recorded.”
Spears said she wanted Femme Fatale to be darker than Circus. Considering Femme Fatale dealt with themes like criminality (“Criminal”), the apocalypse (“Till the World Ends”), and romantic struggles (“He About to Lose Me”), she seems to have succeeded at that goal. By comparison, Circus feels a lot more upbeat, with its songs about female empowerment (“Womanizer”), flirtation (“Radar,”) and the joy of dancing (“Circus”).
She also wanted Femme Fatale to feel cohesive. Femme Fatale doesn’t have much of a throughline except that it’s synthesizer-heavy, artificial, and highly sexual — which was true of nearly all top 40 music from 2011 except for a few singles by Adele. Femme Fatale is a lot of fun, but it’s not a well-constructed concept album like Pink Floyd’s The Wall or David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Even Spears’ Blackout works better as a whole package than Femme Fatale.
Critics responded well to the song. Rolling Stone ranked the song Spears’ eighth best, comparing it to the music of the Ramones. It might just be one of the best dance tracks ever. That whistle sounds as fresh as it did in 2011.
