However, he’s thrown in another element into the party this time around: Their ex-girlfriends. Part of the night will be dedicated to Selena Gomez and Britney Spears, former flames who hold formidable singing careers of their own. While there’s absolutely no shortage of bangers featuring Britney to choose from – may we suggest the criminally underrated ‘Scream & Shout‘ remix with Waka Flocka Flame – it’ll be interesting how the veteran stacks up against Gomez, who’s about to embark on her first Australian tour.
Either way, prepare for some nostalgic pop goodness and some newer anthems as well – in what has evolved into a Justin Bieber Vs. Justin Timberlake Vs. Selena Gomez Vs. Britney Spears party. Lord have mercy, so many tunes. So many that Levins has kindly selected some of his favourites from both pop princesses below – grab tickets to the party right here and see below for his premium picks:
‘LOVE YOU LIKE A LOVE SONG’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgT_us6AsDg
It’s fucking hard to find a Selena song that’s more than five years old that doesn’t sound like some trash song that you only hear at the end of a Disney telemovie about some teenage girl living on a farm or some shit. This is probably her first actually good song – thanks largely to that weird disco beat with a super 2011 sounding dubstep wub wub bass that sounds more relevant today than hearing actual dubstep does. I can’t wait to hit re-peat-peat-peat on this one.
‘THE HEART WANTS WHAT IT WANTS’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij_0p_6qTss
I love a slow, emotional song I can click my fingers along to while I regret the bad romantic decisions of my early twenties, and this song is like an anthem for that. I usually skip the spoken word intro bit at the start but I accidentally let it play out while I was writing this and my wife started crying.
‘SAME OLD LOVE’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h30Bx4Klxg
Selena’s album Revival deserved as much attention from pop-haters as Justin Bieber’s Purpose got last year and to be honest it probably has more great songs on it overall. The singles alone – Good For You, Kill Em With Kindness and Hands to Myself are all bangers but Same Old Love was the song that made me realise I was #TeamSelena. I spent $500 on a keyboard for my wife last Christmas and this is the only song she’s learnt how to play on it so far. Money well spent imo.
‘TOXIC’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOZuxwVk7TU
This is easily Britney’s best song. In fact in the one hour Britney set that I’m playing on Saturday night, I’m probably gonna drop this three times. This, along with Justin Timberlake’s ‘Rock Your Body’, were two of the first proper pop songs that crossed over into the indie dance scene – you’d hear this on commercial radio like 100 times in one day and then still go nuts when a DJ dropped it at Bang Gang or whatever. Also this mashup of ‘Toxic’ and ‘Still Tippin’ that appeared on the 2nd Hollertronix 12 inch is still the best thing Diplo’s ever done. I might have to play that three times too.
‘IM A SLAVE 4 U’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s25OMP4Ww6Y
Cool fact: I spent two whole hours trying to decide between this and Boys. Both songs were produced by The Neptunes and were pretty interchangeable but this one wins for having more Britney on it that Boys does. Also I’m a sucker for weird Neptunes keyboard bleeps, and this song pretty much turns one of their best beats that was never a hit – Philly’s Most Wanted’s ‘Please Don’t Mind‘ – into the top ten single it deserved to be.
‘LUCKY’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vvBAONkYwI
You should probably be outraged that I didn’t put ‘Baby One More Time’ on this list but hear me out: ‘Lucky’ is the third and final part of a trilogy that Britney started with ‘Baby One More Time’, continued with ‘Oops! I Did It Again’ and perfected with ‘Lucky’. Obviously I’m gonna play all three in a row on Saturday night, but know that ‘Lucky’ is my favourite of the three.