15 Most Profitable Female Tours

It's Madonna vs. Britney Spears, who had the most profitable tour in the last decade? While Britney had two spots in the top 12, Madonna topped the list with her latest tour. Check out People magazine's list of the top 15 most profitable female tours from the last decade:

01- The Sticky & Sweet World Tour - Madonna - 2008-2009
02- The Confessions World Tour - Madonna - 2006
03- The Reinvention World Tour - Madonna - 2004
04- The Farewell World Tour - Cher - 2002-2005
05- The Circus Starring: Britney Spears World Tour - Britney - 2009
06- The Taking Chance World Tour - Celine Dion - 2008-2009
07- I Am World Tour - Beyonce - 2009-2010
08- "X2008? World Tour - Kylie Minogue - 2008
09- Back to Basics World Tour - Christina Aguilera - 2007
10- Drowned World Tour - Madonna - 2001
11- The Beyonce Experience World Tour - Beyonce - 2007
12- Dream Within a Dream World Tour - Britney Spears - 2001-2002
13- Showgirl Homecoming Tour - Kylie Minogue - 2006-2007
14- Funhouse World Tour - P!nk - 2009
15- I Told I Was Trouble World Tour - Amy Winehouse - 2006-2008

Britney was also part of the The Sticky & Sweet World Tour from Madonna when she made a guest appearance in Los Angeles. Together with Madonna she performed "Human Nature."

Source: People Magazine

21 May 2010

Oops! Album Turns 10 Years Old

Today marks the 10-year anniversary of Britney's sophomore album, Oops!...I Did It Again. The record brought about such hits as "Oops!...I Did It Again," "Lucky," "Stronger" and "Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know." More Oops! facts:

- Sold well over 1.3 million copies in its first week of sales, shattering a world record
- Certified Diamond by the RIAA, selling over 17 million copies worldwide
- Houses Britney's first song-writing credit for "Dear Diary"
- Title track and single "Oops!...I Did It Again" was a #1 hit in 20 countries
- Spent 84 consecutive weeks on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart
- Was the third best-selling album of 2000
- During album promotion, Britney both hosted and performed in an episode of Saturday Night Live, breaking the record for the youngest person in the show's history to appear as both host and musical guest
- Her Oops! tour marked Britney's first time touring outside of the U.S. and grossed over $40 million
- Won two Billboard Music Awards - Album Artist of the Year and World-Record Breaker of the Year
- Ironically, "Lucky" was Britney's seventh single and is the seventh track on the album

Source: Britney.com

16 May 2010

Britney's "Telephone" Beats Gaga's

(Article by Rob Sheffield)
Ever since Britney Spears' demo version of Lady Gaga's "Telephone" leaked this week, fans have been buzzing. Producer Rodney Jerkins quickly confirmed that it really was Britney singing, but any seasoned Britneyologist could already identify it by ear within a couple of bars - nobody else pronounces the consonant "r" or the long vowel "e" like our girl. It has all the distinctive vocal tics of Britney, or at least the laptop that does her singing. At this point, I've come to love Britney's demo even more than Gaga's already-brilliant hit version. Even though it's a more bare-bones production, it amps up all the seething rage in the song, stripping it down to the killer combo of a plucked harp and a jaded party girl strung out on Auto-Tune and paranoia.

"Telephone" actually sounds a lot like Britney's 2007 hit "Piece of Me," proving yet again how much impact Britney has had on the sonics of current pop. People love to make fun of Britney, and why not, but if "Telephone" proves anything, it's that Blackout may be the most influential pop album of the past five years. The demo is lighter than Gaga's production, cutting out all the rock bombast, but that just makes the song more linear and urgent. It reduces "Telephone" to a drum machine, that harp, a magic box of vocal effects, and the concept that a girl's soul and a magic box of vocal effects can sometimes be the exact same thing.

Britney uses Auto-Tune the way Bob Dylan used his harmonica - for punctuation, for atmosphere, for an alienatingly weird sound effect. It's a blast of vocal distortion, harsh on the surface, but expressive, capable of sounding wildly funny or abrasively pissed-off or seductive. In "Telephone," as in "Piece of Me," the Auto-Tune does for her voice what the harmonica does for Dylan's in "It Ain't Me, Babe" - a way of telling the world to keep its hands off you. Britney is talking to her phone, talking to the boy who keeps calling, talking herself out of compulsively checking her phone. The way her voice fades in and out of Auto-Tune - mostly in - is totally brilliant. Like Bob Dylan (and I swear this is the last time I'll mention his name right now, despite the millions of things he and Brit have in common) Britney loves to cross-fade between a human voice (hey world, take a look at me, I'm a star, I'm somebody, pay attention) and a machine voice (hey world, fuck off, you can't reach me, I don't believe you, you're a liar).

The point isn't whether Britney is punching the buttons herself. (When is that ever the point with a pop star?) It's the romance going on between the voice and the machine. Part of what makes Britney the perfectest of perfect pop stars is the way she expresses her personality most passionately when she's turning herself into a machine - surrendering to the beat, disappearing into the thrill of the pop moment, singing like a robot. That's what makes her sound so human after all. In "Telephone," she doesn't want to think any more, talk any more, feel any more - she just wants to hit the floor and dance to the rhythm machines until she turns into a machine herself.

Nothing could express the Britney cosmology like a phone song, since phone songs are usually a place where singers distort their vocals to sound like they're on the line - my favorite might be ELO's "Telephone Line," Kraftwerk's "The Telephone Call," or maybe Missy Elliott, Timbaland and Nicole Wray's "Make It Hot." But it's ideal for Britney - especially when the phone song doubles as an "I'm out on the club jumping on strange boys" anthem. She's kind of biz-zaaay. She's kind of biz-zaaay. You can't hurt her, can't even touch her, because she's kind of biz-zaaay. Call all you want but she's not at home, and you're not gonna reach her telephone.

I'm definitely not disparaging Gaga's version - I couldn't live without it, especially not her Beyoncé video epic. But "Telephone" has so much Britney in it, it's no big surprise to learn that Gaga may have written the song for her. Since Britney is the perfect pop star, and songs about telephones are always excellent, it's a just plain mathematical fact that Britney's "Telephone" is a perfect pop song, and the world is an infinitely better place because it exists.

Bizarro note: despite all the advances in phone technology over the past 25 years, both versions of "Telephone" end with the same recorded message from the Replacements' 1984 punk rock classic "Answering Machine." That Britney - she is so punk.

Source: Rolling Stone

07 May 2010

"Telephone" Demo Leak

Over the weekend, music blogs all over the Internet went into a frenzy over a supposed Britney Spears version of Lady Gaga's "Telephone," but many were unsure whether it was actually the singer on the track. Last night, the producer of the song, Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, took to Ustream to clarify that while he had no part in leaking the track, it is indeed Ms. Spears.

"As y'all know, it's been an overwhelming day today. I want to say to all the people on Twitter, all Britney's fans, all the Darkchild fans, I was caught off guard last night with this 'Telephone' leak of Britney," he said.

"I've been asked to leak the version, and I haven't leaked the version, and then last night, there was a version leaked. I really don't know who leaked the version. It was an early demo stage of the version. It wasn't even a mixed version. I would never leak something without Britney's approval, without Larry Rudolph, without Jive Records," Darkchild continued.

While the producer made sure he cleared the air about the leak, he also spilled a few details about a recent visit he had with Britney's manager Larry Rudolph. "On Saturday evening, the night of the [Floyd Mayweather/ Shane Mosley] fight, and we had an incredible conversation about Britney Spears' new album. And we talked about the direction of her album, he gave me some insight into the direction and he wants me to work on stuff for the album," he said.

The producer went on to assert that he's very focused on the pop singer, and he's determined to "write an international smash for her new album."

And when it comes to delivering top-notch songs, Darkchild admitted that he's studied the singer's most recent albums in preparation to serve up something greater.

"I think the fans deserve it, I think Britney deserves it and I can't wait to get back into the studio with Britney. I'm about to go crazy on making something that's so crazy. Since I've had that conversation with Larry Rudolph, I've studied some stuff from her last album and the Blackout album, and that was great stuff, but I think I'm going to bring something a little bit greater

Source: MTV News

04 May 2010