(Spears, Mason, Knox, Fauntleroy)
Album: Circus
“Mannequin” is a percussion-driven electropop stunner and a hidden masterpiece on Circus. Her defiant lyrics, “You can cry your eyes out of your head/Baby, baby, I don't care, I don't care,” get swept away in this dizzy and turbulent production. Imagine Janet’s 1989 landmark Rhythm Nation got an update in the late 2000s, and this might be the result. Vocals not necessarily brought to the fore of the production, Spears is lyrically and sonically putting up a shield against emotion. The percussion-heavy instrumental culminating in an electro-siren is one of the song’s sonic highlights. For being the tenth track (and non-single) off the Circus album, it has a very interesting story arc in Britney lore. A video surfaced and was widely circulated of Spears executing some hard-hitting choreography to this song in a rehearsal hall in late 2008, reminiscent of the routines she used to execute in her dance-heavy music videos in her early career. Was she preparing for her tour? Was this going to be a single? Alas, we never got an official explanation, and “Mannequin” was never released as a single. And the few tour performances of the song during select European appearances featured different, less demanding choreography. Alas, unless this gets the “Radar” treatment and is serviced to radio long after its initial release, it will remain a hidden and underappreciated gem in her discography.
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