Omg, Elton & Britney’s “Hold Me Closer” is actually very beautiful

OP is deaf.

Thank you, Mrs. Elton.

R1 it’s great

Fun

Cute butt, nice body, but I've seen better heads on boils

R5= Christina Aguilera

All I heard was: Mumble. Mumble. Hold me closer tiny dancer. Mumble. Mumble. Mumble.

R7 it’s the same lyrics as the OG song.

Apparently they used state of the art communication and recording technology to produce it.

I can never quite tell where Britney's voice ends and the robot voice begins, but I like most of her music.

I like the sound of this a lot more than the original version of the song.

A long time ago, I used to wonder why Britney's producers from album to album selected such strange-sounding male background vocalists and I eventually realized that her vocals when layered make that distinctive and mildly unpleasant harmony. I think that it also sounds robotic, just her voice layered on top of itself, and some of the specific sound we hear as processed vocals may be just the sound of her voice blended with the sound of her voice. I actually like her voice when it isn't layered. It's very nasal and definitely flawed and sometimes comes close to the hiccupy tic that makes Michael Jackson so hard to listen to, but it's also warm and unique and emotive.

It sucks.

So Elton tried to make a bit with Britney is the same style as his remake of (I forget - rocket man?) with Dua Lipa. This isn’t nearly as good. Partly because britney can’t sing as well and needs to be drastically enhanced. It will get some airplay at a few clubs etc but even Elton knows it’s a stinker. Otherwise they would have released it earlier in the summer to be the “song of the summer” big hit or held onto it until next spring. It’s much more repetitive than the dua lipa duet. I have no plans to listen to it again.

will this hasten the brit-brit death watch...

so much money in the pool now.

Oh please. Dua Lipa isn’t any better than Britney. Also, the songs are very different. Stop comparing them. He’s clearly remaking his classics into modern pop dance songs with pop stars who came after him. I love the idea and I love both songs.

R12 why would they have released it earlier in the summer when he didn’t reach out to her to record it until last month?

What a stupid comment.

It wasn’t recorded and shelved. It was recorded about 3 weeks ago.

Yes this was 312% better.

R12, Dua Lipa is horrible. I’m with R14, I’d take Britney over her any day, not that that is saying much.

So far , no comments about the ElderGayStar not being able to deliver. Elton still sounds pretty good.

Elton hasn’t sounded good live for years.

R17 seriously. She also sounds mostly bad live and can’t dance. She’s super manufactured. I laugh when people trash Britney (who actually worked hard early in her career) but praise people like Dua Lipa, whose careers were bought for them.

“Cold Heart” is just a better song in general with a lot more emotion. It has a darker tone. “Hold Me Closer” aka Tiny Dancer he made into a sugary love song. I like both.

It's not meant to be a huge hit. This is Britney testing the waters. It's fairly pleasant , I wouldn't change the station nor would I get excited to hear it.

LA Times praised it

Rolling Stone praised it.

It’s forgettable garbage, of course, but welcome to pop music in 2022. Elton always knew how to make a buck.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Stupid and unnecessary pity lap for a broken old putz and a maniac.

You can decide which is which.

Yahoo seemed to like it when you read the article, but the journalist also throws light shade with her title. But when you read the article it’s mostly positive. Which is odd.

That was awful.

Dua lipa has no talent whatsoever, awful stage performer with no rhythm nor stage presence and a flat voice. She's very much the new rihanna.

“Cold Heart” was a mashup of two of his old songs, like this one.

“Cold Heart” was a mix of “Rocketman” and “Sacrifice”

“Hold Me Closer” is a mix of “Tiny Dancer” and “The One”

Who knows what his next reimagining of his old hits will be.

PopCrush praises it

Has Tony Danza commented yet? Does he feel slighted his name was left out of the remake?

Nobody’s into this, SeaCow OP.

It's awfully cheesy, but Elton's smart: his old vocals, mixed with some desperate pop queen's/has been's "vocals", a generic club beat and voilà!

Of course all these reviews and magazines are going to praise it, Britney is untouchable right now and if you criticize anything that has to do with her...you get attacked. I love the old Britney songs, but this is trash...really couldn't tell where she was singing and where the computer was singing. Does she know Lourdes?

The good reviews are like reviews for all-black movies, 100% positive for fear of reprisals from psychotic Twitter jockeys.

It’s a terrific pop song

WTF is with the pooping roses spaceship animation? Unlike Cold Heart whose animation was charming if repetitive, this anime is suck city. Redo it.

Also did Pnau produce it?

Completely forgettable.

Most of the idiot Gen Zers probably think Dual Lipo wrote their collab.

That's some next level auto-tune. It's like shitting into a blender to create a melody.

The auto tune isn’t even heavy lmao. They added this glossy sound over both their vocals that didn’t exist in the demo leaked.

R34, I chickled out loud at your comment. You sound like a prime era Rex Reed review.

#1 right now in almost 50 countries.

Eric Turner knows what’s up

It doesn't sound too bad but it just sounds like a re-blend of Elton's song and vocals. I don't even hear Britney.

Fun, thanks OP!

This sounds so boring. Just a generic pop song. Her voice is so heavily processed. But dumb shit sells. I actually liked Beyonce's new album a lot. This song sounds like doodoo in comparison

Drew is loving it! Moved to tears!

Paris loving it

I don’t get it.

Holy fuck I don’t think r12 was saying dua lipa is a goddess. Just that the dua lipa duet sounded better and this is a me too thing now with Britney for Elton to remake all of his songs to try and be current.

And for r13 to say you can’t compare the two is retarded since they also clearly acknowledge Elton is - remaking all his songs.

R14 evidently they should have held onto it and spent more time on it than three weeks. The song is pure shite. It needed to be retooled or discarded for something else. And yes - the timing is all wrong.

To you r53. I like it.

I just want to point out that r13 /r14 has posted 21 times out of the 54 posts on this thread. And each one is more hysterical and unhinged than the last. What a fucking mental case.

No one cares what Paris Hilton likes. This isn't 2004 anymore. Drew sold out for the fraus now.

The gays are loving it.

Ahhh something to make me puke on Friday!

Annoying white queens like it. Not "the gays."

Granny Elton needs to makes up for her private jet uses by recycling all her trash!

MEH!!!

Is that Elton’s butt plug ?

Its not autotune so much as the Ariana Grande School of Unintelligible Pronunciation Filter.

Listening to that song makes me feel like I'm in the lobby of some holistic gym.

The guys at r58 practically break down into tears

I don’t like that Elton changed the song last minute and had it re-edited. It was supposed to come out last week but got pushed back a week.

r55 I posted but once in this thead...

I didn't know they still made gays like R58! 👍🌈🤩

sadly there are just no standards anymore for what qualifies as good music. Of course other celebs and almost all music critics will rave about Shitney's "triumphant comeback". They're afraid to tell the truth because Shitney's deranged stan base is as unhinged as Beyonce's, Rihanna's and Nicki Minaj's. At least Beyonce has talent and her new music is mostly decent.

Shitney continues to get "sympathy hits". Ever since her 2007 breakdown everyone's been treating her like she deserves success. Shitney should have been a 1 hit wonder.

I'm a millennial so I remember when she first came out on the scene. I thought Hit Me Baby One More Time was fun but her voice was hard to listen to. It's truly shocking that 25 years later she's still a thing. I'm so embarrassed that there are millions of tasteless gays from their teens to mid 50s who are obsessed with this talentless nutjob

I wish her well but she doesn't deserve any more hits. She was never talented, she's not gorgeous (she was cute at her best), never was the best dancer (Janet, Paula, Ciara are leagues better and Beyonce is just as good), never was intelligent, never had a charismatic personality and never did a damn thing for the gay community except take our money

Good music is subjective r69. Your novel is ridiculous because what we like or don’t like varies from person to person. It’s all opinions. There is no factual “good” music.

On another note, Elton shouldn’t have fucked up the song. The original demo sounds much better. You hear each of them distinctly, you understand what they’re singing and it overall is more event out.

He added this layer over both their vocals, lowered Britney’s sound, raised his, and took away her solo verses and gave himself much more time on the track. It’s fucked up.

This was supposed to come out last week. He pushed it back a week to re-edit it. The version released today is not as good as the version that was supposed to come out a week ago.

I love it! I love her voice! It's never sounded more. I don't know what the word is, computery? She sounds like a robot. Like a sexy baby robot. A baby sexbot!

[quote] Like a sexy baby robot. A baby sexbot!

Open up! We'd like to have a word with you.

R70 good music means your ear shouldn't have to work hard to listen to someone's voice. Her tone is horrendous and you know that. Her producers know it too which is why she's been autotuned to hell in almost every song.

We're in the age of trashy and tasteless. You certainly have the right to like that kind of music but you can't expect everyone to praise it

She had good songs. So did Sir Elton. This song isn't good. I don't know why we're playing pretend.

I almost always prefer women's vocals and I have never been a big fan of Elton John's sound overall, although I do understand why people like his music a lot. It's just not exactly my style, which usually is either poetoc female singer-songwriters or dumb dance-pop music.

I do give him credit for his updates and pop-music collaborations. I don't *love* the song, but his duet with Lady Gaga from her Chromatica is better than OK, and it's much, much better than any of Madonna's pairings who she obviously selects to try to snag their fan bases—Nicki Minaj (awful song), Justin Timberlake (bleh), et al.

I also give him credit for his updates to his songs. Candle in the Wind: Princess Diana In Memoriam Redux felt like an authentic, from-the-heart tribute and not like an exploitative money grab—something more like Lady Gaga, less like Madonna. It was obviously timed, though, to ride an unforgettable pop culture-historic zeitgeist and it did.

This new pairing with Britney Spears does the same. She became more beloved than ever leading up to her winning back her independence, and this song release feels to me like Elton John is kind of lifting her up and giving her a bit of added legitimacy. He is taken very seriously as a musician, roundly respected by music industry insiders and the public, and so I think with this song he's reintroducing her musically as someone he supports, which means a lot. It's still his song, with the original lyrics and his voice dominating, but the sound is more like her music, and it's a pretty successful remixed sound for what it is.

He's not my favorite singer, but (the very talented) Elton John seems like an OK guy. I only harbor one bit of ill will toward him: The Cockgobbler has posted multiple photos taken with him in private quarters backstage at his shows, and has exchanged public IG story messages with David Furnish, telling him that he enjoyed their time together and to have safe travels 😘, and Furnish shared the message on his story, I think with a heart emoji. That lost big big points with me and frankly undermined a whole lot of Elton John's supposed importance to the gay rights movement. Schock voted against and spoke out against same-sex marriage and despite finally admitting he is gay after apparently (allegedly) working as a whore (he arguably did that as a GOP politician, anyway), and to this day he supports the GOP and MAGA and has not said he supports same-sex marriage. So although it's irrelevant to Elton John's music, shame on him for associating with that creep and giving him backstage privileges, whatever those privileges involved.

R76 you make a lot of good points. And you are kind of a blowhard and seem like a GAGA stan. Sine From Above is subpar t.A.T.u. redux and a forgettable track on the album.

The demo sounds better, agreed. Madonna's Madame X was overloaded with ROBOT VOICE processing and it does NOT make heritage stars sound fresh. It's more than annoying.

Whatever. This is the definitive Hold Me Closer of 2022, which should have won Eurovision.

The two cunts couldn't even come up with a distinctive song title.

[Quote]So far, no comments about the ElderGayStar not being able to deliver. Elton still sounds pretty good.

R18, oh, gurl, please.

The last time Sir Elton was in a recording studio was to give Taron Egerton a blowjob.

That squeeling you hear is Elton running to the bank after allowing the producer to use his original recording of the song for the remix.

Look up Cold Heart with Dua Lipa.

I’m really upset he didn’t release the original demo

R1 OP is Ed.win the seacow. Seacows don’t have ears

Love the Elton John song, this collab not at all. Can’t they record some original material together

Breaking: Elton's next duet will be a gay anthem called Schock Jock.

The demo is better. The gays will take that and run with it.

They already have r84. The comment sections on YouTube is people upset the demo wasn’t released.

“We love our psychotic Queen! Yasssss!!” - Tasteless Gays

It's nice and will do well. IDK it's basically a gentle Tiny Dancer rework. Her vocals aren't really making or breaking it.

R87 her vocals MAKE the demo better.

Go fuck yourself up the ass OP

Seacow is off her meds, 90% of the posts are hers. I keep trying to block her but she seems unblockable.

the reality is Elton's ego couldn't handle being relegated the last 20 years to only soft rock and oldies stations as well as groceries, pharmacies and malls. So he finally came up with a way to get back on current, mainstream radio-to remix/redo his hits with younger recording acts. He found success with Dua Lipa so he decided he'd generate a new hit by getting with Britney as all her sales in the last 15 years are drama and sympathy-driven.

Elton who takes himself VERY seriously as a musician is now a sellout. He would have called any of his peers a sellout had they come up with the idea first. I remember he was so pretentious in the early 00s but now here he is teaming up with 1 of the most talentless "artists" to ever succeed in the music business

shitty collab for tasteless, sheeplike gays

Seeing how bad most of the currents acts are it's not a bad plan for Elton to repackage some old songs. Gen Z pounced on Kate Bush like they've never heard a good song before.

Mandonna likes it.

Madonna can't sing either. So who cares?

But Madonna, at least for three decades, made much better music than this steaming piece of crap.

R95 Agreed. Madonna made great music despite her limited voice and she at least improved vocally as Evita and Bedtime Stories showed. I don't think she's great at all but she's listenable though her live vocals are shit. Britney made decent pop music at best but degraded over time vocally. I did like that Glory album though but mostly the slick production, not the awful singing.

Her singing wasn’t awful on Glory and Blackout is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

I disagree. She sounded pretty bad on Glory. Her voice was way too high pitched and croaky even than usual. But the production was so good and blended her vocals into it that it made up for her weak singing. Same deal with Blackout and Circus. Like J. Lo, Rihanna, The Weeknd and Justin Bieber, she needs excellent producers, autotune, backup vocals, vocal layering and other studio magic to sound listenable.

Blackout didn’t require heavy autotune buddy. They used a lot of futuristic sounds on that album. It’s ahead of its time.

R99 Not really. It was entirely derivative of Loose by Nelly Furtado, and Future Sex/Love Sounds by Justin Timberlake. Timbaland's sound. Britney was just cashing in on a trend. I listened to Blackout and found nothing really distinctive. And her "singing" was just talking over a beat.

And apart from Timbaland. Blackout also was derivative of Kylie Minogue's Fever and Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor. Those albums had far bigger impact

R100 not even slightly. That album sounded nothing like the two you mentioned, wasn’t produced by Timbaland, and had its own sound. Keep trying it.

R101 again, sounded nothing like Blackout

It’s bullshit.

Tell me one song on any of those albums that sounds like this.

PS Confessions on the Dancefloor and Fever were disco pop heavy albums. Blackout had one song that could be labeled as such

Give me a song on those albums that sounded like this

One song that sounds like this?

And this classic?

“Blackout” and “Circus” were vehicles for the hottest songwriters and producers of that era. They were strong solid collections of the best pop writing talent out there in my book. Lots of ear candy.

“Femme Fatale” was more Dr. Luke driven and “Britney Jean” was will.i.am’s driven.

“Britney Jean” was her worst album, she didn’t even sing some of the songs.

The song is really bad. Britney cannot sing. Elton is embarrassing himself with this collaboration.

The issue is Britney stans keep arguing it's groundbreaking but how?

Future Sex/Love Sounds and Loose were both huge and changed the game. Same with Kanye West's The College Dropout. I'd throw in Fergie's The Duchess too. They sounded like nothing else at the time. Just like Kylie's Fever was groundbreaking at the time.

Blackout changed nothing, it was late to the game. The EDM sound it had was derivative of what came before and it underperformed. Nobody cares about the Rock and Roll Fall of Fame.

That song at R105 definitely sounds like leftovers from Nelly Furtado's Loose.

Queen

R111 They also argue she can actually sing (she’s just never been allowed to as a singer) and she can dance (despite her videos on IG showing otherwise).

Rolling Stone named Blackout as the most influential album over music in the 2010s.

Excellent money grab by Elton!

To say this "artistic" product sucks donkey balls if far too complimentary.

To call this art is an insult to artists everywhere.

To call it a song is an insult to music.

R112 it doesn’t sound like a single song from that album. As someone who owns that album (and has heard it a million times) not one song on it sounds like a Britney track or vice versa.

I love Future/Love/Sex/Sounds and it has some great songs but nothing like Blackout.

What is this crap they're feeding us? Does Elton really need more money? Is he this desperate?

“Blackout” was a fun album. I was 20, me and my friends used to listen to it on the way to 19+ club nights in Boston.

But yeah as someone said, it was at the end of the R&B / Timberland era right before Lady Gaga broke out and the world went EDM.

So neither one of them is able to sing anymore??

Britney stans are the worst. They make Madonna and Janet stans look normal. While Beyonce and Gaga stans can be annoying they generally are supportive of other female artists and aren't as deluded. Most people agree that Beyonce and Gaga are talented. While Britney stans are so insecure and deluded. They get so offended when people state the truth that Britney can't sing and is mentally ill. Yet that's what most people's perception of her is and always has been. Britney stans use the same excuses of her, "oh Jive ruined her voice, oh she hurt her knee, oh she does choreography so should be able to lipsync, blah blah blah." Maybe she just isn't as talented as her peers and just was famous for her image and catchy tunes?

R109 you need to sort your facts before posting. Blackout is the single album Britney had full control over. She literally chose Danja to produce it, she chose the writers etc.

She was put in a conservatorship after Piece Of Me was released as a single. She even chose the singles.

R111 you keep saying that. I asked you to post a song here that sounds like Blackout from those albums. You have yet to. I’m still waiting.

When was the last time Rolling Stone magazine was even relevant? 1999?

R125 Umm no. She had input like most pop stars do. Big deal. J. Lo and Rihanna have input too. She didn't write the songs and still couldn't sing. Nothing special about that. Stop taking this shit so deep. She's a manufactured pop tart. Blackout was a good album though. But it was begotten by what came before. Let's just end this now. Stay pressed

R111 Well that's your problem not mine.

According to Rolling Stone. Harry Styles is the King of Pop. So it's definitely a reputable source..

R122 Blackout used mostly dubstep, something not one song on those other albums used. It wasn’t EDM. It was dubstep mixed with dark-techno and electro euro-pop

R130 that’s UK Rolling Stone. Not American.

R129 you made the claims. Where is the proof to back it up?

The original "Tiny Dancer" is such a lovely song. This new version is crap.

This sounds like something a gay incel cooked up in his bedroom in 2003

This song has no soul.

R132 And Michael Jackson's didn't exist in The UK and the UK RS isn't owned by the same corporation as the American. The Rolling Stone lost credibility a longggg time ago

Dubstep

Michael Jackson didn’t exist in the UK? WTF

The leak at R71 at least sounds like Britney on the track. You can clearly hear both voices. Not the chipmunk edit that is the official release.

I don't really care for either version. But the leak is light years better.

(I think the reason Cold Heart worked isn't because of Dua Lipa. It's just a better song that feels fresh.)

R12, Not to digress too much, but the "Song of the Summer" will be Doja Cat's "Vegas," from "Elvis" (should be "Trouble," but whattaya gonna do?), awarded tomorrow night at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards (CW, 8:00 p.m., EST).

My prediction. Unless it's that infernal Harry!

R124 thank you well said

Awful mix. What happened to real music

The only decent or singable part of the song is the Tiny Dancer riff Elton has been performing for forty years. All of the rest of the vocals are subpar and electronically enhanced. There is nothing memorable about the verses, and neither Britney nor Elton do anything vocally memorable. But because of the familiarity of the chorus, people will sing along and take the good feelings they hold toward it and transfer them onto Britney. Clever marketing but terrible music.

Who should Elton collab next with what song? I want Mariah and Elton collab on a dance version of Your Song

R145 I think Mariah is too old now, in her 50s. He would want like an Ariana or Beyoncé

His duet with Dua Lips was much much better. Cold Heart was a nice mashup of Rocket Man and Sacrifice.

I find Dua Lips to be a better singer than hot mess Britney. I think she is bitter as well. Spears sounds like a hillbilly on her sing.

Some of you find any reason to attack Britney. She doesn’t sound like a hillbilly

To poster above saying Mariah is old. Really?! Mariah old at 50 (actually 52)?! So JLo is old too at 50 when she’s hot as ever. Ageism. And how old is Elton John? He’s 75! So it doesn’t matter that he’s 75 but the woman has to be younger. He can collab with Diana Ross too and she’s78 years young!

Considering her issues maybe “As If We Never Said Goodbye” from Sunset Boulevard would’ve been more appropriate.

R149 your reading comprehension is awful, huh? I said TOO OLD FOR ELTON TO WANNA COLLAB WITH. He tends to always stick with 40s and younger.

I have it on repeat. Love it.

It sounds like one of those mixes you hear in globo gyms where they take a well-known song and give it a driving dance beat that is conducive to running on a treadmill.

Of course numerous DLers love it.

^^To wit

K-Tel reject.

And here's the Tiny Dancer dance remix from 2008.

Complete with its own video

They’re making a music video for it, supposedly

Is that Elton John's voice in the mix at R156.

This sounds like it's only part of a larger unfinished final product. I'm not a fan.

It sounds like music being blasted in a stadium but heard from a distance of 2 miles.

Something something, Tony Danza, dum dee dum dum On the Runway, Something Something Tony Danza, Cut the Lettuce on the hum dee dum dee.

Why listen to this song when you can actually listen to Tiny Dancer which is 1000x better.

^because it’s Britney bitch

[quote]Who should Elton collab next with what song?

Miss Shawn Mendes!

More shit music.

I feel like a lot of people have forgotten that Elton did a duet with Rupaul a long time ago. He's been doing duets like this for a while now.

And I can remember seeing Rupaul in concert around the Elton duet time long before she was a drag queen conglomerate and she was extremely grateful to him. She said she felt like he held her hand and walked her to the front of the line.

The voices on that track don’t even sound human. It’s like electronically engineered robo voices.

Love Elton. And his duet with Dua Lipa ,"Cold Heart " is great, But this thing with Britney is a mess. Too engineered. Not a good song in my opinion.

Got it on repeat. Fun track

Elton stopped appearing in his music videos a long time ago so any music video will either not feature him or will be pictures or animation like the Cold Heart video.

Brit won’t even have to put any clothes on- no need for her to film when the video is a cartoon.

Dua Lipa is talented which is why her song came out good. But Britney? Yeah, I don't need to see more than that.

Massive failure only 21M spins on Spotify. SAD.

Omg, I hated this track at first. Now I’ve been listening to it nonstop and LOVE it. It’s best when slightly drunk or stoned.

R174 or deaf