Britney Spears accused of ‘butchering’ hit song by original artist
Topics: Britney Spears, Celebrity, Music
Rhiannon Ingle
Featured Image Credit: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
Topics: Britney Spears, Celebrity, Music
A singer has accused Britney Spears of 'butchering' one of his tracks when she covered it.
Now, many covers become even more famous than the original song - think 'Killing Me Softly' which was originally recorded by Lori Lieberman but then recorded again by hip-hop group, Fugees, or Whitney Houston's rendition of 'I Will Always Love You' which was originally sang by by Dolly Parton.
However, such musical crossovers clearly don't come without their drama given the recent accusations from one famous singer calling out the likes of Britney Spears, 43, for allegedly 'butchering' his song when she released her own version of it back in the 2000s.
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The track in question was none other than 'My Prerogative' and it appeared on Spears' 2004 Greatest Hits: My Prerogative album.
It was originally recorded by 56-year-old Bobby Brown - famous for smash-hits like 'Can You Stand the Rain', 'Every Little Step', 'Mr Telephone Man' and, of course 'My Prerogative' which came out back in 1988 on his Don't Be Cruel album.
Brown has now opened up about his thoughts on Spears' cover of the track on the Club Shay Shay podcast with host Shannon Sharpe, explaining that he insisted on hearing the song any time an artist wanted to sample or cover one of his works ahead of time.
"Yes, I gotta hear it," he said. "Because you don’t know what these kids will say these days. These kids will say some s**t that you don’t want your song associated with."
Sharpe then asked if there was ever a moment when Brown was happy with another singer's rendition of one of his tracks - something of which he clearly struggled to answer.
"I don’t think they really did justice to any of the samples that they have done to my songs," he admitted, before sharing his thoughts on Spears.
He began: "Britney Spears butchered 'Prerogative'."
Sharing some more background info behind the track, Brown carried on: "Teddy Riley produced it, but that was a butchering that I couldn’t take it.
"I cleared it only because it was Britney Spears and I was thinking… Teddy Riley is doing it too, so you know, but I felt it was a butchering."
Riley actually didn't work on Spears' musical interpretation of 'My Prerogative', but the 57-year-old record producer and singer-songwriter is credited as a writer along with Brown due to his role on the original track.