Electric Heartbeats

2011's music is already kicking 2010's ass hardcore badly. This March alone there are two new releases from my two main music loves: Britney Spears and The Sounds. Both are electro-trashy goodness and both keep me dancing no matter where I am.

Britney Spears

Femme Fatale

Britney said in a recent interview that "the bitch is back and better than ever." Truer words have never been spoken. Say what you will about how guarded she is, but all I see is a mom who wants to have a career and her kids...leave thegirl alone.

Especially when she's making music this fierce.

All I'm going to say is that I can't wait to see how she outdoes herself yet again live.

Love, love, love this album.

Best Tracks: For real...there's only one track on here that I skip...but if you're looking for the ones that get that five minute drive to and from work replay, look no further than "How I Roll" which is so un-Britney and is so why I love it so much, "Criminal" which with my true crime spree as of late is no surprise, "Gasoline" which is really very punny in the best possible way, "Trouble for Me" which is just too damn catchy and "Inside Out."

The Sounds

Better Off Dead

While I totally respect The Sounds for the direction that their last album took, it's not one that I put on and just want to dance, except, of course, for "Beat Box" and "Four Songs and a Fight."

But they, too, are back and better than ever.

With an edgier, darker sound, The Sounds are doing what they do best: Making you try to sit still in your seat. Because you can't. Really. It's quite impossible.

And really, Maja Ivarrson really can't do any wrong. Plus the keyboards on this album? Siiiccccckkkkkk.

Best Tracks: "It's So Easy" which is really just an extended intro to the disc but is catchy as all shit, "Dance with the Devil" because who wouldn't want to..."Better Off Dead" for it's epic build up, "Something to Die For" for it's awesome chorus, "Yeah Yeah Yeah" for nothing other than the line "You don't float like a butterfly or fight like Ali...Dress like Prince but to the lowest degree." "Wish You Were Here" deserves huge props because it's so subtle, but entirely perfect.

"The bitch is back...and better than ever."

Britney's been choosing her magazine interviews lately, to me, very smartly. Between "Out" and "V" she's gotten the chance to be more aware and more her. It's the most genuine she's felt in years...

Not to mention that the following paragraph from "Out" is so fabulous, that I had to post it here:

There are few things our culture has come to relish more than fattening up a pop star on a greasy diet of hype and frenzied devotion, only to then turn around and eat her alive an album or two later. It’s become a national pastime we practice in the less savory corners of the Internet or while unloading our Aquafresh and baked Cheetos onto the check-out line conveyor belt. Nobody knows this better than Britney Spears.

Ever since she snarled onto the scene in her Catholic school girl uniform in 1999, Spears has been the go-to girl whenever the world is looking for a punch line or a punching bag. At first it was "her music has no substance" or "she’s lip synching" and then there were the darker, more troubling episodes in her life to mine for material. But we have a confession to make: We love Britney.

We love her because she gives us the kind of pop music we demand for our workouts and woozy weekend nights, and because she has never tried to play the guitar or wandered off to make a country album. We love her because she’s a survivor, and for all of the shit that’s said about her, she still glides to the top of the charts whenever she releases an album. We love her because she has a "BS Alert" on her website to squash the almost daily rumors of new pregnancies, marriages, or demands to someday be cryogenically frozen. We love her because even the Super Bowl’s rabid, testosterone-drunk fans couldn’t keep her from being the top trending item on Twitter on the biggest sports Sunday of the year. We love her because she loves strawberry Frappuccinos and grits blanketed in Velveeta cheese. We love her because in 2010 she raked in more money than Lady Gaga even though her latest album, Circus, was already well over a year old. We love her because for all the pythons and pyrotechnics and red vinyl cat suits, she still feels like someone we could dish with about boys over a basket of bread sticks at the Olive Garden. We love her because she keeps us dancing, she keeps us guessing, and while the other famous former Mouseketeers have dried up, bombed out, or otherwise failed to keep our interest, Britney still has us coming back for more.

To quote the Queen herself,

"Pure. Satis. Faction."

The Bird. With Teeth.