Time goes by so slowly for those who wait — except for those who leak. Then time goes by pretty damn quickly.
A few minutes ago, a new song from The Holy Spearit‘s upcoming eighth studio album Britney Jean surfaced upon the Interwebz. It’s called “Passenger.” It was pulled off the net quickly, because duh.
Regardless, the song’s pretty gorgeous — kind of like a mix between Rihanna‘s “Diamonds” and Femme Fatale‘s “He About To Lose Me.” There’s a jarring electronic intro, which is basically the stuff of Spearitual Ray Of Light dreams, until the track punches into a guitar-laced midtempo. Boom boom baybeh, pick B up in your Mercedes — ’cause she wants you to be a little sailfish and take the keys to her boh-deh: “I’ll let you lead the way now, ’cause I want you to take the wheel / I’ve never been a passenger, though / I never knew how good it could feel.”
Only problem? The quality seems a bit, um, Dubiousney. Most of those vocals sound Spearitual — but a few moments, especially that high note in second verse and the bridge at the end, seem rather, uh, Myah Marie-esque (Britney’s frequent background vocalist/session singer, if you weren’t already formally acquainted.) Then again, we haven’t really heard Britney actually singing for a really long time, so who knows how her voice sounds these days? After all, it’s not like she’s been belting tunes live for us anytime in the past decade. (Truth tea — err, truth sweet tea.)
It’s sort of hard to really get excited about the leak, though, because there’s still a month to go until the album drops. “Perfume” is off spritzing the lower regions of US iTunes (but slaying at #5 in Moldova and Azerbaijan, last time I checked), so maybe that should be the focus still? And also, who knows if this is even the final album version? Also, does anyone know who’s working on this album? And perhaps more importantly, who is watching over this album? What the fuck?
Basically — to whichever forum troll or pressed mix engineer that got their hands on the album (or Legendtina, maybe) — please don’t leak it. You’re fucking this up for everybody.
So, uh, in conclusion: #BuyPerfumeOniTunes. But hey — at least this song’s great!
Britney Jean will be released on December 3. (iTunes)