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2011 · From the album S&M (Remix) [feat. Britney Spears] - Single
S&M (Remix) [feat. Britney Spears]
by Rihanna
The reading
Two of pop's biggest provocateurs turn kink into a club anthem about owning what other people call bad
02 · Interpretation
Chains, Whips, and Press Cycles: Rihanna and Britney's 'S&M' Remix
The 'S&M' remix, released April 11, 2011, took an already controversial single from Rihanna's album 'Loud' and gave it a second life by adding Britney Spears. The original had been banned or restricted on radio in several markets and its video temporarily blocked on YouTube. Bringing in Spears, herself a veteran of moralized media coverage, turned the remix into something more pointed than a sex song. It became a duet between two women whose private lives had been narrated by tabloids for years, now singing about enjoying what the public had decided was wrong.
The track opens with the chant that anchors the whole song: a repeated 'I like it, like it' over a producer-built thud (Stargate handled the original). That hook does most of the thematic work before any verse begins. It is not seduction, it is declaration. By the time Rihanna sings that it feels good being bad and that there is no way she is turning back, the song has already framed itself as a refusal rather than a confession.
The chorus as thesis
The chorus carries the song's argument in four lines. The boast 'I may be bad but I'm perfectly good at it' reframes badness as craft, something you can master. The line about loving the smell of sex in the air is deliberately tacky, a wink at how scandalized listeners will react. Then the playground rhyme: sticks and stones may break bones, but chains and whips excite. The joke is that she has taken a children's chant about ignoring insults and rewritten it as a kink punchline. Insults bounce off because pain, in the song's frame, is something she has chosen to enjoy.
The second verse leans further into the bondage imagery, with requests to be tied down, gagged, and bound, and the claim that pain is pleasure. Read literally, this is straightforward BDSM content, unusual for top-40 radio in 2011 even after Lady Gaga's similar provocations. Read as metaphor, which the song invites with its 'sticks and stones' line, it is also about control: choosing the terms of your own humiliation rather than having them imposed.
What Britney's verse adds
Spears enters on the bridge with the song's only fully tender passage. She sings about a feeling she has been yearning for and asks to be met in a boudoir. Her delivery is breathier and more melodic than Rihanna's percussive phrasing, and the contrast matters. Rihanna's verses sound like a dare; Spears sounds like someone who has been waiting. Putting those two registers in one song widens its emotional range, from defiance to want. It also lets Spears, whose 2007 to 2008 public unraveling had been treated as a morality play, take part in a song about choosing your own pleasure on your own terms. The subtext is not subtle.
Context and reception
'S&M' arrived in a pop moment dominated by maximalist dance-pop: Gaga's 'Born This Way' was released the same year, Ke$ha was charting with party-as-rebellion songs, and EDM was crossing into mainstream radio. The remix went to number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, Rihanna's tenth chart-topper at that point. Whether listeners heard it as genuine kink advocacy, camp, or simply a club track, it worked because the production stayed bright and bouncy while the lyrics stayed transgressive. The mismatch is the point.
Why it endures
The song endures less as a sex anthem than as a document of how two specific pop stars handled being told they were too much. The remix does not argue for the morality of its content; it simply refuses to be embarrassed by it. That posture, half exhibitionist and half shrug, is what most listeners actually take from it, which is why it still plays at clubs and Pride events more than a decade later. The chains and whips line gets sung as a group chant, not whispered.
Themes catalogued
03 · Lyrics
"S&M (Remix) [feat. Britney Spears]"
I like it, like it
I like it, like it
I like it, like it
I, I like it, like it
I like it, like it
I like it, like it
I like it, like it
Na na na come on, come on, come on,
I like it, like it, na, na, na, na, come on
I like it, like it, na, na, na, na, come on
I like it, like it, na, na, na, na, come on
Come on, come on, come on
Na na, na, na, na
Feels so good being bad (Uh, oh, uh, oh, oh)
There's no way I'm turning back (Uh, oh, uh, oh, oh)
Now the pain is for pleasure
'Cause nothing can measure (Oh, oh, wow, wow, wow)
Love is great, love is fine
Out the box, out of line
The affliction of the feeling leaves me wanting more
'Cause I may be bad but I'm perfectly good at it
Sex in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But chains and whips excite me
'Cause I may be bad but I'm perfectly good at it
Sex in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it
Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But chains and whips excite me
Na na na come on, come on, come on,
I like it, like it, come on, come on, come on
I like it, like it, come on, come on, come on
I like it, like it come on, come on, come on
I like it, like it
Just one night full of sin
Feel the pain on your skin
Tough, I don't scream mercy
It's your time to hurt me
Yeah (Oh, oh, oh)
If I'm bad tie me down
Shut me up, gag and bound me
'Cos the pain is my pleasure
Nothing comes better
Yeah (Oh, oh, oh)
'Cause I may be bad but I'm perfectly good at it
Sex in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But chains and whips excite me
Na na na come on, come on, come on,
I like it, like it, come on, come on, come on
I like it, like it, come on, come on, come on
I like it, like it come on, come on, come on
I like it, like it
S, S, S and M, M, M
S, S, S and M, M, M
Oh. I love the feeling you bring to me
Oh, you turn me on
It's exactly what I've been yearning for
Give it to me strong
And meet me in my boudoir
Make my body say ah, ah, ah,
I like it, like it
'Cause I may be bad but I'm perfectly good at it
Sex in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it
Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But chains and whips excite me
'Cause I may be bad but I'm perfectly good at it
Sex in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it
Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But chains and whips excite me
Na na na come on, come on, come on,
I like it, like it, come on, come on, come on
I like it, like it, come on, come on, come on
I like it, like it come on, come on, come on
I like it, like it
S, S, S and M, M, M
S, S, S and M, M, M
S, S, S and M, M, M
S, S, S and M, M, M
Lyrics via Google. Copyright belongs to rights holders.
04 · FAQ
Frequently asked
What does 'sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me' actually mean in S&M?
Why did Rihanna add Britney Spears to the S&M remix?
Is S&M by Rihanna really about BDSM or about something else?
What does Britney Spears add to the S&M remix that Rihanna's solo version doesn't have?
How did the S&M remix perform on the charts in 2011?
How does S&M fit alongside other 2011 pop songs like Born This Way?
Why is the 'I like it, like it' hook in S&M repeated so many times?
05 · Discography
