This Day in Pop: Do Somethin' video leaks online in 2005 (January 18)

[PokemonSpears]

On January 18, 2005, the Do Somethin' video leaked online ahead of its scheduled release on January 21 in the UK. Do Somethin' would be the second single off her Greatest Hits: My Prerogative compilation album, released on February of the same year.

The music video was co-directed by Britney herself under the alias of Mona Lisa, along with Billie Woodruff, who had previously directed the Born to Make You Happy and Overprotected videos.

However, the music video which was filmed on December 2004, almost didn't happen: Britney Spears had to fight her record label for it. In a letter she published on her official website on January 03, she wrote:

" I just shot a cute video for "Do Something" that I co-directed. After doing about 20 videos, it gets kind of boring playing the same role, so I chose to work with a young, hungry, director Bille Woodruff. He had no ego whatsoever and the whole process was just so much fun. Oh, his dog was just adorable too.

As much fun as I had, I have to say I was a little disappointed that I still had to convince my record label that making this video was the right thing to do at this time. But, in the end, I think everything came out great. We shot the entire video in a record breaking 5 hours. I even came up with all the choreography and styled the entire shoot myself using Juicy Couture clothing.

Co-directing this video was like an experimental project for me. I feel like being behind the camera is sometimes more satisfying than being in front of it. Working on this video was my first taste into behind the scenes work which I am excited about doing more of in the near future. When a woman directs, I think it just alters the entire feel of the movie, production or play in such a positive way. Speaking of, I've been working on writing and hopefully eventually directing a musical which makes fun of the whole Hollywood scene, which is appropriately titled "Hollywood". "

In the video we see her riding a flying, pink Hummer as she and her friends arrive to a club. After doing some choreo, she and her bandmates end up performing the song onstage. Additionally, we see intercut scense of Britney Spears in a dark room where she's wearing black underwear and a white mini fur coat, as well as a Hello Kitty necklace and other jewelry.

The video was quite popular around the world, and in MTV Latin America it landed at #35 in the year-end Top 100 of 2005.

In 2007, it was reported that LVMH's subsidiary Louis Vuitton won a lawsuit on 80,000 EUR for the unauthorized close-ups to the Hummer's dashboard on the video, which was covered in a Louis Vuitton pattern. However the tribunal ruled ruled that responsibility for the unauthorized use of the Louis Vuitton brand lay with Sony, BMG and its subsidiary Zomba as well as MTV Online, and not Britney. As a consequence, the video was also banned from airing on any European TV station.

 

 

[Blackout2006]

It sucks how much potential this song had to be a big hit for Britney. It's in my top 20 of my favourite Britney songs

[bliaz]

It blows my mind to think about that date because it was just then when I was living one of the worst stages of my life 

[britney_rocks]

Unpopular opinion, but this has always been in my top 3 of my most disliked videos and songs by Britney. 

[FraFromThe90's]

I didn't know about the Hollywood musical she was writing.. She was really at the beginning of her next chapter as an artist, and at such an young age!!! So sad everything went wrong

[NewDisplayName]

I love her look and energy in the video So much! 
It took some time for me to love the song thou.. the verses were unusual for me but soon after 4-5 times of listening I loved the whole song.. 

were the videos leaking that way back in the day?! 😄

 

[Look But Don't Touch]

It's a cute song, nothing special tbh 

[studlygeorge]

In knee’s mind this song and Boys went number 1 around the world and it’s more iconic than BOMT and Oops

[FemmeFataleBrit]

I liked I’ve Just Begun way more! It could’ve had a similar video as well: bunch of girls partying around.

[PokemonSpears]

1 hour ago, NewDisplayName said:

 

were the videos leaking that way back in the day?! 😄

 

idk, yahoo? 😂

I was trying to find more info, and just found a post on worldofbritney with a link to download the video, but this was January 14, not 18, so the internet has lied to me all this time 

https://web.archive.org/web/20050120091442/https://www.worldofbritney.com:80/

[Blackout2006]

1 hour ago, FraFromThe90's said:

I didn't know about the Hollywood musical she was writing.. She was really at the beginning of her next chapter as an artist, and at such an young age!!! So sad everything went wrong

Omg truth tea spill...she was planning to be casted for the James Bond franchise, she was working on original doll that was supposed to bring respect to her name in the industry, she was going to leave Jive and open her own record label, she received critical acclaim for her HIMYM and W&G, she was expected to become a much more artistic an creatively-liberated artist and then Kevin happened

[PeterPaul]

This song always gets me in such a slutty mood I can’t 

[1stopBopshop]

omg @ at the way I used to dance to this song as a 10 year old.  I was obsessed with this video lol. 


Also...i'm not sure if this is going to make sense, but  can ya'll see  the little nuances in the way she dances in this video in the ig videos as well...but maybe like less focused...am I making sense?

[rennen]

I really don't like this video. It's probably my least favourite along with Piece of Me. 

[NewDisplayName]

1 hour ago, PokemonSpears said:

idk, yahoo? 😂

I was trying to find more info, and just found a post on worldofbritney with a link to download the video, but this was January 14, not 18, so the internet has lied to me all this time 

https://web.archive.org/web/20050120091442/https://www.worldofbritney.com:80/

Oh my God! It’s like time machine! 

But once again people were too rude towards Brit : (

[Goten21]

Tasteless hags in this thread

[Alestaos]

Such a fun song and video, a highlight of the Greatest hits era

[LeglessJamie]

I don't get the "hate" for Do Somethin'. It's one of her better singles and I LOVED the live performances of it. They're always so vibrant!

Also...they blurred the Louis Vuitton pattern in a certain version so they still could air the video. Some versions have an alternative editing too I believe in which they removed this part.

[MeAgainstTheMusic_]

Britney’s team couldn’t take how much control she wanted over her music and must have been thinking of ways to silence her forever. I wish she’d left her label here and moved on like Kylie did in her career.

By this point Britney had outgrown Jive and needed another team that were going to embrace her creative control. Jive still wanted her to be a puppet and Larry still treated her like a little girl they could control rather than the woman she was becoming and wanting to be free with her choices. Sad

[Stannedforever]

These pre-2010 leaks almost always happened inside p2p scene. Napster, Limewire, Kazaa, EMule, DC++ etc. Back in the day it was my only way to watch some performances as youtube didn't even exists so I often stumbled upon leaked/unreleased Britney content. I think I found out about do somethin' from limewire in early 2005 so that might been the leak, who knows.