“Gimme More” by Britney Spears

Britney Spears’ “Gimme More” is in fact a dance song. But more to the intended point is it centering on “dirty dancing” – and no, we’re talking about of the Patrick Swayze variety. 

In fact in process, Britney gives her partner “permission” to put her in whatever type of “crazy position” he likes. And with the lyrics being placed in some type of communal setting like a party or nightclub, of course there’s people watching them get down. 

But instead of feeling apprehensive, the singer is actually deriving encouragement from all of the attention to get even raunchier. But it isn’t like she’s trying to put on a show for perverts per se.  Instead it reads more like she is caught up in the moment with her partner, to the point where she is more or less ignoring everyone else in the vicinity.

Who is her dance partner?

Whether or not said dance partner is her actual lover is not specified. But as far as this performance goes, we might as well classify him as such. For as mentioned above, it is a no-limits’ type of affair. 

The narrator herself has basically shed all inhibition and “just can’t control” herself on the dance floor. 

Indeed as indicated by the title, she has become insatiable and is encouraging him to ‘give her more’ – a statement with a definite sexual connotation. 

But again, she is not referring to actual sex.  Instead her focus is on sexualized dancing. And whereas, based on the second verse for instance, she is making the titular demand to a dance partner, we can also postulate that, with the bridge of the song and music video in mind, that Britney may be alluding to something like stripping, with the addressee being the audience.

Conclusion

But conclusively, we don’t want to make this analysis more complicated than it has to be, as this is a pretty simple song as far as its main narrative goes. And at the end of the day, the most-comprehensive way of describing it is as being centered on some type of publicly-displayed, sexualized dancing.

Music Video

Britney Spears chose Jake Sarfaty to direct the music video to “Gimme More”. And they filmed it in a warehouse located in Los Angeles. 

It went on to be more or less panned by critics, even to the point of being parodied by Eminem in one of his own music videos (“We Made You”). In the said video, Em employed a drag performer and established Britney impersonator to imitate her. 

And the reason for the poor reception of the video of “Gimme More” was apparently the fault of Spears herself, as according to the makeup artist who worked on the clip Britney “sabotaged the director by refusing to perform and follow the script”.

Facts about “Gimme More”

This is the lead single from “Blackout”, Britney Spears’ fifth studio album. The song’s official release date, about two months before the album itself came out, was on 31 August 2007. And it was done so by Jive Records.

This song was written by pop singer Keri Hilson alongside Jim Beanz, Marcella Araica and Danja.  And the latter, a musician from Virginia Beach, also produced the track.

This is one of the first songs Danja, who would later become an established hitmaker, produced solo.

Britney Spears recorded her vocals to this song while she was very much pregnant with Jayden James, her second son. She eventually gave birth to him on 12 September 2006. 

“Gimme More” at the MTV Awards

Spears opened the 2007 edition of the MTV Video Music Awards with a performance of “Gimme More”. And that particular “fiasco”, as one New York Times’ critic put it, was predicted by another from the BBC to “go down in… history… as being one of the worst to grace the MTV Awards”.

Britney is of course a seasoned entertainer and was so even as far as back as 2007. So the reason the aforementioned MTV performance did not come off well has been attributed to the fact that she was dealing with a number of personal issues at the time. 

Indeed said event marked the first time she performed in front of a televised audience in three years (a period in which she was married, divorced, had two children, a couple of public mental breakdowns, etc.). 

However public knowledge of such still did not prevent people from mocking the performance nonetheless. In fact the backlash got so bad that just a day afterwards an inconspicuous internet personality by the name of Chris Crocker posted a video online entitled Leave Britney Alone!  And in defending her, Crocker himself became an internet celebrity.

And also on a more-positive note, said performance and all it entailed was seen as sort of a turning point in pop history.  That is to say that with Britney Spears so publicly going through a number of mental issues in the late 2000s, it then became more common for pop singers – and even celebrities in general – to open up about their own issues.

Success of “Gimme More”

But that being noted, the audio itself was a lot better received than the visuals used to market it.  For instance, the track scored a number three on both the Billboard Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart. This was in addition to topping Billboard’s Dance Club Songs list. 

And that was the best performance of a Britney song on the Hot 100 since she dropped her very-first track, “Baby One More Time” (1998), almost a decade earlier.

Additionally “Gimme More” has gone double-platinum in Canada (where it also stopped the Canadian Hot 100), and worldwide it has charted in nearly 30 nations.

Amongst the artists who have covered “Gimme More” is Miley Cyrus, who did so in 2020.

“It’s Britney, b*t*h”

This song opens up with the phrase “it’s Britney, b*tch”, and that line alone has become sort of famous. For instance, Jay-Z sampled it on his 2013 track BBC. 

And MTV also secured the exclusive legal rights to sell the phrase as a ringtone. And for the record, it was Jim Beanz who came up with that particular line.

Also concerning “it’s Britney, b*t*h”, a fan started a trend in 2018 where the audience would yell “who is it” before Spears delivers said phrase during live performances.