(Martin, Shellback, Kotecha, Kronlund)
Album: If U Seek Amy – Single / Circus
There is double entendre, and then there is “If U Seek Amy.” It’s fitting that the track that reunited the superstar team of Britney Spears and Max Martin starts kicks off its opening verse the same way their first collaboration opened a decade prior: “Oh baby, baby,” Britney snarls. This was the much-hyped return of Martin to Spears’s orbit since he last penned music for her on 2001’s Britney. Martin had since found success with multiple artists across the pop-isphere, but this dynamic duo has been inextricably linked since their initial effort a decade prior catapulted Spears to the top of the charts and made Martin one of the most sought-after hitmakers of a generation. For this third single from Circus, Britney delivers a playful romp that on face value has her searching high and low for the mysterious clubber Amy. Upon second listen, the phonetics of the title phrase sound suspiciously like a naughty and direct command that is, shall we say, not radio friendly (which programmers sought to remedy with an “If U See Amy” edit). It caught a few headlines which are parodied in the video that juxtaposes a wild house party with the sweet, conservative image of innocent America that Spears has always felt pressured to embody. The one issue with the boisterous bop is that the phrase “If you seek Amy” as it is used in the song is nonsensical, rendering this less a double entendre and leaving it as… an entendre? Regardless, this is one of the most fun cuts from Circus and a welcome return for Spears’s original genius songwriting collaborator.
Comments