Producer reveals what Britney is like to work with when she hates a song
Turns out Brit is one of those walk in, see your date and leave kinda people
By Joshua Haigh
It turns out Britney Spears doesn’t like to let people down.
The legendary pop star has churned out smash after smash, and she’s worked with some of the best producers in the world during her lengthy career.
When she was recording Femme Fetale, UK producer Fraser T Smith got a call from the star, who invited him to come and work on their track “Trouble for Me” together.
Speaking about the experience, the producer told the BBC: “So me and my engineer went straight home to pack our bags; caught the flight, got off the plane in LA, and straight into a limousine. We walked into the studio and the first person we saw was this diminutive blonde girl who said, ‘Hi, I’m Britney. Are we ready to record?’
“I went to get a very strong cup of coffee and we did the session. Then she said, ‘I’ll be back tomorrow morning at 11 to hear it,’ so we worked through the night to make her vocals sound as good as they could be – which was great, because she gave us loads of takes. And, as you know, her sound is very much about vocal production, so we used a lot of tricks.”
But Fraser admits he was nervous before working with the star, because he’d heard that she had a pretty blunt way of letting her collaborators know when she wasn’t feeling the track.
“I’d heard stories before that if she wasn’t feeling a song, she’d say, ‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ then get in the car and go home. So there was quite a lot of pressure!
Iconic.
But thankfully for Fraser, Britney ended up liking what they’d been working on.
“When she came in at 11, we both had matchsticks propping open our eyes and I played the song, not knowing how she was going to react. As it got to the chorus I took a very sly glance over my shoulder and she was dancing, which was just an amazing sign. When we got to the end and she said, ‘I absolutely love it’.
He added: “So that was a great experience. Literally 48 hours, and we slept on the flight home.
Trouble for Me wasn’t the only song that ended up making Femme Fetale.
Fraser also worked on Japanese bonus track Scary, which ended up being a low-key fan favourite when it made it’s way online.
Listen below: