it's britney ...

[maura.livejournal.com]

well.

Comments

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I doubt "giggle factor" could go into the 99-cent purchase of the song, when you can watch her VMA performance (or hear the song) for free. Just can't imagine that many people would download it for money without liking it.

Love the song, think the video is...um. I dunno. It's right in the middle of some kinda nadir publicity-wise, and it's uncomfortable being right in the middle of it. She'll "pull through" by default (whether or not this coincides with her career ending or rebounding isn't clear) and I think in retrospect this period of time in her career is going to seem a lot more complex (and interesting) than the current culture-wide nastiness suggests. But I'm not going to say this is "intentionally" or "unintentionally" brilliant by a long shot (because Maura'd get mad at me!). I do wish that this didn't strike me as approaching the music video equivalent of the Nic Cage movie 8mm, though.

[koganbot]

As I said to Lex, I don't perceive the reaction to Britney as unremitting nastiness. I mean, how sneering and gleeful can you get about a woman possibly losing custody of her children?

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

But I think that what goes missing in this conversation is that these tensions -- which I think are being acknowledged at a social level -- are happening in the music, too, and I think it's the music that's generally getting lost in he fold here (we'll see what happens when the album comes out -- the promo leak I listened to is somewhat weak on huge singles but big on complexity in the lyrics of all places, which usually isn't where Britney even tries to draw me in). If it's as good as the promo leak suggests it might be, it will be kind of like her My December, meaning most people won't really focus on how the music/words are working as compared to her other stuff, and the shitstorm will take center stage. (But, interestingly, the shit storm is in the music, and not just in an exploitative way -- there's a little bit of tabloid voyeurism in there, but for the most part Britney seems really confused and angry; e.g., she's leaving her kids with K-Fed so she can go get drunk with an unnamed dude.)

Also, "Heaven on Earth," "Radar," and "Get Back" are all great dance singles, and not half as huge as most Britney singles (coming more out of subtler dance stuff like "Gimme More" and "And Then We Kiss," which kind of ingratiates itself, snakes its way into your brain/heart/whatever, whether its poisonous or kinda sweet, respectively).