Last night you may have experienced some stabbing pains in your stomach. Don’t worry, that freezer-burnt ground beef you ate was fine. It was just your inner child whooping it up inside your tummy. Cuz Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys released their new single, “Matches.” The title is an ode to Brit-Brit the Pyromaniac (this is a lazy reference to her gym burning down, yuk yuk yuk). “Matches” is included on the recent deluxe edition re-release of Britney’s latest album Glory, which came out way back in 2016. It’s the second Britney single released this month; last week we got “Swimming in the Stars”, which is… fine.
There’s no music video (and there probably won’t ever be one), but here’s the ~official~ “Matches” audio on YouTube:
Britney and those Boys from the Backstreet also posted about it:
I listened to the song a few times before beginning this article (impossible for me to listen to music and write Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism at the same time), and the robot-produced Auto-tune earworm has already embedded itself into my brain wrinkles. “Like playing with matches, matches, matches. This might leave some damage, damage, damage,” then repeat 8 times. Yep, pretty basic shit. But you bet your bottom dollar I’d be shaking my lil’ tushy to it at the bar if it weren’t pandemic-times.
Last month Britney’s lawyers told the courts that she’s scared of her father and won’t perform anymore if he continues to be in charge of her career. So I guess Brit lent her voice to these songs before that. Or maybe Daddy Spears used studio magic and old vocals to virtually construct these singles. Like in The Stepford Wives. Sigh.
Pics: Instagram