Britney Spears’ Demo of Nelly and Christina Aguilera’s ‘Tilt Ya Head Back’ Surfaces: Hear What Could Have Been
It's quite possible that you forgot about "Tilt Ya Head Back" — the No. 58 Billboard Hot 100 chart-middling smash of 2004 by "Hot In Herre" hitmaker Nelly and Christina Aguilera — until just now.
But here we are, twelve years later. And it's time to go back...to basics.
Prior to teaming up with the Lotus legend, Nelly's team originally offered up the collaboration to Xtina's then-longtime Mickey Mouse Club rival-turned-fellow Madge smoocher: Miss Britney Spears.
According to a MTV report at the time, the song's producer, Dorian Moore, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the song was considered too “urban” by Brit's label Jive Records, which is kind of hilarious, because Britney had only just dropped songs like "(I Got That) Boom Boom," "Outrageous" and "Showdown" on In The Zone the year before. Since when is #SomethingMoreUrban ever a problem for Britney?
Ultimately, Nelly opted for Christina instead. (Janet Jackson was also an option.) And as it turned out, the timing was actually for the best, anyway: "Tilt Ya Head Back" was released in September 2004, just a few months after Britney was forced to cut her Onyx Hotel Tour short due to her "Outrageous" on-set knee injury. (We don't talk about that.)
What we didn't know up until today, however, is that Britney actually got all the way up to recording a demo of "Tilt Ya Head Back." And now, thanks to Gold 90.5 radio DJs Vernetta Lopez and Mike Kasem, we now have a one-minute snippet of Britney's take on the track.
"Don't forget to catch the never heard or released to the public version of #britneyspears #TiltYaHeadBack I was in the recording studio with #nelly and Britney when they recorded this. Britney decided not to use it and #christinaaguilera ended up releasing it. But the thing is Britney left it in my car!! 8 am tomorrow we will play it on #LivewithMikeandVernetta @vernettalopez this is gonna be a show to remember tomorrow!" Kasem wrote on Instagram yesterday. And he wasn't kidding!
Although it's only under a minute, the Tiltney snippet still sounds pretty hot as ice: B-Girl's giving us some of that southern girl sass ("Come on, y'all!") and those Spearitual moans and groans are the stuff that only our beloved Brit Brit can supply. It's a bit like her delivery on "Chaotic" — except nowhere as good as "Chaotic."
The DJs are now teasing another snippet to come on their Facebook page, which feels pretty exhausting (if you're teasing the release of a twelve year old demo of an already lukewarm track, you should probably just go ahead and leak the whole thing), but hey — thanks for a tiny taste of what could have been, Mike Kasem.
I'm personally pretty at peace with the fact that a Brit-assisted "Tilt Ya Head Back" never came to be. That still-unreleased demo of Girls Aloud's "Graffiti My Soul," on the other hand? Now that is a sorely missing addition to the unreleased discography of Godney.
One day, we will understand: Until then, anything to hold us over until B9...
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