Gilberto? Absolutely! I was listening to him this weekend on KJAZ, the great Southern California jazz station, which is one of my webstream faves.

I certainly don’t disagree about the song, and the NPR excerpt is proof of that. Crtitchley’s observations also are spot on. But I do hear Thompson at his most droll when he sings it.

“I’m struck once again by how stripping away production often reveals the greatness of the song within. … Thompson wasn’t being ironic. As he said in the interview, he’s not a Britney Spears fan, but he thinks “Oops, I Did It Againâ€? is a very good song. He praised its “mediaeval harmoniesâ€?, for one thing, which are up his alley, as an expert on the British folk tradition (he recorded it on his album. … I agree that it’s a good song, and I predict that the day will come when critics will be letting us know that it’s OK to think so. That’ll be once time has made Britney’s marketing onslaught seem less threatening—it’ll no doubt come to seem quaint, the way yesterday’s pop star-machinery always does. To elaborate on Thompson’s point about harmony, I admire the way the writers (Max Martin and Rami) express guilt in the verses and then sound triumphant about the same subject in the choruses. In the verses they explore dark, chromatic lines in the harmonic minor scale1, and then they burst into the relative major key in the chorus.”

Here’s a link to Richard Thompson – 1000 Years of Popular Music (2 CD & 1 DVD Set) at Amazon for anyone wanting more info… I sure did. Thanks again.