Another scrape of the barrel, then.
Most of the time, catchiness is enough to sell a record. If it sticks in the mind of the listener, no matter how annoying or cliched it is, then those responsible will be onto a winner. This however is not always the case. “Britney's Tears” is certainly memorable and compelling to a certain extent, but the fact remains that we have all listened to this kind of thing before.
In fact, if one had to compile a record of average indie music from the past five years, then it would sound a lot like “Britney's Tears”. There is the odd, affected singing voice, the offbeat, jangly guitars and a dumb, “lala” chorus. Rather than sounding progressive, The Steeples sound much like a band who have few original ideas of their own and would rather scrape the barrel of what has come before. So, while “Britney's Tears” may appeal to an indie fan lacking in imagination, it does as much to move the genre on as Asia's 'Heat of the Moment' did back in the early 80s. Which is something that is pretty hard to forgive.