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The turning point into near-irrelevance on the charts was clearly Pretty Girls

Someone Who Knows

By Someone Who Knows
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Someone Who Knows

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Pretty Girls was a f**king disaster. Why? Because people checked for that song. I know a whole lot of people who aren't Britney fans who know Pretty Girls. It has almost 175 million views on YouTube. It was performed on a national awards show. 2015 was when the anti-Iggy backlash was at its peak, too. Britney looked badly out of step with where the general public's taste was going.

Even the Britney Jean era wasn't an unmitigated disaster; at least it produced a hit; the video was great and very popular; it's one of her best-known songs since Womanizer. Vegas has certainly been a net-positive for her reputation (the show is an unqualified, no ifs-and-or-buts success), if not exactly her sales figures. X Factor clearly didn't hurt her ability to get a hit, since she smashed with Scream & Shout right as the show was wrapping up. Obviously the Femme Fatale Tour and promo performances didn't ruin her ability to move tickets (and expensive ones, at that). 

No, it wasn't any of these things. It was ******* Pretty Girls. The reason Glory -- a pretty significant critical success story, full of good songs, at least as good as 'Circus', which the GP ate up -- was completely ignored and now is completely forgotten by the general public, beyond Britney's 100,000 or so diehards, is Pretty Girls. I mean, people mostly see the song for what it is: an inferior Fancy knock-off -- and it made Britney look foolish: like someone of her stature was reducing herself to chasing the sounds of Iggy freakin' Azalea. Why bother checking for her latest album? Especially when she has so many good older songs already and the new stuff couldn't possibly be of comparable stature, knowing her recent musical choices...

Pretty Girls wasn't single-handedly responsible for her decline into chart irrelevance, but Pretty Girls could have been a huge hit if the song was actually good: people checked for it, people heard it. Britney's team tried to push it as the f**king 'Song of the Summer' -- remember that? Yet at the same time they knew they were taking a big gamble and denied that it was anything more than a buzz single. Big-time mixed messaging there -- do they have confidence in the song or not? I still am floored that they thought the song was actually good enough to run with -- if there was anything I thought I could trust Britney and her team to do, it's find some good f**king pop songs to record, but it's just amazing to me that so many people gave the green light to such an underwhelming song. 

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Iexpectyouto Rising Star

Iexpectyouto

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I don’t think people cared that much tbh. Yeah it wasn’t well received but people forgot about it pretty quickly. I can certainly see your point and I agree it could’ve been handled a lot better but removing pretty girls and changing nothing else wouldn’t change glory being a non-event. It would just be one less top-40 in Britney’s bag and one less funny video Brit actually enjoyed making. 

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CharlieBlue8 Experienced

CharlieBlue8

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Don't worry too much.  Her team pays for her hits.  They know what they're doing.  (Kind of).  They didn't pay as much for Pretty Girls since it wasn't a leading single or a supporting one at that.  All her songs like that are low budg.  From the video to the promo.  Do Somethin, 3, and PG's.  They just hope for the best and wing it.  Just because it flopped ages ago and she wasn't forced to promote and her team didn't spend as much on Glory (Because of Vegas) doesn't mean she's "over".  IF she doesn't do Vegas again for the next era they'll spend mass money again and she'll have another Top 5 at a minimum.  :endit:

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F.a.u.zish Collaborator

F.a.u.zish

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9 minutes ago, CharlieBlue8 said:

Don't worry too much.  Her team pays for her hits.  They know what they're doing.  (Kind of).  They didn't pay as much for Pretty Girls since it wasn't a leading single or a supporting one at that.  All her songs like that are low budg.  From the video to the promo.  Do Somethin, 3, and PG's.  They just hope for the best and wing it.  Just because it flopped ages ago and she wasn't forced to promote and her team didn't spend as much on Glory (Because of Vegas) doesn't mean she's "over".  IF she doesn't do Vegas again for the next era they'll spend mass money again and she'll have another Top 5 at a minimum.  :endit:

then how come Britney era singles didn't chart high if all they need to chart high is her team paying and promoting and not the sales,streaming and radio?

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PokemonSpears Master

PokemonSpears

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And yet it charted higher than Perfume or Slumber Party.

I think it was ok for her to release that track, if she wanted to have fun and be coo. It sucked, well, it was the risk they had to take. The unforgivable thing is that they didn't release, properly, with a videoclip, Tom's Diner as a follow up single. The song was already there, it was praised by the critics, she just had to shoot a damn videoclip and it would've repaired the damage done by Pretty Girls (if there was any, 'cause I think people quickly forgot about it).

 

Glory, an album full of excellent songs, could've gained more attention if Make Me... wasn't the lead single, or if it received a different videoclip, or if they released a second single right away instead of waiting till November, to release, SLUMBER PARTY :wontcry:

I've always thought is ok for us to make mistakes, that's how we learn. The problem with her team or her label or herself or I don't know who do I have to blame, is that they make a wrong decision, and their way of fixing the damage is, scrap everything else, run away and hide till they come up with something new 58 years later, instead of releasing something else right away to make up for the mistake they made.

Since Britney Jean. Perfume was a wrong choice since the beginning, and they ruined any chance with that joke of a videoclip. Fine. Release then another damn single the next month and don't screw it up this time. No, they left us the whole 2014 with nothing, and not only her fans, but the GP had nothing from Britney either. And then she decides to come back in 2015 with Pretty Girls, when she already had Tom's Diner recorded. :wyd:

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STJ Proficient

STJ

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i feel like when female artists release a girl anthem, that single is more likely to flop, because GP guys can't relate to it. the song has to be really catchy (like rihanna's only girl in the world) in order for it to be a hit. she should release a gender-neutral song like i wanna go or ttwe... (personally dont like any singles from FF) but those are more likely to give her hits than something like a female anthem or another *** song... (she and xtina need to stop releasing *** songs, not saying they're no longer ****, but when you're near 40 with 2 kids... GP men are not going to buy into it lol).

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Guest Arckangel

Guest Arckangel

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4 hours ago, Steel Magnolia said:

I beg to differ...

I believe it was the video for the song that was responsible for her chart irrelevance, not the song itself.

The leopard-print top and dark tan combo made her look like a 50-year old cougar next to Iggy.

It was all downhill from there.

I loved the song on first listen, and I totally dig the music video as well. I see no issues with neither outputs. And I do not see it as an actual flop. 173 million+ views, for any local, indie artist, would be a complete success! On YouTube/VEVO—it was a HIT!

And the sales weren't bad! At least 302,000 units in the US, 32,788 units in the UK, etc.

https://www.ukmix.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=5767962#p5767962
https://www.ukmix.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=5719148#p5719148

Once again, any unknown, local, indie artist would commit a blood sacrifice for such sales. lol

And it was #1 on the US Dance Club Songs chart (Billboard). I take everything into consideration, not just the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

An artist, even a megastar, should never take anything for granted. It could have sold a lot less than it did... I think it's a great tune w/ a joyful vibe and a cool reverby sound. I don't care much about the rest.

@Someone Who Knows

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Kiey Mentor

Kiey

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No the thing that ruined her era was the shitty Make Me video

THAT was the true disaster

because it was a double punch of shitty forgettable videos

It also ruined the budget for a third single form Glory

Slumber Party was great but Make Me killed off the lead single momentum

 

Pretty Girls was just a cute bop in the summer 

Make Me was where it failed to recover and continue the whack *** bad quality videos going from Perfume - Pretty Girls - Make Me

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OrganisedChaos Proficient

OrganisedChaos

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I agree with some of what you said but I think a lot of it is the finite amount of time that Britney can rest on her laurels without producing something spectacular.

Dont get me wrong, I think Glory is a fantastic album but the full package isn’t there to support it which is what an artist like Britney needs if she wants mainstream success.

And quite honestly I think they got a little lucky with Work ***** - the Britney brand was on thin ice and Pretty Girls/Britney Jean kinda tipped it over the edge. Both were total missfires.

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