Why does britney say Break the ice as “Break THE ice” not “Break THI ice”? Doesn't “The” pronounce “Thi” if the word after it starts with VOWEL?

I remember it, you still got a lot of good answers

Songs are not speech, and you will not have the same type of blend unstressed function words into other words as you would expect in normal speech.

The rule regarding 'the' as /ðə/ vs /ði/ ("thuh/the" vs "thi/thee") isn't a hard-and-fast rule. Like lots of things in English, it will vary from speaker to speaker and accent to accent. You'd almost never say "thee/thi" before a consonant - that sounds really unnatural. But, saying "the/thuh" before a vowel isn't very weird unless the vowel is another "uh" sound. "Thuh/the ice" is fine because 'ice' starts with an 'ai' sound, but you'd never say "thuh/the underside ..." because it'd be two 'uh' sounds in a row, which sounds weird and awkward.

If anyone saw my previous post before... Just forget about it, don't remember it.... 😅

Curiously, the weak variant (thuh) demands a glottal stop to precede the vowel. The strong variant (thee) does not. I actually hadn’t noticed this until right now lol

American English doesn't respect this rule. Also, it's music. The language submits to the music.

American native speaker here, and there is no combination of “thuh”/“thee” and consonant/vowel that I might not say. It all just depends on tone, pacing, emphasis, etc. In a song, such “rules” go even further out the window, if possible. Also… it’s Britney. Britney does what Britney wants to do!

It varies with accent. and if she is singing those rules don't apply anyway. Singers commonly and deliberately vary from standard pronunciation