Maxigumee

So. It’s National Blog Posting Month. It’s kind of similar to National Novel Writing Month or whatever it’s called except that you post in your blog. Every day. For a month. I’m not exactly sure why I’m interested in doing this. The last time I had more than like four entries a month was probably a year ago. This place has been kind of dead and cobwebby recently. I guess I’m doing it to rejuvenate my blog a little bit. And put some oil on my probably rusting writing skills.

I wasn’t really sure what I was going to talk about for this first post on the first day of National Blog Posting Month. I tried to think about what I’m interested in. What do I want to talk about? What has been on my mind recently? What would other people care about? And then it hit me. Of course! I’ll talk about Britney Spears.

Britney Spears has been occupying most of my thoughts for the past few days, mostly because her new album, Blackout hit stores two days ago. And I really want to buy it. To, you know, “support” her. Now, I know, why on earth would I want to support a woman who probably cares more about a bag of greasy french fries than her own children and has been called a “frequent and habitual drug user” by a judge? My answer for that question is, I don’t know.

I used to hate Britney Spears. When she was first introduced to the world in 1999, I was in sixth grade. I was Wiccan, I was obsessed with aroma therapy, I listened pretty much only to Ani Difranco and other similar indie-folk artists, I had purple hair, I read Adbusters, and I could not stand Britney Spears. To me, Britney was the reason for the decline of Western civilization. Britney was the personification of the manufactured mainstream pop world that I associated with boring, ordinary people who were far below the vast intellectual expanse of my brilliant, anti-populist mind. When I saw people my own age listening to Britney Spears, I would roll my eyes and probably think, “kids today and what they call ‘music’ BAH!” as I slipped an Enya CD into my walkman and took another sip from my Frappucino.

I can’t exactly remember when I started to admit to myself that I kind of liked Britney Spears (or pop music in general), but it was a long and slow coming-out process. I think a lot of my love for Britney came with the single “I’m A Slave 4 U.” I much preferred the dirty, slutty Britney to the cute and innocent one of her “Baby One More Time” days. Maybe it was this change that started to raise my interest in her. Have you ever watched her early videos in comparison to “Slave 4 U?” Because the difference is shocking. Even after I’ve seen each of them probably a hundred billion times, I’m still surprised. In her early videos, you see her singing ballads in tire swings and wearing tacky plastic onesies and all of the sudden she’s almost naked and making orgasm noises while she’s being licked by a crowd of hot, sweaty, groping people.

Seriously. What??

I would say that my relationship with Britney began as a hatred for her manufactured plasticity and changed to an adoration for exactly the same reason. I think that perhaps one of the number one reasons why I find her so fascinating is because she is so obviously a pawn of the music industry. It’s never been a secret that she doesn’t write any of her own music and that she’s pretty much told how to act and what to say all the time. Just watch one of her live concerts and tell me that every single thing that comes out of her mouth isn’t pre-written and scripted.

Part of my fascination with Britney comes from the fact that there is such a disconnect between Britney the person and Britney the pop icon. Just yesterday, Britney was interviewed by Ryan Seacrest about her new album and one of the questions he asked was which one of the tracks on her new album had the most meaning to her. The still groggy from waking up Britney replied that she kind of liked her song entitled “Heaven on Earth” and said that it was pretty “cool.”

When asked by Seacrest about her very personal anti-media song “Piece of Me” in which Britney discusses her life in the spotlight, Britney said something along the lines of, “Yeah. That song’s like about how people are gunna say what they want about you and you just have to ignore it. I think it’s a really cute song.” Now, I’ve listened to this song and I can think of many words to describe it, but cute is not one of them.

When Ryan asked Spears about how the line “It’s Britney, Bitch” from her single, “Gimme More” was created, Britney sighed, giggled, and told Ryan that the producer told her to say that. Which leads to the obvious question of, what other things is she instructed to say? Do we really know Britney at all? Does she really care about or have any say in any of her music or is she simply the icing on top of a pre-constructed pop cake? Which leads to the next question, if Britney has no creative input whatsoever in her music, why is she even necessary for the music to be produced? Would the songs still be good with anybody else singing them? Then again, perhaps it was just that Ryan Seacrest is an idiot asking idiotic questions about the hidden meaning behind Britney’s songs. I don’t know Britney, so I really can’t make an accurate judgment of her intelligence level, but I don’t think even she’s stupid enough to think that her songs possess any deep meaning.

So, why on earth would I continue to invest so much of my time focused on Britney Spears? Maybe it’s because, as plastic and as spray-tanned as she is, Britney might be the most real celebrity out there. She’s definitely the most exposed, the most naked. When Britney Spears shaved her head, I wasn’t shaking my head at her in disappointment. I was shouting, “Way to go Britney! Express that inner anger! This is healthy!” I was kind of saddened when she started wearing wigs. She should have just gone with it.

Look at other pop stars who are big today. Rihanna? Justin Timberlake? Timbaland? Nelly Furtado? Carrie Underwood? Yawn! Boring! With Britney, you not only get incredibly catchy musical candy, but the element of the unexpected. She’s already showed us her vagina, gotten married and unmarried in less than a day, had two children and had them taken away, and ran after cars with an umbrella. What’s she going to do next? And why should I even care? I have no idea. But I do.