Tags
American Culture, Anthropology, Art, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Music, Music Videos, Musicology, Pop Culture, Youtube
You know what you should do–go to youtube and just start searching Britney Spears music videos. What a blast to the past! Oh Britney, who introduced so many young girls to their own sexuality, changed the path of pop music ( and thus every sleep over in American households) forever, and gave to both girls and boys all over the world a plethora of material for seriously rad mixed tapes and burned cds. But it’s easy to see why; Spears mixes the bubble gum, the sexual flirtation, the modern art, and the feel-good dance beats that are all so patternistic in the entertainment palate of the times. How glad serious fans must be then, that her formula for fun hasn’t changed in the past decade and change.
The video for Hold it Against Me faintly follows the age-old music video style of telling a story, like a mini-movie, but doesn’t do so in a strong or concrete enough way to keep up with artists like Madonna or Katy Perry (See Papa Don’t Preach and Last Friday Night (TGIF)). However, every still demands attention as colors and images and men in colored briefs and logos flash across the screen. Britney starts stomping her feet, and suddenly its like we’re all back in 2002. Despite the scandal, rough vocals, and lacking lyrics, she continues to give us numbers that entertain in a way only cheap pop music can. It’s just plain fun.
But on a deeper look, Britney’s music proves to be as innocence-lacking and motive-driven as she herself was back when she was playing with that one guy’s heart and got lost in whatever virtual game she was playing, or something…
Firstly, please notice the labels that flash across the screen–about 6 in all, including her own perfume. Secondly, the background televisions flashing her old music videos. Is it just me, or do both these two item just scream personal PR? Thirdly, the Gaga-esque nails, which of course, not only Spears is guilty of jumping on the freak bandwagon (‘if nothing else, my bizarre and completely impractical nails with the forks and tubes and chain saws attached will make my music video totally cool.’) Seriously, how does Ke$ha even get the tops off her vodka bottles? Unless, maybe…the answer is in the question…
In all seriousness, this 2011 installment of Spearstastic tunes is a perfect study of American entertainment mentality, as well as our current pop culture fetishes. To keep this entry from being any longer or wordier (Abe Lincoln would have my head), I will give you a list:
- She is building her own empire through projective media publishing and self-history. Can anyone say capitalistic mentality spilled over into art?
- All you need is good dance music, and all your problems are solved. Everyone hooks up at the club all the time. What do you do on Friday nights?
- Strange nail art.
- We all fight who we are, and in that we will discover our truth (how else do we explain her sudden fetish with Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots?)
- Freak is better than normal; it makes you sexy, and when in the spotlight gives off a ‘stick it to ’em’ feel to all the preps for the rest of the world. Supposedly.
- Sex is what we want. In everything. All the time. Right?
- The rise of photography and common interest in related artifacts (tools, objects, ie, cameras and lenses).
- The end of the world (See her own Till the World Ends, Party Rock, scores of movies over the past two decades such as Armageddon, Deep Impact, Cloverfield, I Am Legend, Wall-E, whatever that mediocre movie Tom Cruise was in like five years ago…)
- The search for the true love trumps all, as long as we’re happy with it in the moment.
- Our music is our entertainment, not our achievement.
My last thought, in conclusion, is that Britney should stick to dancing. The video (and song, actually) only get interesting when she actually breaks out the concise choreography, in-sync back-up dancers, and starts jumping herself. The music drags her down, and she has better talent than she’s expressing in her music videos. And the rest of us are left with second-rate follow ups to the true freaks and party girls. I’m moving on from paint-filled fingers to alien-human romances faster than Britney can change film shots in this video….Bring it on, Katy.