Britney Spears Oops... I Did It Again (Jive)

Britney Spears

Oops... I Did It Again (Jive)

Travis' recent performance at Stubb's achieved nothing so much as proving hipsters harbor as much of a Britney Spears fetish as punks once did for ABBA. An awful lot of people seemed to know the words to "...Baby One More Time," that's all I'm saying. With Oops... I Did It Again, Ms. Spears has undoubtedly provided the most surreal moment in the brief history of TRL pop with her and Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins' cut & paste go at the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction." (Reams better than Puffy ripping off "Let's Dance," by the way.) Losing those annoying dancers works wonders by letting co-producers Max Martin and Rami's robo-funk take over, though "Don't Go Knockin' on My Door" pulls up a bit short of Destiny's Child's "Bugaboo" in the whole stay-kicked-to-the-curb sweepstakes. And isn't there already a song called "Can't Make You Love Me"? Yes, but Bonnie Raitt's sad-woman blues are no match for this one's patented freeze-frame Britneybeats and one of those hyper-processed choruses that gushes out of the speakers like liquid body glitter. Is all this worth hanky-grabbing moments like in "Dear Diary," when Spears predicts, "I've got this feeling we'll be so much more than friends"? Actually, yes. "Stronger" may very well be the "I Will Survive" of its time, even as Britney's eventual fate as the Olivia Newton-John or Madonna of hers remains up in the air.