Rank Britney's VIDEO ERAS

[Someone Who Knows]

IMO...

1. In the Zone + GH:MP - So many great, cinematic, emotional scenes, with a lot of dark, ****, and powerful imagery

2. Britney - Britney was never so effortlessly **** and never danced so well in her videos again

3. Oops!...I Did It Again - Four solid videos in a row showing all her strengths as she was coming into her own

4. Femme Fatale - Her best post-prime video era -- four solid videos in a row

5. Circus + TSC - Lots of memorable **** looks but lost momentum with the good-but-not-great Amy video and weak Radar video; 3 is criminally underrated though

6. Baby One More Time - Cute videos, and one legendary one, but not enough edge

7. Britney Jean - Work ***** is one of her best, but Perfume is zzzz

8. Glory - Slumber Party rules, but Make Me is a joke

9. Blackout - Mess, almost nothing redeeming about this video era

Deciding how to rank Femme Fatale, which was easily her best post-prime video era, versus Oops and Circus is tough

[Mona Lisa 2.0]

1. ITZ: Toxic > Me Against The Music  > Everytime
2. Circus: Circus > If U Seek Amy > Womanizer > Radar
3. Britney: I'm A Slave 4 U > Overprotected Remix > Overprotected > I Love Rock 'n Roll > Boys > I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman
4. BOMT:  ...Baby One More Time > (You Drive Me) Crazy > Born To Make You Happy > Sometimes > From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart
5. Oops: Oops!...I Did It Again >  Lucky >  Stronger > Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know
6. GH: My Prerogative > Do Somethin'
7. Blackout: Piece Of Me > Gimme More > Break The Ice
8. Femme Fatale: Hold It Against Me > I Wanna Go > Criminal > Till the World Ends
9. Britney Jean: Work ***** > Perfume
10. Glory: Slumber Party > Make Me...

[Someone Who Knows]

2 minutes ago, Mona Lisa 2.0 said:

1. ITZ: Toxic > Me Against The Music  > Everytime
2. Circus: Circus > If U Seek Amy > Womanizer > Radar
3. Britney: I'm A Slave 4 U > Overprotected Remix > Overprotected > I Love Rock 'n Roll > Boys > I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman
4. BOMT:  ...Baby One More Time > (You Drive Me) Crazy > Born To Make You Happy > Sometimes > From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart
5. Oops: Oops!...I Did It Again >  Lucky >  Stronger > Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know
6. GH: My Prerogative > Do Somethin'
7. Blackout: Piece Of Me > Gimme More > Break The Ice
8. Femme Fatale: Hold It Against Me > I Wanna Go > Criminal > Till the World Ends
9. Britney Jean: Work ***** > Perfume
10. Glory: Slumber Party > Make Me...

Blackout over Femme Fatale? You've gotta be ******' kidding me. And if you invoke that effin body double to try to use 1 second out of four videos to negate the whole era, I swear to God...

[Someone Who Knows]

Just now, Oliver T said:

This prove u don't know s--t

Gimme More and POM are two of her best music videos. They're literally the nearly only two ones where she's displaying who she truly is.

Why do certain fans glorify this ******-up, gritty, out-of-control Britney as 'who she really is'? What if I said the effin Make Me video is more who she truly is -- a fun, goofy, awkward grown woman -- and that the ******-up, gritty stuff is a time in her life she barely identifies with and wants to forget as much as possible?

[Nando.]

Britney

ITZ

BOMT

Oops

Circus

Femme Fatale

Glory

Blackout

Britney Jean

[Mona Lisa 2.0]

3 minutes ago, Someone Who Knows said:

Blackout over Femme Fatale? You've gotta be ******' kidding me. And if you invoke that effin body double to try to use 1 second out of four videos to negate the whole era, I swear to God...

She was fierce during Blackout and dead during FF era so... 

[Someone Who Knows]

5 minutes ago, Mona Lisa 2.0 said:

She was fierce during Blackout and dead during FF era so... 

Britney herself has said she doesn't understand why Piece of Me won Video of the Year. She was literally an anime cartoon for Break the Ice. Gimme More contains no dancing, just a ******-up-looking Britney cavorting around a ******** pole. She still looks slightly lethargic in the first two Femme Fatale videos, but by I Wanna Go and Criminal, the classic Britney attitude is back. And Hold It Against Me and Till the World Ends are still strong videos so many other respects, even if Britney isn't at 100%.

[Someone Who Knows]

2 minutes ago, Oliver T said:

Cuz she was being herself. Those hard times are part of her history and work.

Blackout is her best work to date.

Gimme More and Piece Of Me are two of her best videos because she was involved in them, because they were released as something "personal".

And before that Britney's work was kinda lacking personal input imo.  

To me this era embodies Britney the best. 

Blackout the album is her best work to date. She was willing to throw caution to the wind and experiment during a difficult time in her life, and it paid off. But I think there's good reason to believe she was not 'being herself,' but was subject to wild undiagnosed bipolar mood swings during that time. And I don't like the idea that people are romanticizing that. It can be cool to romanticize wild antics from afar, but Britney was ******' miserable during that time in her life.

[JustLuvMe]

Blackout definitely deserves to be at the bottom of everyone’s list

We got a music video full of filters and bad photoshop (it looks like someone went crazy with the video editor)

Then we got Piece of Me which isn’t bad but it’s not memorable either

and then we got an animated music video 

[Mona Lisa 2.0]

Just now, Someone Who Knows said:

Britney herself has said she doesn't understand why Piece of Me won Video of the Year. She was literally an anime cartoon for Break the Ice. Gimme More contains no dancing, just a ******-up-looking Britney cavorting around a ******** pole. She still looks slightly lethargic in the first two Femme Fatale videos, but by I Wanna Go and Criminal, the classic Britney attitude is back.

You want to talk about Britney dancing on Blackout when you're defending an era with a body double? 

[Someone Who Knows]

Just now, JustLuvMe said:

Blackout definitely deserves to be at the bottom of everyone’s list

We got a music video full of filters and bad photoshop (it looks like someone went crazy with the video editor)

Then we got Piece of Me which isn’t bad but it’s not memorable either

and then we got an animated music video 

Thank you...the mental gymnastics fans go through to romanticize that mess are embarrassing...Britney herself obviously was dissatisfied with that video era, too

[Someone Who Knows]

Just now, Mona Lisa 2.0 said:

You want to talk about Britney dancing on Blackout when you're defending an era with a body double? 

You wanna take literally one ******* second out of an entire era's videography and say it ruins it?

[Mona Lisa 2.0]

1 minute ago, Someone Who Knows said:

Thank you...the mental gymnastics fans go through to romanticize that mess are embarrassing...Britney herself obviously was dissatisfied with that video era, too

Why is liking the videos romanticizing Britney's state? If that's what you think than you shouldn't like the album either. Britney says she's embarassed by a lot of things in her past and she wouldn't do them now like the snake on VMAs, shouldn't we like it then? 

[Someone Who Knows]

Just now, Oliver T said:

I'm not romanticising it.

Yes she was probably ill at that time, but being bipolar - as many suspect she was - doesn't make you a different person. What made her a different person was what happened after. Femme Fatale for example (and bj) are two eras where she was completely not herself. 

I don't know what this 'herself' vs 'not herself' business is all about, anyway. There are many different realities that a person lives through. Femme Fatale is 'manufactured,' sure, but so was Circus, so was Oops!...I Did It Again. Her personal issues were not about dissatisfaction with the era. She might have even wanted an era that was more manufactured, so she wouldn't have to work as hard during a difficult period but could still remain working and active. Who knows? 

 

Being bipolar doesn't make you a different person, but it does intensify emotions, often at random times, in ways that make good decison-making difficult. We are wired to respond in certain ways to certain signals our body sends us, and when that's out of whack, we make decisions we wouldn't normally. It can be a blessing and a curse, but it was obviously a curse in 2007; her life had totally fallen apart. Is the 'real her' one who loses custody of her kids?

[Mona Lisa 2.0]

2 minutes ago, Someone Who Knows said:

You wanna take literally one ******* second out of an entire era's videography and say it ruins it?

And you're saying that I can't like the videos cause of her state in the Blackout era, when Britney was obviously making music cause she wanted to, she was worse on Femme Fatale cause she didn't want to be performing or making music at all.

[Someone Who Knows]

1 minute ago, Mona Lisa 2.0 said:

Why is liking the videos romanticizing Britney's state? If that's what you think than you shouldn't like the album either. Britney says she's embarassed by a lot of things in her past and she wouldn't do them now like the snake on VMAs, shouldn't we like it then? 

Because he specifically said he liked the videos because they were more representative of the 'real her.' If you happen to just think the videos are good because they look neat or whatever, so be it, but he specifically said that he liked the videos because he thought they were more authentically 'her.' I love Blackout because the songs are great, not because I think it's more 'truly her' or whatever. I don't even know if there's such a thing as a 'true self.' People are always changing and evolving.

[Someone Who Knows]

5 minutes ago, Mona Lisa 2.0 said:

Why is liking the videos romanticizing Britney's state? If that's what you think than you shouldn't like the album either. Britney says she's embarassed by a lot of things in her past and she wouldn't do them now like the snake on VMAs, shouldn't we like it then? 

Also, I don't think Britney means that she regrets the snake performance -- only that she can't believe she actually did that and would never have the audacity to pull something like that again

[Mona Lisa 2.0]

9 minutes ago, Someone Who Knows said:

Because he specifically said he liked the videos because they were more representative of the 'real her.' If you happen to just think the videos are good because they look neat or whatever, so be it, but he specifically said that he liked the videos because he thought they were more authentically 'her.' I love Blackout because the songs are great, not because I think it's more 'truly her' or whatever. I don't even know if there's such a thing as a 'true self.' People are always changing and evolving.

It's because she was going through hard times that she showed her real self more. After Circus, her management totally changed her image. Do you think the real Britney was the virginal Britney from BOMT-Oops era? She was herself during ITZ - Blackout era. She's not showing her true self anymore cause the media used that against her.

 

[Someone Who Knows]

1 minute ago, Oliver T said:

Yes what happened to her in 2007 in her personal life is tragic.

But on an artistic ground it was amazing.

I'm not much interested in her personal life as in "her kids, lovers, holiday" and stuff. I love Britney Spears the artist, aka a different person from who she might truly be, and that's what I mean. Blackout to me was like an artistic epiphany. Something happened musically wise and the reasons behind it don't concern me. 

Like if you take Charles Baudelaire for example, his best works were the one he created while being completely under the weather, on the verge of being put up in an institution. 

 

I think that's a much better answer: that it DOESN'T MATTER whether Blackout was the 'real her'; the art that endures is more important than the situation out of which it grew, which is ultimately trivia and mere history. I was taking objection to the idea that the Blackout videos are good because they are more 'authentically her' or whatever -- I don't think they are... but I don't really think it matters at the end of the day, either. That's how I feel about Femme Fatale, too. Fans obsess so much over how 'out of it' she was during that era that they spoil a lot of enjoyment they could be getting out of some good-*** pop songs.

[Someone Who Knows]

Just now, Mona Lisa 2.0 said:

It's because she was going through hard times that she showed her real self more. After Circus, her management totally changed her image. Do you think the real Britney was the virginal Britney from BOMT-Oops era? She's not showing her true self anymore cause the media used that against her.

 

I don't think there is such a thing as 'the' 'real Britney'...I think people who live great and interesting lives become very multidimensional people, and all of their sides are equally 'real,' even when they aren't mutually compatible. The unmedicated bipolar Britney is the 'real Britney,' sure...but so is the awkward dork who thought the Make Me video was a good idea...and so was the innocent Britney of her early days...and so is the Vegas showgirl side of her...and on and on...there are lots of realities a person lives and we should be able to appreciate them all for what they are