Cover Wars: "Oops! I Did It Again!"

VS.

 

Greetings everyone, and welcome to Rave Up! I am your host Barius, and today, it is time for “Cover Wars!”

Yes, I made an intro video to "Cover Wars"...

In “Cover Wars,” we examine a well-known song and compare it with a cover version that is either obscured and usually out of the genre the original song came from. And if you have not guess by now from the blog title or the giant picture at the beginning, our feature artist is none other than Britney Spears.

During the late 1990s, the world was formally introduced to Britney Spears in what was seen as a new wave of pop music artists that include Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, and Mandy Moore, as well as the infamous boy band craze that featured Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and 98 Degrees.

As I have established before in my intro blog, I tend to favor rock ‘n roll and heavy metal music. However, I do have a small soft spot for polka music, especially the polkas of “Weird Al” Yankovic.

The true King of Nerds Everywhere

Anyway, even though I love hard rock music, this blog is dedicated to all forms of music, including the styles I could care less for. This includes this genre of pop music, which I have dubbed “teen pop” due to its marketing toward teens, dominated the music scene during the time I was in middle school, which was the time when I really started looking at music. Due to its overexposure, I stayed away from it to the best of my ability and focused on the emerging rock groups of the time, like Disturbed, System of a Down, and Korn.

Heck, I recall going to some of the middle school dances with a small group rockers waiting to for them play something rock so we could collected jump up and down, Headbanging to the song. Then again, most of the time the only band they would play was Limp Bizkit…

Yeah...no comment...for now...

Sadly, no matter how hard I tried, teen pop, and in particular Britney Spears, followed me everywhere, and became a part of the nostalgia of my teenage years, for better or for worse.

It is no secret that Spears is not that great musically, and that her “music” can be either over the top or very bland. But regardless of whatever odd event goes on in Britney Spears’ life…

...Yikes...

… she still maintains her image of being a corporate product of dreadful pop music. And no one song from Spears proves that more that her hit from the year 2000, “Oops! I did it Again!”

This song was everywhere in 2000, and it proves what teen pop is: generic lyrics, a catchy beat, and marketed towards teens that have no idea about what makes music great. So naturally, the song was a hit, reaching number nine on the Billboard Top 100 chart. The music video was in heavy rotation on MTV, back when MTV show music for more than two hours in the early morning, and Spears was praise for bringing pop music back to the mainstream. As with a song so popular, there were bound to be cover versions of it, and one that seems quite surprising is one from Finnish extreme metal band, Children of Bodom.

For those of you who do not know this band, Children of Bodom formed in 1993 in Finland, and released their debut album Something Wild in 1997, one year before the teen pop craze kicked in. I started listening to Children of Bodom in 2005 with the release of their fifth studio album Are You Dead Yet? It featured hit songs like “In Your Face” and “Thrashed, Lost and Strungout.” The Japanese release of the album featured Bodom’s cover of “Oops! I did it Again,” but here in the United States, we did not receive this cover until the 2009 release of Skeletons in the Closet, a compilation cover album of songs ranging from Alice Cooper and Iron Maiden to Pat Benatar and Andrew W.K.

Honestly, this has nothing to do with this review. I just like this image of Andrew W.K.

So we have the original pop version of the song, and an extreme melodic metal cover. So, which one is the better version, Britney Spears, or Children of Bodom? Well, let us find out, in this first installment of Cover Wars with the song “Oops! I did it Again.”

The Original:

So let’s look at the original song and examine what made it a “hit.” Here is Britney Spears’ version.

First off, let us look at the main beat of the song. The drum beat is generic sounding, and follows the standard drum set pattern found in a lot of rock and pop songs.

Drummers: If you CANNOT play this basic beat, give up...

However, the instrumental parts help to mask that bland drum beat. The use of synthesized strings is okay, but it makes me wish they shelled out additional money real musician to play the string parts.

Moving on to Spears’ vocals, and they are…annoying. Right away, she squeaked a little on that opening line. Maybe she got herself confuse with another singing Brittany.

Actually, Brittany from the Chipettes can actually sing...

 

Britney Spears sounds really bored vocally, which fits the mood of the piece, which is that of a woman who is playing mind games with a man, and brushes him off. Speaking of the lyrics, they are very basic, and simplistic enough that anyone can understand. Basically, Spears manipulated this man and play with his love as if it was a game, and now she no longer cares for him. So the message for all the teenage girls out there: Play with the emotions of boys to get your way, and then dump them to move on to the next man. Britney Spears, ladies and gentlemen: The role model and voice of a generation.

Overall, Spears’ “Oops! I did it Again!” is generic pop music that is over the top, but still bogged down simplistic lyrics, and out of tune singing from Spears. There is this one spot in the song that always bugged me. It is the part after the second chorus…

"All aboard"
"Britney, before you go, there's something I want you to have"
"Oh, it's beautiful, but wait a minute, isn't this...?"
"Yeah, yes it is"
"But I thought the old lady dropped it into the ocean in the end"
"Well baby, I went down and got it for you"
"Oh, you shouldn't have"

A reference to Titanic? Really?

That movie was not even three years old when this song came out. Also, the reference, though somewhat subtle, really does not advance the song at all. Therefore, it is simple a song filler moment in an otherwise bland song.

The Cover Version:

Now that we have looked at the Britney Spears version, is the Children of Bodom version better than the original?

Well, first off, the Bodom version is very heavy in its sound, which is expected when a heavy metal band covers a song. Oddly enough, this version stays very true the original version in its instrumental parts, but with more guitars and heavier sound in drums.

Though the instrumental parts are pretty good, I feel the vocal parts are…just plain weird. It is as if Children of Bodom’s lead singer Alexi Laiho is goofing around with his vocals, and is instead making fun of the song. What I find really funny and ironic about the cover is when looking at it from a lyrical standpoint; it is a complete role reversal from the Spears version. Instead of it being about a woman who plays with a man’s emotion, it is a man who is actually playing with the emotion of the woman, a very common stereotype for men. Hooray for equal mistreatment of both genders!

When we get to the part in the Spears version that references Titanic, C.O.B. does not go that route and decide to have some banter between Alexi and Bodom’s keyboardist Janne Wirman…in Finnish, the member of Bodom’s native language. Luckily, I was able to find an English translation of it.

[Alexi Laiho and Janne Warman speakin' finnish]

"Jätkät hei, mä lähen meneen ny ihan oikeesti"
"Hei Ankku hei, ennen ku lähet ni kato mitä mä toin sulle"
"Ei jumalauta, hyvännäkönen. Siis eiks tää oo siis...."
"On on, sixpack, kyllä"
"Eihän sun ois tarvinnu hyvä mies, sitä paitsi meill' on noita väkeviä"
"Nii nii, mut aamuks!"

[English translation]

[Alexi:] "Hey guys, I will really go now..."
[Janne:] "Before you leave, look what I brought for you!"
[Alexi:] "G**dammit, looking good, isn't this a...?"
[Janne:] "Yeah yeah, sixpack yes."
[Alexi:] "Ohh, this wasn't necessary my friend... and besides, we are having some hooch here..."
[Janne:] "I know, but this is for tomorrow morning!"

So, instead of Titanic, we talk about beer. Huh…

You know what? I am convinced that this version is a parody version and not a serious one at all. Judging by the delivery of the lyrics, and the tongue and cheek Finnish parts, this is not a serious cover of the song, In other words, this version is pretty much just musical fun at Britney Spears’ expense.

The Winner:

The Children of Bodom version cannot be taken serious enough since it is a parody cover. It improves a lot of the instrumental parts of the original, but vocals are guttural, and hard to listen to. At the same time, the original version by Spears is mind-numbing boring, with Spears’ vocals being annoying and in the wrong key. So, in the end, I would say that both versions are bad. There is no clear winner. If the original version of a song is just simply bad all around, it would require a complete overhaul of the themes and rhythmic ideas to improve it. Thus, my final decision is a draw with no winner at all.

WINNER: DRAW

To be honest, I blame the result of no winner on the time period when “Oops! I Did it Again!” was release. It was a time when pop music was mindless dribble designed to sell merchandise and to turn a profit instead of being creative and musical. If only there was a time in music history where pop music was fun, creative, and demonstrates strong musicality. Hmm…I think I just set myself up for next time.

Anyway, that is all this time we have for Rave Up Music this week. As always, feel free to leave a comment, including what you would love for me to cover in a future review. Tune in next time as I present my first Top Ten list. Until then, I am Barius, and keep on rockin’…just not to Britney Spears, please.

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