She’s back.
The woman who used to loom over our culture monolithically and symbolize everything that was sexual, decadent, overproduced and … well … popular in pop music seems poised to retake her abdicated throne.
I am, of course, speaking of the former Mrs. Federline, Britney Spears.
Last week, Britney slyly released (like we wouldn’t notice. Tch) a video for her brand new song “Womanizer” from her upcoming LP “Circus.”
The song and video are very clearly two things: a bid for regained pop relevance and a proving ground for Britney.
The career arc of Ms. Spears has already been well documented, especially her cue-balled, car-assaulting, choreography biffing nadir. After that point, her hopeful comeback effort, “Blackout,” was surprisingly well-received for something that seemed doomed from the start, but it wasn’t the reassertion of commercial dominance that I’m sure Britney and her record label Jive hoped it would be.
So that same twosome have gone back to the drawing board and have offered up “Womanizer,” which is amazing in its sheer audio-visual packaging.
The song itself is a bouncy slice of uptempo electro pop in a similar vein as “Blackout’s” sleazy European electro-funk. But what really puts the who shebang in a league above “Blackout” is the clearly high-budgeted video.
My first instinct while watching Britney dance around and writhe around naked in a sauna was to say, “Deeeeaaaaaaamn!” My second instinct was, “Wow, Britney’s really got her ish together.” The snappy choreography and costume and set changes are a far cry from the sluggish pole dancing of the “Gimme More” video that looked like it was shot on a Handycam with only a rented club and a fog machine.
So kudos to whoever put this whole thing together. But that’s exactly what it is: put together. With each scene, it’s as if Britney’s saying, “See? I told you!” It’s like she’s trying to prove herself all over again.
It’s as if she’s trying to address all of the criticisms of the past year: The press seemed to seize on the fact that she seemed half-asleep, unable to do the choreography and worst of all, out of shape at the 2007 VMA’s. In the video for “Womanizer,” Britney performs snappy choreography to prove that she can. More importantly, she’s appearing naked and writhing as kind of a screw-you to the press. “I did the master cleanse ya’ll, and boy did it work!” I have no proof she drank nothing but syrup for a while, but the point is that she managed to get herself back in shape circa 2003.
Speaking of 2003, this video is just one more step in what seems to be a master plan to get Britney back to that year, before all that trouble and strife. This is the second step. The first was her “opening” of the 2008 VMA’s, where she didn’t perform but engaged in a go-nowhere skit with Jonah Hill. This was her post-rock-bottom debut. All she did was prove that she had it together enough to read off of cue cards.
Musically and culturally, she is just trying to achieve another “Toxic.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if Britney’s career had continued along undisturbed post-“Toxic,” she would be enjoying a level of fame similar to Prince, Jr. and Justin Timberlake. Think back to 2003-2004. JT and Britney were pretty much on a level playing field. JT had “Rock Your Body” and “Cry Me A River.” Britney had “Me Against the Music” and “Toxic.”
The reason I keep harping on “Toxic” is because it seemed like no one could say they didn’t like it and mean it. It had a cool video, a catchy hook and most of all, the most forward thinking production pop music had heard in a while. Those violins? Those spy movie guitars? Leave it to the Swedes Bloodshy and Avant, who went on to produce “Piece of Me.”
The point is, after a benchmark like “Toxic,” her career could have followed that of Timberlake, who after his first solo outing as a rising star went on to release “FutureSex/LoveSounds,” an album that propelled him to become a worldwide superstar. Who knows what could have happened had Britney held on long enough to make her version of “FutureSex?”
But enough with this revisionist pop history. The fact is that Britney fell from her high point and is going to have to claw her way to the top, and “Womanizer” seems like a step in the right direction.
The only nagging question for me is whether there’s a place for pop music anymore. Pure pop music, separate from the other dominant genres of rap and R&B, may be going the way of the dinosaur. Way back in the golden age of new school bubblegum of the late ’90s, pop in its purest form was dominant. After the end of that era, symbolized by the breakup of *NSYNC, rap and R&B ascended to dominance. There was no more room for pop.
So is there room for Britney’s pop? Britney’s new single doesn’t readily align itself with dance or R&B, and it certainly isn’t rap. But the song has already set records for digital downloads and seems to be a success.
What this seems to indicate is that pop, dance and R&B are all so intermingled in top 40 music that they are impossible to distinguish. Timbaland can produce tracks for Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake and M.I.A., and J.R. Rotem can produce for both Sean Kingston and Rick Ross.
Popular music will always be defined by what is popular, and in order to understand that phenomenon now, we (myself included) will have to let go of our preconceived definitions of what pop music is.
With that in mind, it seems that Britney may have a chance to reclaim her previous level of fame, even without Timbaland ad-libbing in the background.
Talk to me girl..
If you think Brit is still far from back, e-mail Ayres at jayres@media.ucla.edu