Britney Spears: Classic or Dud?

Songs : All the ones I've heard (the hits) sound good. Gets extra points for cartoonish voice.

Attitude : All that virginal Christian/Mickey Mouse Club/lust-for- fame nonsense = DUD

But total dud to her tanning bed addiction. What's that about? Weirdo.

Getting tans: Classic or Dud? Anyone who's seen me in person knows my vote on that one.

britney is the owner of all of our hearts. yes, all. she's the uber-madonna and the only thing better than her now is what she may likely become, but babe, ditch justin, eh? (and if madonna were to collaborate with brit, jesus would forgive her all her sins.) let's just hope that she avoids the pitfall that is "maturity" and heads straight for "mature audiences only." can't wait for the greatest hits album.

I don't actually think I've ever written anything on FT about her. She's always held up as something FT likes, though. But, OK, if I was doing the Top 100 Singles Of The 90s again I would probably put "...Baby One More Time" at No.1. (NB: there are about half-a- dozen singles I think this about every time I hear them, so "Top Ten" is probably a more factual answer)

I've actually started fancying Britney a bit which is really worrying. As I was saying to Ethan on IM (TomFT26, good people), it's kind of like if you were a Moonie and in an arranged marriage, and saw your new spouse every day and were constantly being reminded that you were meant to fancy them, you probably would end up doing so a bit.

Obligatory perving out of the way, Britney would be more suited to a Search/Destroy kind if thing - and I say search '... baby one more time' (the song) & (just about) 'Ooops, I did it again' (the song). Destroy: the Rest.

As for her appearance, she's a very cute girl, but she needs to stop with the weird orange tanned skin. That's my qualm. Her clothes are fine, they are ROCK. But the skin is like alien skin.

The "No talent? So what abt the dancing then?" thingum also raises its quiet head again: is THAT "manufactured"? Or is, y'know, callisthenic physicality the anti-christ?

Good! I hope she kills herself, too.

You're quite correct there and a good thing it is too. Classic of course. The ballads I don't have any time for. The rest is catholic- cyber-doll-pop-sypmhonic-funk of the highest order.

If one could make a time capsule of "The Most Perlexing Trends In Early 00s Culture" to be opened in the future by space aliens, surely it would contain Britney and Eminem.

Perverts. ;)

Christina just has some ass awful songs, that's her problem.

These days I just shrug. Couple of good songs, though (I will go to my grave insisting "Baby One More Time" is NOT one of them and that the allegedly similar "Oops I Did It Again" is thousands of times better thanks to the bassline).

everything i've heard from the new one is INCREDIBLE ("i got that boom boom" - the only one i've heard on the radio (ALOT), "toxic", "me against the music"), enough to make me think i really should ignore the cw naysay and hear the album.

(That remix of "Me Against the Music" which Siegbran put on his end-of-year mix was fabboo grand cool. The original...*coughs*)

THAT SAID and maybe this is the nostalgist/reactionary/discoclone in me but 'toxic' (or other sublimated diva traxx) still don't own me the way an old deborah cox or kelly price remix can, still, now, six years later. but then i think i might be the only ilxor who's fave donna summer isn't 'i feel love' too so...

For all I knew it was "Macarthur Park" or "On the Radio," ya ungrateful punk!

wtf is with the Madonna comparisons? If you can get past the somewhat difficult voice, I'd argue xtina has far more right to that title.

Although, I'm sure the nebulous defence of this Disney World entertainment will never end on ILM.

oh you silly rockists masquerading as non-rockists. do you judge motorhead by their "own personal talent" and by lemmy's remarkable operatic voice, or do you just go right to the "product"? do you judge the grateful dead by their inability to swing a beat and bob weir's inability to sing, or do you just go to the shows and have a good time? how again is britney any different?

August 2000 - November 2004.

I'm sure the nebulous defence of this Disney World entertainment will never end on ILM.

hee hee.

Maybe "offensive" is a strong word -- but I'm more bothered by the way Madonna wraps her mediocrity in pomp and pretense (from supposed sexual radicalism to hokey religious experimentation)

She's also, at least ostensibly, a product for twelve-year-old girls. Wanna trade hello kitty stickers later?

Come on, that's a pointless question. You know how the little cillia in your ears dance a certain way when you like something? Well that doesn't happen when I hear Madonna, or Britney Spears.

I don't see how pointing out the weaknesses of other artists is supposed to convert me. And with the exception of about two of her tracks, I don't see any originality in her songwriter's work. The difference between her and Motorhead is overexposure. No one has ever shoved Motorhead down my throad. The Grateful Dead is a different story, but I digress.

She's also, at least ostensibly, a product for twelve-year-old girls.

Shurely shome mishtake?

It's pointless trying to change people's opinions.

Pointing out the ridiculousness/fallacy/logical inconsistency of the assumptions that underlie their opinions is fair game though.

products for forty year old men: suv's, viagra, "real music", george w. bush

Well, isn't that what it all comes down to? I could come up with specifics -- I find her voice (Britney's) thin and irritating. I find the beats (EVEN TOXIC) repetitive and annoying. But I just don't like it because I don't like it It's not an argument, it's an opinion. I'm not trying to argue you into disliking Britney.

By making it culturally inescapable. And the fact that we put this woman on a huge fucking pedistal for completely superficial reasons (ie: she looks like a porn star) is painful if you have anything called a soul. I know this is nothing new in society, but still...

I believe there's these things called 'turning off the radio' and 'iPods' and the like which can help you in this regard.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Britney Spears is quite deliberately targeted, or at least was until recently, at pre-teen and teen girls (though there is the likely deliberate secondary target of horny 20-50 year old men). The post I was referring to tried to point out that Britney is *supposed to be* a product. I agree that this has nothing to do one way or another with her being any good, but if you're going to talk about things in those terms, let's really follow their implications.

If Britney is just a *product* then all I should have to say is "I don't like it". That's it. I don't like Pepsi, I prefer Wendy's to McDonalds. If you're trying to make some sort of well-reasoned "argument" for her, then you're abandoning the idea that she's just a product to be liked or disliked.

You're implying that some people are "artists" and some are "products". This is bullshit.

You're implying that you know exactly which audience Britney was targeted at. This is highly fucking unlikely.

You're implying that Britney can only appeal to men (and not women) for sexual reasons. This is wilful bullshit.

Read half the posts above: "Classic!" "Yay Britney!" etc. Title of thread: "Classic or Dud?" I say dud. That bothers you so much that you need to keep prodding, hoping I'll slip and say something rockist so you can prove that there's no legitimate reason to dislike Britney?

"You're implying that some people are "artists" and some are "products". This is bullshit." I didn't initially use the word "product," a pro-Britney poster did. I wouldn't have called her that, but I ran with it to make a point.

Oh, come on! Replace your mental image of Britney with oh I don't know... Bea Arthur. How do you think that would fly?

Firstly, I'd guess plenty of people are sexually attracted to Bea Arthur.

Secondly, whether I find the image of Britney (never having met her socially) attractive or not, that isn't why, for example, "Toxic" gives me a raging bone-on. It's all about the music, maaaaaaaan.

You could say that about at least 50 percent of rock musicians though, even the ones that rockist critics adore.

Not when the market owns the market. And this is pretty much why I have problems with her music and her peers. It's like embracing Philip Morris or something. But I guess rooting for the underdog = rockism now too.

Some things I don't like about what I perceive as the anti-rockist approach:

1) That it tends to lead to judgments like the one I just described.

2) That it seems to over-emphasize top 40-type stuff (of which there is very little that I enjoy right now, no matter how hard I try).

3) That it seems to imply that I ought to spend more of my time listening to top 40 radio in order to avoid making rash generalizations, when I have enough other music I'm interested in pursuing to occupy all of my spare time. I don't feel the need to hear every new single to generalize that I don't like most of today's pop music. Granted there are occasionally new singles I like -- usually R&B or hip-hop. Admittedly, one or two of Britney's songs at least have beats I like, but I can't stand the singing.

4) That it seems to absolve its proponents of their own prejudices, which may include, as I have said before, actually liking pop music more than they would because it helps them prove to themselves that they are open-minded free thinkers.

5) That it seems to do away with the idea that any music can be truly "great" or "important" or more than just a matter of taste.

That said, I agree with many anti-rockist ideas, i.e. that albums are not necessarily better than songs, that it's delusional to think one can avoid commercial influence, that rock is not better than other genres, that "authenticity" is a foolish thing to prize in music.

But I would like to add that I think certain types of music are more complex or have more to digest or more to offer than others. Standing up to more repeated listenings doesn't necessarily make something objectively better, but I'll always have a deeper love for music that I find more engaging and complex, as opposed to fun songs with hot beats, even though I do like the latter.

And it can be yours too for the low price of $14.95.

As far as the absolution from prejudice bit, well I can't actually see inside anyone's mind and tell you the process behind their likes and dislikes. But I have been confronted numerous times with the argument (from anti-rockists) that anti-rockism is about "being more aware of one's (rockist) prejudices, (rockist) reasons for liking or disliking something, etc." So if you're an anti-rockist, you have super-awareness of musical prejudices that makes you, ultimately, a less tainted listener.

I could certainly tell you what I don't like about this song -- the cliched lyrics, the rhyming couplets that sound like they came from an internet love song generator "since you've been gone"/"carry on," "give you my world"/"be your girl", "you and me/way our life should be," etc.

The only thing I do find interesting at all is the subtle creepiness of her saying "I was born to make you happy."

I'm fascinated by popular culture which attempts to describe the experience of adolescence because we all live our adolescence via a constant negotiation between our own personal experience and the cultural stereotypes which surround us - 2 and a half years on from being a teenager, I find it difficult to tease apart the reality and the myths in my own memories of the period. The importance of these myths to me as I was growing up (despite their strong differences to my own experiences) renders a lot of this stuff somehow very personal-feeling to me.

As far as the second paragraph, I feel like you're more getting into Britney's music as an object of cultural inquiry than as songcraft, music, or whatever. There's nothing wrong with doing this, but it could just as easily be done with a song you don't like. I don't think it's valid to say that a song is good because it's a good starting point for exploring adolescence in our culture.

Seriously, if you connect with the song on an emotional level, more power to you.

I believe there's these things called 'turning off the radio' and 'iPods' and the like which can help you in this regard.

-- Ned Raggett

Ned I'd have to go one step further there and suggest we experiment with not turning the radio on in the first place.

ihttp://www.popcultureshock.com/reviews/2820/2820_2.jpg

Why is it that repeatedly, time and time again, people can't seem to understand that 'engaging and complex' is not mutually exclusive with 'a fun song with hot beats'? I mean Tim linked to that Born To Make You Happy article which is one of the best examples of disproving that, but noooo, the rockists must insist on sticking their heads in the sand.

I don't hate her, but I don't like her much either, it's just a general shoulder-shrugging indifference. I don't have any profound non-subjective reasons for my indifference. Off the top of my head, I'd say: her personality as I perceive it doesn't attract me much; she has a very bland California-type beauty that doesn't appeal to me; the song structures are predictable; the lyrics are pretty banal, and even if they weren't, they're talking about things that don't interest me; the songs don't fuck with the genre, they smoothly go along with the genre; the whole ambience of the songs/image etc smacks of an unimaginative narrow minded vision of the world/America/adolescence/sexual relationships, etc.; I don't like that she's such a big Bush supporter; her voice doesn't sound particularly bad to me, merely ordinary and uninteresting; I'm not much interested in the gossip mag celebrity culture she's part of and typifies; she's a photofit celeb of the late nineties... etc., etc.

I'm fully aware that some of those judgement criteria can be labelled as "rockist", and I don't much care, I don't see them as anything higher than personal preference and I'm certainly not claiming Spears is less authentic than the people I like, merely less interesting to me.

the songs don't fuck with the genre, they smoothly go along with the genre

So I take it you've never heard the one with the Ying Yang Twins and the banjos?

otm

(xpost)

Songs about the world/America - I just mean the type of ideology that can be read off her songs, the type of worlds she's singing about, and they don't seem startlingly original.

'Born To Make You Happy' is TOTALLY about America!

F.R., your Britney song references are years out of date, please become contemporary. And maybe get an angular haircut.

I'd like her Max Martin era much better if I thought it was "smooth" and "seamless", actually.

Argh surface level reading of ideology in pop songs argh!

deconstruction or post-marxism or hell anything to thread!

"I'd argue that "Everytime" is pretty genre-fucking as well, Tim and I concluded that it was in fact a micro-power-ballad. "

Did we file a report on the matter?

I suspect we did file a report Tim.

However, after she parted with Martin, virtually everything she has done has been the same awful R&B crap that has dominated most of the current hitlists. And she herself never had any talent for anything but dancing and acting anyway. DUD!

I think that's a bit more snotty than necessary, and a rather rank-pulling means of dismissing an argument without actually having to do so.

I freely admitted to being fairly indifferent to Britney, and to having no great depth of knowledge about her oeuvre. I do hope you're not going to pull some rockist crap on me that my opinion is worth less because of it? I didn't mean 'reading ideology off Britney songs' in any particular technical way, just a very general impression of a world view I got from listening to her. And if you can't do the occasional superficial reading of a lyric of a pop song of someone you're not especially interested in, what is the world coming to? Superficiality is one of the things that makes pop music great.

FR, if you're going to be indifferent to Britney in the first place and then spout off cursory analysis of her music that is neither noteworthy nor substantial, well...

The problem with this is that you're trying to use a very serious criteria (let's call it "ideological innovation") in order to make a somewhat profound statement (let's paraphrase it as "the worldview as expressed in Britney's songs is a tired reiteration of America's most unpleasant ideological characteristics) based on an entirely superficial reading of the song, which you justify on the basis that the music shouldn't be taken seriously anyway?

(btw this is me engaging w/ your arguments, not dismissing or disallowing them)

It's sort of damned if you do and damned if you do, though, isn't it? I responded originally because someone upthread commented that the people who didn't like Britney couldn't muster anything more significant reason than they didn't like her voice. But if you don't particularly like someone, you're not going to be hugely acquainted with their output, so you're hardly going to be in a position to give a closely read textural analysis are you? So the next step is to dismiss your views as too cursory.

Tim, you are indeed engaging. Unfortunately I have work to do that can't wait, but thanks for the interesting discussion!

So I take it you've never heard the one with the Ying Yang Twins and the banjos?

-- Daniel_Rf (filosofiaebolacha...), November 18th, 2004.

that IS its own genre:

According to pitchfork, "wtf" is a genre now.

Not exactly. I was pointing out possibilities for why Alex and Tim weren't taken with your posts. I personally don't feel the need to engage with them, partly for the reasons above and things like this:

And if you can't do the occasional superficial reading of a lyric of a pop song of someone you're not especially interested in, what is the world coming to? Superficiality is one of the things that makes pop music great.

If you're going to do such a thing, it lends itself to nothing positive because it's ultimately a way of furthering disinterest. And it renders the entire exercise even more pointless.

But if you don't particularly like someone, you're not going to be hugely acquainted with their output, so you're hardly going to be in a position to give a closely read textural analysis are you?

No one's actually damning you for this though. In fact, this would be the point where someone asks you to reconsider by recommending songs or simply stating "fair enough".

I think something interesting might come out of the potential dialogue between yourself and Tim.

Further, electronic guitar tuners aren't constantly looking for deviations in pitch and correcting them on the fly while somebody is playing.

and also actually, autotune is commonly used to correct wayward instrumental playing in studios. maybe not as common as it's used to correct wayward pitch. but i can assure you it IS used for that.

I do know that everything I've heard of Britney's stuff smacks of Autotuner on the vocals, and yes, I can hear the effect. I've even used it on my own vocal tracks on occasion and I actually do own the software. (It's a legitimate registered copy even...)

Autotune is commonly used to correct the playing of bass, particularly fretless bass (where it much more possible to be slightly off even if your instrument is completely intonated and in tune). I've also been present at a recording session where it was used on a theramin... another instrument difficult to control with perfect pitch.

I have never seen or heard of Autotune being used on guitar although it's certainly possible. It'd have to be the software version though, as the hardware units simply don't track quickly enough to handle any kind of hammer-on or pull-off technique. Not to mention how badly the hardware box would completely freak out the second a guitarist hits more than one string at the same time.

I have never met a professional guitarist who can't at least tune a guitar to itself. But then, I grew up in Nashville where throwing 10 rocks means you injure 9 session guitarists and one struggle Christian or Country songwriter.

we're pretty good at throwing rocks here in new york city, too, but we're not quite as adept at tuning our guitars.

and, yup, fretless bass is where i've most seen autotune used. my general point, which i think you agree with, is that everyone's getting help from somewhere these days, electronic or otherwise.

Tim, I find your line of thought about doing post-marxist, pomo, etc. readings of Britney troubling, not because I don't think you should do it, but because, again, I think you're trying to justify music's value by how good an object of critical inquiry it makes. I'm not saying that's the only reason you like it, but I don't think it makes a valid point as to why the music is good. An interesting reading could be done of almost any cultural object.

Yes, I agree with you... I was being facetious like I said. But I do think the tuner's not the same as the Autotuner is all. Nit-picky perhaps...

I don't live in Nashville any more, and I did live in NYC for quite some time before I ended up here on the west coast (Seattle). My rock-throwing comment was a joke about Nashville. (You'd be amazed at how many session guys are around, seriously. They are a totally different breed of musician who get paid to play whatever the hell you want and play it well. It's as baffling to me as it is impressive. And no, I'm not one of them. Nor do I think I could be one without an assload more training and practice.)

Autotune, when I notice it, just sounds weird to me -- it flattens the voice.

Well yeah, the problem is that the human voice isn't pitch perfect even when it's singing a single note... You don't notice the slight deviations that give the sound of a voice a distinct character, but you do notice when they are gone, and Autotune can and does get rid of a lot of them.

heck the recording process itself is "help".

Absolutely. And the use of tape instead of digital media does something to the sound at least as significant as Autotune. It's a totally different discussion (and no I'm not an analog snob or anything), but I think the current trends in the recording/mastering process are qualitatively less good than they have been in years past. Not because I think "the 70s sound" is better than "the 90s sound" or whatever, but because overcompression (among other things) has left us with music that actually causes listening fatigue even on equipment designed to minimize this effect. It's not a question of "Oh I think tape sounded better" or "The way they used to record [instrument] before the dawn of [newer technique] sounded much better." It's actually "I can't listen to this for more than an hour without getting a headache even though I actually like the song."

Martin, that last point about listening fatigue is intriguing. I've never heard of that before. Is there anything I can read about this?

It's not a marketing fabrication though... It actually does happen. Find a discussion forum about recording or engineering records and you'll see guys who spend hours recording and mixing bands talk about it and are concerned about it when purchasing monitors or headphones or whatever.

I would spend more time going into the details, but I'm headed out the door to an appointment...

Hurting, correct me if I'm wrong but it was you who brought up the ideology or worldview of Britney's songs as a valid basis upon which to dismiss them. Any ideological reading of a song is treating it as an object of critical enquiry. I brought up post-marxism and deconstruction because these areas of critical thought have greatly undermined the stability of the sort of surface level ideological reading you seemed to be attempting. My point being, if we are going to bring ideology into this, let's do so properly.

I'll state for the records that I don't need to draw on cultural studies in order to love a lot of Britney's music.

And nobody knows what Britney sans Autotune sounds like.

Going by the live SNL 'I'm Not A (Real) Girl, Not Yet An Upgraded Sexbot' of 3 years ago, not too bad.

What might be the broad outlines or the paragraph abstract for a "proper", non-surface ideological reading of Britney's songs?

then they had a segment on black pop beauties (beyonce, ashanti and then i stopped watching to post that britney trivia fact above).

not relevant to current focus of thread i know

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RujDatFeb0&search=Sang%20Won%20Park

Jonathan if you're still interested in reading involved dissections of pop ideology I can point you to numerous tedious (my fault mostly) threads on dissensus.

her face

i recently heard "toxic" for the first time in years and holy jesus has it got to be one of the best pop songs of the decade, if not ever.

True.

And Blackout is outrageously good.

We know!

I really really like "blackout" but couldn't give a shit about the latest album.

^^

you're missing out on some killer songs. it definitely has a few that aren't good. blackout didn't have that problem. but still, missing out.

http://i36.tinypic.com/r0o3ef.jpg

I won't hold it against her!

Lies. (Maybe not.)

Her US chart history really is odd, I would have thought "I'm a Slave 4 U" and "Piece of Me" were top tens also

I love “Til the World Ends”

listening to it now

what about "3"?

Huh I thought “Slave 4 U” was a top 10 hit in the US. In Europe and LatinAmerica it definitely was. Was the video too much or got censored for American audiences?

the "i'm a slave 4 u" video was really big on mtv. it was radio that didn't play it much compared to a lot of her other songs.

What is this #freebritney shyt?

Seems like fans reading too much into things?

Does the new song ("Swimming in the Stars") slap? I'm trying to decide.

I briefly got very excited in the final thirty seconds when it threatened to go drum & bass, but turns out it's the cruellest mirage ever.

beat the press by the butthole surfers sums up her material!

she's no William Orbit, that's for true

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is0hVNZJTOU beat the press by the butthole surfers sums up her material!

https://i.ibb.co/BzHvRkp/mashup-video-of-a-baby-goat-that.jpg

So this NYT documentary on Hulu is something. The Y2K era paparazzi scene was even more vile than I remember.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXG28S8cAJU

I just discovered her Instagram (via an article around the doc and "Free Britney" phenomenon) -- it's a trip.

What is this #freebritney shyt?

Seems like fans reading too much into things?

free britney

fuck everyone else in this story

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jul/01/britney-spears-judge-denies-request-to-remove-father-jamie-from-conservatorship

But why?

that’s fucked up

I reiterate fuck everyone except britney

the why I assume includes a lot of misogyny and ableism

This is an absolute travesty.

It is beyond terrifying that your rights can be taken away permanently after a mental health crisis.

I can't find the tweet I saw last night that delved into it a little more clearly, but apparently that Variety article from yesterday was just reporting on a ruling made in November 2020, before her testimony, and has a very misleading headline.

I mean, not to dispute how tragic and horrible this entire thing is, but apparently she still needs to file a new petition and her request was not freshly quashed after that testimony.

It's like they timed it with Cosby's release just for maximum shittiness. Ugh.

agh, missed jon's posts. nm

it wasn't a ruling made in november, it was a ruling on the request to have her dad removed from the conservatorship then

timing is just coincidental

*the request made then

Right sorry, I was trying to find the tweet that cleared it all up. Important takeaway that was buried in the Variety article and not mentioned in the misleading headline, is that it wasn't a fresh denial in light of her testimony from last week, which is the narrative that, perhaps understandably, took off on twitter last night.

Britney's...free?

https://www.tmz.com/2021/08/12/britney-spears-jamie-spears-conservator-step-down/

(Not quite yet as such, but read the whole thing.)

Sounds like it's true (for those who avoid TMZ links): https://variety.com/2021/music/news/britney-spears-father-jamie-spears-quits-conservator-1235040690/

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CZ3CYZ4gF5l/?utm_medium=copy_link

:/

not a word of a lie 🙌

and like we can go easy on the slantyface, ya grl don’t need that energy unless she goes nazi or antivax or whatever (knock on wood)

what do we think about "cold heart" pt 2?

i like it on first listen. obviously very shameless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hLtlzkoGPk

It's no Solid Wall of Sound.

Britney's voice is not suited to this kind of melody at all, I actually love her vocal fry and how she uses it to convey sexiness or urgency or sadness in so many other songs but this doesn't work.

"Her US chart history really is odd, I would have thought "I'm a Slave 4 U" and "Piece of Me" were top tens also"

I know this comment was three years ago, but yes, I didn't realise until that post that "Slave 4 U" wasn't even a top twenty hit in the US. It reached number 27.

I always assumed she had hit after hit, but purely in terms of single chart placings she had a freak #1 with "Baby One More Time" in the US then had flop after flop until 2007-2012 then flop after flop again. She was far more popular on our side of the pond. I wonder if it's something to do with chart rules in the US. They have weird chart rules about radio play.

e.g. "Born to Make You Happy" got to number one here in the pop-loving UK but wasn't even released in the US. I always thought that song sounded sad. There's an air of desperation about it. There's a certain kind of song I associate with standing in Blockbuster Video or McDonalds on a winter's night at 09:30 and the rain is lashing down and its miserable, but there's supposedly cheerful pop music on the tannoy that sounds desperately sad because you're in the Blockbuster / Argos / McDonalds contemplating your life choices.

https://www.vulture.com/article/britney-spears-conservatorship-fans-conspiracy-theory

https://www.vulture.com/article/britney-spears-conservatorship-fans-conspiracy-theory.html

(maybe this link works)

Interesting article... some of these folks need to get a grip. (Wonder why it doesn't address the recent Victor Wembanyama thing)

stories like this really make it clear how thin the line is between Qanon & the rest of the general public

Her audiobook is currently free on Spotify — anyone else listening to it? I’m on ch 13 iirc.
I love the part of all musical memoirs where they talk about their childhood relationship w music.

I found her book really frustrating. It felt like it was written by AI, or maybe under-written (in the literal sense). She's just like this automaton - and then I did this, and then I did this, I went out for drinks, and then I recorded an album and went on tour, and so on. Just no revelations and the most shallow bits of introspection, no details or insight where I hoped to get some. And lots of red flags that made me question her credibility. Like when she dismisses the claim of some bodyguard at a hearing that she was doing drugs because "he wasn't cross-examined," but then a couple of pages later she writes "I probably shouldn’t admit to this, but I was hell on wheels. I was taking a lot of Adderall." And then a couple of pages after that, after defending her behavior as overblown, admitting "I’d had my moments. I’d had my wild spell. I’d been high on Adderall and acted crazy." Or claiming news of her distress was inflated, and then in the next chapter she literally admits she had a breakdown.

More troubling are bits where she keeps getting busted popping unnamed "energy pills" that she defends as harmless because they're over the counter, or how she repeatedly and specifically pines for alcohol when she's being controlled in the conservatorship, downplaying her drinking while admitting to getting "wasted." There are passages that remind me of the Chappelle Rick James sketch (where he denies rubbing his boots on Eddie Murphy's couch and then in the next breath admits it). In her case, "When I walked in, she screamed at me and we got into a huge fight. She said it was because I was wasted. She wasn’t wrong. I absolutely was. But ... " etc.

Just kind of extra sad, since even now, in the book, in the *title* of the book, she continues on this self-infantilization track. Yes, I was legally an adult, but I still felt like a kid. I may be 40, but I feel like I'm only now becoming an adult. And so on. She was treated like shit and taken advantage of, but never once seems to learn lessons from her mistakes (mistakes she readily admits to) that would have saved her so much trouble and pain. And even more tragic, never questions her circumstances, or invokes her agency, just doing what she's told from the start, unaware she can ever say no, or that she has options. Like, she's given a court-appointed lawyer that she apparently pays $500,000 a year, not realizing she could hire her own lawyer until *13 years* have passed. Just rough. I wish someone had been looking out for her.

the whole thing is terribly sad to me

I'm not sure if I can read the book

some of her mouth noises are more interesting than 95% of what the entire music industry can do with their whole voices, I still listen to some of her tracks to this day on repeat more than I can stomach most other pop songs, and when she was younger, in interviews, she had the maturity of the world, and the kindness

the whole story over the years is just painful. brilliant artist

I listened to the audiobook and it’s good to hear Britney on Britney in her own words, on her own terms. What comes through most strongly in spite of having MW read the book: this is pure Brit. She’s funny, silly, an adrenaline junkie, loving mom, enthusiastic dancer/singer, and complicated person. I was glad I spent the time.

the whole story over the years is just painful. brilliant artist

― Swen, Sunday, January 28, 2024 12:29 PM bookmarkflaglink

Yeah - she had to contend with a fuck-ton of pressure from a very young age, even before becoming the obsession of creepy paparazzos pointing out every little imperfect thing she did, or turning her head-shaving into a punchline and mocking her for it.

Looking forward to the book. I did have a problem with the lionizing some did of the #FreeBritney movement. Obviously, it is a good thing that she was to get out of her conservatorship, which is what she wanted, and I do think most people did have her best wishes at heart, but a fairly sizable portion of that movement had and still has a terrifying understanding of boundaries. and people want to "No True Scotsman" away these folks like they're a handful of randos but...they're not.

Last year, Britney deleted her Instagram, and a bunch of these 'fans' called the Ventura County Sheriff's Office, demanding they do a welfare check. Which they did, found Britney was fine, and Britney begged for fans to respect her privacy. Many of them seeing her act in ways they didn't like, like posting nudes/lewds on Instagram, and posting about it, concerned, as if they wanted her freedom so she could act in the way THEY approved of. some of them even expressing regret for her being released from her conservatorship. of course, some of these people are just the same assholes that were gawking at her before too, but it's disheartening to see after she got what she needed, fans don't want to let her enjoy her newfound freedom.

still a lot of work to be done - https://www.cbc.ca/arts/britney-spears-freebritney-mental-illness-cultural-reckoning-1.6784718

I think ... yeah, she's complicated. I think she still faces a number of challenges.

it feels like part of the problem in the cultural reckoning, if there is a problem and maybe it's just a point of relevance, is that there seems to be a need for the assignment of blame. feels like maybe it's not all everybody's fault, nor is it all her fault in terms of credibility etc, but there is a gray area in between. and regardless, I think the hope is maybe she can unpack some more art in the second half of her life.

A good read:

https://4columns.org/holiday-harmony/britney-spears

not sure to what extent it's about Britney (at least somewhat, surely), but Jeff Weiss' book comes out next week and I've already pre-ordered, super excited:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374606145/waitingforbritneyspears/