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Good Read about Britney's Career


CharmingMadness

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Long read, but I personally enjoy well-written articles, that observe the artist's career in the whole and shall i say its a praising one? :makeitrain:
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/entertainment/daring-you-to-stand-in-her-way/article9171036.ece?

Nine albums and countless public controversies later, Britney Spears is still going strong. Is she an icon of modern pop music?

Oh, Britney. How are you still going? Britney Spears, are you bullet-proof; are you made of Teflon? :orangu:What kind of a new-age-no-carbs diet are you on? Are you indestructible? It’s been far too many years. And here she is again, receiving almost unanimous rave reviews for Glory , her ninth (!) studio album. For so long, she’s been the set-up, and then she’s been the punchline.

Well before music snobs started mocking fans of, say, Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift, they were insulting and ridiculing any person who admitted to liking Britney Spears’ music. But no. She’s kept at it, against all conventional wisdom, against vicious personal and professional attacks, against cyclical setbacks and lots of laughter at her expense. It seems churlish to suggest, but could Britney Spears actually be a pop music icon?

Spearing our hearts

Monday through Friday, right after kids reached home from school, Nikhil Chinapa used to host this show on MTV called MTV Select. People could call him, have their voices featured on air, and request a music video they wanted to watch (and hear). This was in the late ’90s. It was a superhit show. One particular video caught everyone’s attention, and got a lot of airtime. It featured a very young Britney Spears, full of pluck and bottle, dancing suggestively. The melody was unreasonably catchy, and classrooms all over the country had kids humming and singing, “Hit me baby/one more time”. In my own experience, around the teenage years of self-discovery, the guys were drawn to her appearance, while the girls admired her spirit. She was a legitimate sensation the day that song released, and it only got bigger from there.

It sounds unbelievable when you calculate the numbers, but it’s been almost 20 years since ‘…Baby One More Time’ released (apparently one of the best-selling singles ever). That was 1998, a completely different world. Millennials (let’s just say people in their 20s and 30s) have made a living out of complaining about how quickly things have changed and fallen by the wayside: pagers, tapes/ CDs/ books/ any form of physical art, television, filmmaking, photography, blah-blah. They’ve experienced the shift in real-time, so the attachment to the past, nauseating as it may be (and this writer is guilty of it too), is stronger than in members of the youth born in the midst of the digital boom. Yet here we are, still talking about Britney Spears. It’s amazing, really.

Making of a pop star

Today, the average shelf-life of a pop star is half a decade or so. Actually, it’s always been so. Remember how popular Christina Aguilera used to be and how not-popular she is today? In those five years, you have to cram an entire lifetime of experiences. A breakout teenybopper hit catapulting you to stardom, after which comes a follow-up album that’s just as catchy. There also needs to be masala . A high-profile relationship with someone equally famous, and then a dramatic break-up. Perhaps an angry outburst on TV or a meltdown at an awards show. What about substance abuse? Maybe a DUI or two, followed by rehab. Prison, too, if it gets too bad. A feud with a rival pop star and then an experimental album. Finally, after everything, a comeback. And once you’re burnt out at the ripe old age of 23 or something, a gradual fade into irrelevance until you reinvent yourself.

Pop music, by design, is supposed to be disposable. It’s produced to trigger instant, if temporary, gratification and short-term accessibility, surrounded by glamour and sparkle. The bubbly thrill and the novelty will soon wear off, as the next ‘pretty young thing’ walks on to the scene. That’s why the media (including the PR machine backing the artists) makes such a huge fuss about the personal life of pop stars. Because we, as consumers, can only listen to the music for so long; after that, we want a voyeuristic peek into the rich-and-famous and mentally-unstable lifestyle.

It’s Britney, bi**h

With Spears, all of that was exaggerated to an obscene degree. She was always lampooned and parodied, always fetishised and objectified. Her talent was questioned at every step, unlike many of her peers. Let’s not forget that this was a mere teenager catapulted to worldwide fame at a very early age. But each move of hers was scrutinised, and I do think there was a fair amount of sexism that informed all the hate directed at her. She was criticised for the way she looked and dressed. She was heavily body-shamed after a high-profile live performance at the 2007 Video Music Awards, for having put on a little weight and appearing a little dazed. And then came that mega Britney fan video, imploring everyone to “leave Britney alone!” There was a 55-hour marriage that was annulled, and some other marriages. Frequent breakdowns and battles with substance abuse.

There was her Madonna complex, where she wanted to be just like her, and the much-discussed kiss. She even dabbled with kabbalah briefly. Motherhood happened. She shaved off her head. This was a person who obviously needed help and empathy. But we pointed and laughed, oblivious to the mental health issues affecting a young person unable to deal with the trappings of fame.

Anyone in her position would have lost the motivation to continue. No one would have judged her for walking off into the sunset with her bags of cash and a lifetime of fame and experience. People have given up after facing far less. But for what it’s worth, Spears is still around, and still a big enough draw, still only 34. Sure, she’s not right up there at the very top of the pop world, but she’s relevant. She has been steadily fighting her way through every setback, releasing new music periodically.

Personally, Glory (or much of her back-catalogue) doesn’t move this writer all that much in terms of aesthetics or emotional attachment. It’s music I don’t particularly enjoy, and try my best not to judge too harshly. It’s catchy. But it’s the kind of catchy that I — a fully grown manchild nearing 30 — will not admit to enjoying for fear of ridicule. What’s worth highlighting about Spears, though, is just her sheer resilience. It’s easy to accuse her of trying to ‘reinvent’ herself, to exploit the industry and relive the fame of her early days. But for nine albums? Maybe she genuinely finds a pure kind of joy in her music. She deserves respect, begrudgingly or otherwise.

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