RollingStone
www.rollingstone.com
After a seemingly endless stream of teaser clips, the full music video for Britney Spears' "Hold It Against Me" has finally arrived. The video, which was directed by Jonas Åkerlund, is a mix of everything we've come to expect from Britney -- sexy costumes, elaborate choreography, good-girl pouting and bad-girl strutting -- pushed way over the top. It's a total visual assault, complete with a futurist set and exploding pyrotechnics.
People
www.people.com
The wait is over!
The video for Britney Spears's new single, "Hold It Against Me," premiered Thursday night at 9:55 p.m. ET on MTV and on the Web.
And Britney fans should be pleased! The pop star looks as delicious as ever as she writhes around futuristic settings in microscopic shorts and red, sequined shoulder pads.
The best part of the video, which was directed by Jonas Akerlund, is a full-action fight sequence with edgy camera work against jumpy bass riffs. (The worst part is all the product placement!)
Close to the end of the video, Britney whips her long, blond hair back and forth and beats herself up until collapsing in a giant wedding dress while colors shoot out of her fingernails.
"Hold It Against Me" will be on Spears's upcoming album, Femme Fatale.
Lady Gaga better bring it.
Access Hollywood
www.accesshollywood.com
The pop princess debuted the music video for her new single, “Hold It Against Me,” on MTV and Vevo.com on Thursday night — and the sexy singer definitely brought her A-game!
In the video – ripe with fast cuts and multiple glaring product placements (including her fragrance Radiance, Makeup Forever, Sony and the online dating site PlentyOfFish.com) — a lean, glammed-up Britney is seen prowling around the futuristic space, surrounded by various TV equipment and rocking a white bridal-esque gown, before slowly ascending toward the ceiling. Brit then shows off her famous abs in her signature white midriff-baring crop-top and her itty-bitty denim cut-off shorts.
Next, it’s a Britney-on-Britney catfight as the singer appears to wage war on… herself (in stilettos, or course), before shooting neon-colored paint at the surrounding TV monitors from her fingertips, flinging color all over her formerly pristine white gown (think: Willow Smith’s “Whip My Hair).
Brit also rocks a black leather mini-dress for the video’s high-energy dance sequence.
MTV
www.mtv.com
It's not a stretch to call "Hold It Against Me" the most anticipated video of Britney Spears' 11-year career; after all, how many of her clips were preceded by a two-week teaser-thon that drove tens of millions of video streams and fans to the brink?
It's too soon to tell where the video will settle into Ms. Spears' pantheon of visually innovative music videos: pop-culture touchstone like " ... Baby One More Time" (the schoolgirl outfit) or "Oops! ... I Did It Again" (the red-leather catsuit), the darkly foreboding "Everytime" or über-sexy "I'm a Slave 4 U." Either way, it manages to outgun all those clips — and pretty much everything Brit's done since her 2007 Blackout album — in terms of sheer spectacle, while, at the same time managing to display an amazing amount of restraint.
Because while it covers similar themes of many of her videos — the constant spotlight under which Brit lives her life (see "Piece of Me," "Circus," "Womanizer," etc.) "HIAM" feels less heavy-handed. Sure, there are cameras, TV screens and microphones surrounding Spears at all times, but they're merely set pieces. We get the idea without having said idea shoved down our throats.
And much of the credit for that is due to director Jonas Åkerlund, who bathes Britney in a shimmering light, wraps her in a towering gown and eventually covers the entire set in DayGlo liquid spilling out of Spears' fingertips. Sure, there are also plenty of dance moves and special effects, too, but because of Åkerlund's deft, downright organic touches, "HIAM" also feels oddly elemental. The dress (from which she births her dancers), the fluid that flows from her fingertips, the softness of her hair and makeup — it all envelops the video's harsh, technological framework. There is a warmth to it, a heart that beats beneath the shiny veneer. And for a futuristic space-odyssey dance fantasy, that's saying something.
There are also the personal touches too: Check the monitors playing Britney's older clips, but most of them are doused in liquid and cast aside. And when coupled with perhaps the video's most organic moment — at clip's end, when Spears, covered in amniotic fluids, curls up in the fetal position — you get the feeling that "HIAM" also seems to contain messages of rebirth, re-emerging and beginning anew.
Yes, Britney also looks plenty hot, and the dance moves are sure to displace a hip or two, but at the end of the day, what puts "HIAM" on the pedestal of Spears' all-time best clips are the human touches. It looks great and it's certainly the biggest-budget thing she's released in a long time, but it's also restrained and controlled — still under the spotlight, but reborn and ready for the fight. There's genuine art to it, which makes it both beautiful to look at and powerful. She's not wearing a schoolgirl outfit or leaping out of airplanes, but she doesn't need to; not anymore. So while it's too early to know whether "HIAM" will be your Britney favorite just yet, give it a few years — you might be surprised by how well it sticks.
HuffingstonPost
www.huffingtonpost.com
Britney's Beautiful Jonas Åkerlund-directed Breakdown
A little after 9:55 p.m. EST Thursday, my Twitter news-feed flash-flooded into a sea of foreign (to those living in Medieval Times...) hash-tags like #HIAM, #HIAMVideoPremiere, #FemmeFatale. Which could only mean, the one and only Britney Spears (Oops!) did it again. After fourteen tepid, smoke-and-fog teasers, the highly-hyped Jonas Åkerlund-directed music video for her hard-thumping club banger of a single "Hold It Against Me" finally premiered.
I've so far refused to read full-length reviews, because the general consensus via Twitter caused me perpetual eye-rolling. Example: Mr. Perez Hilton/gaga-for-Gaga fan tweeted to "Britney" his disappointment regarding her lack of dancing. As per usual, fans remain trapped in a pre-Britney buzz-cut, "Best of..." music video collection replete with red catsuits, school-girl garb collection and frenetic pelvic thrusting dance routines -- a time wherein the pop princess was seemingly on top of the world. Um, let's not forget that she was also eighteen and giggling while claiming she'd be a virgin until marriage in Pepsi-sponsored press conferences. Times have changed.
What I'm trying to say is, at 29, "Hold It Against Me" very well may be Britney's most personal, mature and greatest work of art yet. Yes, you read it right. A-R-T (sans the ludicrous product placement). The video kicks off with a meteor racing towards earth. The explosion is Britney, showing off her midriff to a slew of flashing cameras and dancing on a lit sound-stage surrounded by half-naked, writhing male dancers. Typical Britney. But then the chorus starts and Britney, in a flowing wedding dress, is hauntingly elevated into the air with surrounding futuristic screens basically playing, yep, a "Best of..." Britney video collection. With her golden locks and caked-on makeup, this is a return to the old, squeaky-clean Britney. This is how fans wish to remember her pre-babies/divorce/rehab: our beautiful and perfect pop princess, celestial, flying free and on top of the world and looking down on little ol' us. But I can't help but notice Britney's sad, soulful eyes, her subtext screaming to the cameras, "I'm not a Slave 4 U, I won't gimme you more, I'm no longer a girl, but I'm a woman with real life issues who sometimes tours the world and breaks records. You want a piece of me? Take your best shot. Here I am."
Other up-to-interpretation scenes reveal a Britney surrounded by a wreath of microphones (she's always gotta be "on!", the microphones are her shadow), and Britney battling (in fancy stilettos) a look-a-like. But there's no winner (she's her only competition, the only one standing in her way is herself a la Black Swan). She eventually comes "back to life" on stage for the confetti-exploding, choreographed closing scene celebration, which presents a return to old school Britney (Look, she's dancing in a cute Britney outfit! She fell and got back up! Another "comeback"!)
But the most moving part of the entire five-minutes comes during the dub-step breakdown, in which neon paint shoots from Brit Brit's finger tips, covering the screens projecting her immaculate, former self and drenching her pristine white wedding dress. Uh oh! Britney is going "crazy" again and her kingdom of followers (in this case, the probably Terence Koh-inspired identical figures without eyes who struggle aimlessly under her billowing dress) have lost, and are lost, without their Queen.
So, this is why I have no problem with the lack of hard-hitting choreography in this music video. The video, to me, quite complexly represents something quite simple. Although uber-fans (okay, or just me) playfully refer to her as Godney, she's oh-so-human. The once picture-perfect pop star has returned and is offering fans the new, worn-and-torn and yes, stronger than yesterday Britney.
A recap. She lands on earth, it explodes. She flies in the air like an angel with her mega-fans dancing blindingly underneath her. She can't always handle the pressure of living up to her greatest hits constantly following her and the world wanting a piece of her. She battles herself, falls down, gets back up, and we all watch in anticipation and obsession while switching on the record button. But everything's gonna be okay. Because she's Britney, bitch, a Southern gal with big dreams who stole and broke the world's heart. She needn't give an elaborate explanation for this video. It is what it is: Britney at her most authentic, the sometimes frappuccino guzzling (and a bit hay-zay) pop icon. Take it or leave it. But don't hold it against her.
