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- Select a tempo that's slightly under 100 beats per minute. Not too fast - not too slow.
- Choose a key, any key, as long as it's minor.
- Start with a couple of full orchestra hits, followed by your vocalist saying "ah-ah" (or "oh-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah", or even "baby-baby-baby") through a megaphone.
- Break it up with a short silence before making the song start in full swing. Then go heavily on electric guitars for that special rock chick effect.
- For the refrain, use any slight variation of the following chord sequence: tonic chord (minor), followed by a chord fifth (major) which turns into a minor fifth, before switching over again to major fourth and to the major fifth that tipically takes you back to the minor tonic chord. It sounds more complicated than it is, you'll recognize it immediately as soon as you hear it.
- Make the song modulate to one semitone higher at the start of the last but one refrain, which is sung just by the backing vocals.
- Last refrain: the lead singer joins in, and the song ends sharply by repeating the last phrase three times - no fade out.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you manufacture a typical Britney Spears song in seven easy steps.
Or, alternatively, that's also how you pen the Croatian entry for this year's Eurovision Song Contest. If you can't be bothered to let the whole song flow in a stream of media from the above link, click here to hear the intro (10 seconds - 79KB), and here for part of the refrain (15 seconds - 122KB). Then call Britney's management and shout "She waz robbed!" I know, there are only so many ways that you can arrange those seven notes but frankly, this is a bit too cheeky. Hrvatska: nula bodova / La Croatie: zéro points (for the lack of effort).