music megathread The Making of the B8: Who is Britney Jean?

[WaterDiamonds]

It's been a while, and I know I shouldn't have kept you waiting, but I'm here now!

 

 

Hello fellow users of ATRL, today I'm here to spill some tea on the making of one of the most infamous albums of all time, with screeching melodies capable of making your average listener lose their mind, a non sensical tracklist that could make your eyebrow raise all the way up to the sky and vocals that blur the line between human prowess and A.I: Britney Jean (though this description also fits another album released this 2025). 

 

Anyhow, time to pull a Kylie and step back in time, to the wonderful year of 2012, january of 2012 to be specific. Britney had just finished her successful Femme Fatale tour, her lastest album enjoyed a good commercial and critical reception and despite the jarring lack of energy and passion she showed at the time (for valid reasons, don't get me wrong), one could argue that at one point she was still one of the Main Pop Girls™, and her label, knew this. Hold on, her old label, Jive, was apparently the one who did, because as of October 7th of 2011, it was absorbed into RCA along with Arista and J Records, making Britney now an RCA artist by default, as her management opted to stay in, marking a new chapter in her career (A HORRIBLE ONE!), so yeah, 2012 wasn't shaping up to be promising for miss Spears in any kind of way.

 

The first quarter of 2012 is pretty lacking music wise, with no new music rumors or recording studio sightings, but something else was cooking... Britney was about to become a Judge on the new season of the American Talent show The X Factor, meaning that theoretically, her singing career would be on hold for most of the year... or not? 

I don't want to talk in detail about everything that was going on with Britney during the X Factor because it's a topic long enough to have it's own thread, but keeping it simple, she was more medicated than she ever was, to the point of needing assistance to know what to say or even walk on her own, so you'd think that in that state her team would focus on her getting through the season of the TV show without overworking her too much, right? WRONG! Apparently in August of 2012 Britney already had hit the studio with none other than Will.i.am, how do we know this? Not only it was confirmed through Britney's official Twitter account, but Will's car also got robbed by some randoms and they posted the things they found in it on a YouTube video, one of the items displayed in said video was a CD that said "Easy Ft. Britney Spears", presumably the first version of the dreaded It Should Be Easy, which funnily enough has an alternative version registered on ASCAP with David Guetta credited in it. Gladly, we know those self proclaimed Will.i.am enders were legit, as they posted online the video of Hoola-Hoop with Nicole Scherzinger and his collaboration with JB early; All of these posts are still up on their channel in case you're curious and want to check them out, but if you ask me, they give me PR stunt vibes:

 

So yeah, we have solid proof that Britney was already hitting the studio by the end of the summer of 2012, all while being a judge on the X Factor and giving her best stank faces to the Fifth Harmony girls, how crazy!

 

As if Easy wasn't enough, Britney got together again with Will.i.am about a month later to cut the iconic Scream & Shout, specifically on September 23rd according to the files of the recording session that recently surfaced online, miraculously, everything he did with him up until this point was for his own project Will Power, since a Britney album release wasn't a priority for RCA, but after seeing she was down to record music they started booking sessions for Britney's own music, being the first producer spotted with her none other than Darkchild, who made a cameo with Britney at an studio on a teaser for the X Factor on October 5th of 2012, later confirming his involvement in new Spears music, stating that he wasn't sure if it was going to make the cut but things were on the way (bro was traumatized after half of his stuff got cut off Femme Fatale )

 

Funnily enough, during that month one of the tweets that is for sure in the top 10 best moments before disaster was posted, with "Britney" (A.K.A her then manager Adam Leber) asking the fans if they wanted a Blackout 2.0 only to get Britney Jean in exchange... It still makes me wanna cry to this day. 

 

Anyway, coming back to the main topic, after Darkchild and Britney working on stuff together went public, other producers also confirmed their involvement shortly after, with Elijah Blake coming clean about having recently worked with Spears on December of 2012 on a tweet and also through an interview with That Grape Juice, stating, and I quote "I think her fans will be surprised by it. I would say its definitely the 'unexpected' Britney in so many ways, in that she's playing with new textures and stomping on new grounds and genres".

Hit-boy and Danja also claimed around this time that they were working on material for her, but it all got axed in the end and we don't know anything substancial about it other than some instrumental Danja shared with the fans back in the day.

Britney also backed up these affirmations saying she was working on exciting stuff with new producers on a tweet.

(The ominous comment in portuguese asking him to not speak too much or he'd end up being boycotted is chilling )

 

Things were going well so far in the Britney world, but as you know, this story doesn't have a happy ending, and after finishing her gig as an X Factor judge to focus on her own career, things almost inmediatly took a turn for the worse. In April, RCA was starry eyed after Scream & Shout's success, and they wanted to replicated so of course they thought Bringing Will.i.am on board along with his protégé Anthony Preston as the executive producers of the album was a brilliant idea, because what could go wrong, so in May 8th they were announced as the executive producers of her 8th LP along with Britney's manager Adam Leber. In April of that same year Will.i.am confessed to Rolling Stone they've had recording sessions galore and lunch meetings to discuss what songs they wanted to write according to the former Black Eyed Peas member, apparently his food was the only thing he ate in those reunions with Britney, because his production skills left us starved.

 

Rani Hancock was designated as the A&R for Britney during this era, which is important because she seemed to have very strong ties with Dr. Luke before the #FreeKesha movement started, being involved in EVERY album by an A-Lister she supervised, ranging from all of Kesha's first three efforts to Adam Lambert's tresspasing and Miley's Bangerz. Don't forget Luke is a key part on the mess that Britney Jean was, as he was who discovered Myah Marie and pushed her to be Britney's backup singer on the song Circus and many tracks of Femme Fatale, so he was the one who brought her back to work with Britney.

 

Contrary to some fans' belief, Britney wasn't skipping any recording sessions and she was actually seen almost daily hitting the booth for months straight, but then, what was the thing that caused the whole Myah debacle...? It was the combination of many factors, first of all, apparently wasn't pleased with the direction the album was taking and how it quickly deviated from her original vision, as she constantly mentioned during her interviews that the album was going to have more of an urban and hip-hop tone to it than it's predecessors, description which only seems to fit Tik Tik Boom and maybe Work *****, but that's about it, which caused her to grow distant or the project and not properly recording some songs, making Anthony Preston retaliate using some of Myah's takes to substitute Britney's more lackluster ones; according to an earwitness, her vocals were specially unsavory in the Passenger recording session. Producers also allegedly found Will.i.am hard to work with, specifically William Orbit, who was shocked to hear that the final version of Alien had a glitch in it that wasn't present on his original mix, and literally called the BEP frontmant bossy despite being on good terms with him, explaining in The Guardian "I'm friendly with Will [...] All I'll say is that there was a frisson there. If I work with an artist, they are the goddess, they are the boss. If I want to be the boss, I'll make my own records. You're here to be in the service of a true pop star – if you don't have that attitude, you shouldn't be in the game."

 

As if that wasn't enough, the album was 100% completely rushed because of the inauguration of Britney's Las Vegas residency became the priority of her team as it was an high profit/low effort investment, and the album suffered from many last minute tracklist changes before the physical copies were pressed. According to Joki, one of the producers of Tik Tik Boom, which originally featured Lil Wayne, he said he was contacted through Will.i.am to work with Britney but he was also in a songwriting camp with Darkchild, and that there was a fully mastered Snoop Dogg collaboration on the album that was scrapped along with at least 3 more tracks he worked in, probably in favor of the EDM songs as Las Vegas at the time was the capital of that genre and it's what they thought locals would want to hear from Britney. In conclusion, Luke hooked up Anthony Preston with Myah Marie, thought some of Britney's vocals were choppy and substituted them Myah's thinking no one would even notice it since there was no way that Britney was going to be down recut the tracks, all while obviously not telling Britney herself or the other producers involved in the project about it.

 

All of the hip hop producers who reached out to Britney for this project were obviously left out, the biggest losses being Mike Will Do It, who allegedly recorded with Britney a track called "Outta Control" and a Wiz Khalifa collaboration called Police, make the matter worse, if they didn't want to follow Britney's vision of an urban flavored pop record, they still had thousands of high profile collaborators rooting to make music for Britney, with Dev Hynes A.K.A Blood Orange sending a bunch of demos to her team, Charli XCX being brought in as a songwriter for unused pitch tracks like the recently surfaced Bonnie & Clyde, produced by William Orbit and a tropical house Sean Paul collaboration called "I Came To Dance". Reportedly other old acquaintances of Britney were also fighting to get back in touch with her, being the most prominent figures Bonnie McKee, Ester Dean and Bloodshy, who submitted a beautiful ballad called "Cologne" performed by Sia, that quite literally is Perfume's prettier sister, along with a demo performed by Myah Marie called "Lover Boy" with a sort of experimental vibe to it. 

 

Spoiler

Some sightings of Spears going to the recording studio in April, July and October of 2013

Before the era officially started, two songs which I think are remarkable enough to be mentioned were released and I suspect they've some sort of impact on the record, the first of these tracks being Ooh La La, a Luke production surprisingly devoid of any Myah Marie backups and with harmonic contributions of none other than the popstar turned astronaut Katy Perry, who also originally wrote Passenger, probably that track came to fruition thanks to the meetings their teams had during the making of the Smurfs 2 and Sia acting as a middleman between the two, sadly, Passenger is all over the place, so thanks for nothing ladies! On the other hand the Miley Cyrus collaboration Bangerz actually made sense within the context of the urban vibe Britney was looking for, but had a few Myah Marie vocals left in it, probably a result of being recorded in the latest sessions of the album and Myah now being a centerfold of it's recording process, as she confessed that when she was brought in to sing background vocals for the album the songs Britney was doing were very different.

 

To conclude, now we can see Britney Jean is an album that became the hot mess we know and loathe due to an accumulation of fatalities one on top of the other, creating the perfect storm of pop atrocities that left a permanent mark on an otherwise almost flawless discography.

I'd like to thank everyone who made it this far and read this whole post! If you want more deep dives into the making of Britney's albums, here are links to my other two threads. Toodles! 

 

Original B9/Glory

Femme Fatale 1.0

Edited 3 hours ago by WaterDiamonds

[geddymonster]

I will say the Dolby Atmos version is listenable.

[David_Greengrass97]

My favourite Britney Spears album 🥰

idc if you BS stans tell me "Oh God. Babe, it's the worst album of her."

No!

No!

And no! It's my first-ever BS album I've ever listened to and I have a lot of memories with it. 

Saved this for later to read when I'll be on bed 😪 🛏️ 

[ShadeIena]

Britney Jean was originally a Hip Hop / Urban album , I also heard she had trip-hop infused beats.

 

But she also was still in her EDM bag, the demo of Tik Tok Boom sounded like this and was made around the time she was exploring that urban sound 

 

 

[ShadeIena]

3 minutes ago, geddymonster said:

I will say the Dolby Atmos version is listenable.

The Myah Free versions on YouTube ate tho

[juancsantoyo]

Thanks for sharing! 

[Sugar-Rush]

How did that tweet of her teasing her collab with will.i.am in 2012 only get 1K Likes? And this was before Manjobi

[Qmhp]

Great post. Thank you sweetheart 

[Zeferino]

They will never make me like you, Myah Jean 

[SpaceOddity]

Massive stain in her legacy and solely responsible for killing her hitmaking days. Not saying that the original hip/hop urban blueprint of B8 would've sold better, but it would've for sure been much more acclaimed and loved by the fans just like Glory. 

[Loca]

We are all Britney Jean

[LadyDiana]

I liked work *****, video was great, promo was weird as ****, sadly they abandoned the project after perfume, one more single could have been released, forgettable album with some catchy songs

[Negiiiii]

Wait I love these posts omg.

 

a hip hop album? I would have collapsed my godness I need that

[Snickers]

3 hours ago, ShadeIena said:

Britney Jean was originally a Hip Hop / Urban album , I also heard she had trip-hop infused beats.

 

But she also was still in her EDM bag, the demo of Tik Tok Boom sounded like this and was made around the time she was exploring that urban sound 

 

 

Gosh this demo is something else 

 

The final product was miles better.

[Princess Aurora]

Britney Jean is probably the most chaotic pop album of all time.

[Saint James]

5 hours ago, WaterDiamonds said:

Ooh La La, a Luke production surprisingly devoid of any Myah Marie backups and with harmonic contributions of none other than the popstar turned astronaut Katy Perry, who also originally wrote Passenger, probably that track came to fruition thanks to the meetings their teams had during the making of the Smurfs 2 and Sia acting as a middleman between the two, sadly, Passenger is all over the place, so thanks for nothing ladies!

No Bonnie, no hit

[WaterDiamonds]

6 hours ago, Sugar-Rush said:

How did that tweet of her teasing her collab with will.i.am in 2012 only get 1K Likes? And this was before Manjobi

likes get erased with time, that's why old posts from decades ago almost always have more retweets than likes 

[WaterDiamonds]

6 hours ago, LadyDiana said:

I liked work *****, video was great, promo was weird as ****, sadly they abandoned the project after perfume, one more single could have been released, forgettable album with some catchy songs

Work ***** also has it's fair bit of lore behind it, allegedly an alternative cut with racier scenes exists but it was scrapped because Britney thought they were too sexy, and she was a mom, so she didn't want to be seen as a sex machine. I personally don't buy that narrative though, the whole wholesome christian mom image they pushed on her during 2012-2014 always felt very fake to me, we know for sure she didn't mind doing sexy stuff during those years because her professionalism always allowed her to separate her life as a performer and a mom (in fact we know for sure she endorsed the LaChapelle Make Me video, which was her concept, the Mario Testino 2016 shoot is one of her favorites ever, the choreographies for Touch Of My Hand and Breathe On Me for the revamped residency were extra sultry...), but her team most likely thought she'd get critized for being a mother in her 30s being cunty and they just created that narrative to prevent raising any eyebrows and eventually they let it go when they realized nobody gaf 

Edited 1 hour ago by WaterDiamonds

[Bubble Tea]

2 hours ago, Princess Aurora said:

Britney Jean is probably the most chaotic pop album of all time.

It's definitely shockingly bad for someone like Britney. To literally put someone else's voice on it, record some cheap messy **** and then slap Britney's name on it and watch her get dragged for the rest of her career when she never had a say in the matter in her conservatorship? No wonder she quit the industry.

[Princess Aurora]

1 minute ago, Bubble Tea said:

It's definitely shockingly bad for someone like Britney. To literally put someone else's voice on it, record some cheap messy **** and then slap Britney's name on it and watch her get dragged for the rest of her career when she never had a say in the matter in her conservatorship? No wonder she quit the industry.

Yeah, I don't understand why it happened, like why?

[WaterDiamonds]

6 hours ago, ShadeIena said:

Britney Jean was originally a Hip Hop / Urban album , I also heard she had trip-hop infused beats.

 

But she also was still in her EDM bag, the demo of Tik Tok Boom sounded like this and was made around the time she was exploring that urban sound 

 

 

The fact that demo of Tik Tik Boom was offered to Paris Hilton before Britney 

T.I and Myah's adlibs at the end of the song ruin it for me despite being a banger, I wish we had the demo with Lil Wayne which I'm guessing didn't have Myah belting her ass off at the end of it if Anthony Preston didn't get his greasy hands on it.

Edited 3 hours ago by WaterDiamonds

[Bubble Tea]

1 minute ago, Princess Aurora said:

Yeah, I don't understand why it happened, like why?

I think it was meant purely as a promotional tool for what was supposed to be the Domination residency. 

[Princess Aurora]

7 minutes ago, Bubble Tea said:

I think it was meant purely as a promotional tool for what was supposed to be the Domination residency. 

Oh I see. They could have involved Britney at least

[WaterDiamonds]

18 minutes ago, Princess Aurora said:

Yeah, I don't understand why it happened, like why?

Basically 1- The new vocal producer of the album brought by Will.i.am, Anthony Preston, thought some of the vocals Britney did sounded off and she wasn't down to recut them bc of tight scheduling issues, and since Dr. Luke brought back Myah to do background vocals for his songs they noticed her voice was remarkably similar to Britney's and they used her to substituted Britney's allegedly lackluster vocals, apparently the other producers weren't aware of this, proof below.

 

2-Some songs were brought so late into the recording process that they weren't even 10% or even recorded by Spears and they just shoved down the project to fit the Vegas-ready EDM quota, being Body Ache, Till It's Gone and Chilling With You, allegedly the multitrack files of these don't even have any audio labeled as "Britney". They axed some songs Britney actually laid her vocals on in exchange for those.

 

Myah recording her vocals for Alien (The last "like an alieeen" is actually Britney tho)

 

Britney's original vocal take of Alien before it got through Anthony Preston, she never recorded the "Not alone not alone not alone" part so William orbit crafted it using the "Not alone" from the chorus and melodyne, still think it sounds better than Myah's screeching vocals 

  

 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by WaterDiamonds

[Saint James]

@WaterDiamonds i've always wondered, where do you think will.i.am stands in all of this? is he a bad guy? like he's not an awful person or we would know. but i found it weird that army never talks about him even though he clearly had a good relationship with team Britney and probably had some idea of how she was being treated. he is at least partly to blame for Myah Jean being greenlit right? maybe he never treated Britney poorly, but he was certainly a silent witness and i hope karma comes for him.