Britney Spears’ Career via Music Videos (a morning-long discussion):
PART ONE by Evie Opp
1) Hit Me Baby One More Time – breakout single, mouseketeer-no-more, potentially advocating abusive relationships
2) The slow jam with people on the beach (but mostly in a tree) – no one really remembers the lyrics, but damn she looked good looking through those binoculars on the pier
3) The one where she is a waitress in a diner, she’s got floppy pigtails and then rips her clothes off to party – another nameless classic/Pepsi ad
4) Crazy – Who can forget that red jumpsuit from another planet? Britney wanted to show the world that she was all grown-up and her sexuality was out of this world. What does any of this have to do with outer space? More-so, I think she wanted to warn the world that she is legitimately crazy. Way to beat Gaga to the punch.
5) Lucky- Sad slow jam, potentially autobiographical, explaining the negative and lonely aspects of life in the spotlight. Wah-wah.
6) Sparkly Madonna-ish chair dance (also something about a car) – We get it, we get it. Everyone LOVES Madonna and wants to model their careers after hers. Brit missed the boat a long time ago.
7) Slave 4 U – Hot, sweaty orgy in an opium den. Very J-Lo. Still drilling the sexiness into our brains.
*One week long marriage to a high school sweetheart. No body cares. If you want to sell records, you’ve got to be more of a train wreck. Kfed is more your style.*
8) Toxic – Poison Ivy-ish spy/secret agent poisons lovers with a kiss. Getting chubby, it’s time to start spitting out kids, drop off the charts, explode the tabloids and inadvertently convince little sis to do the same.
*Much time elapses, she’s fat, she loses custody of her children, Kfed takes all of her money, time for a comeback*
9) Skinny comeback – she’s been working out, shaving things, and flashing that vag. Time for a new album. No one remembers this video in detail, just that it happened. Something about dude cheating on her with her alter-ego? It doesn’t matter all you need to know is that she’s getting REALLY good at playing every female role in all of her vids.
10) Hold It Against Me – video ironically making fun of her own career (past vids playing in the background–we don’t hold them against you, Brit). Did Ke$ha help write this song? Are you bffs, now? Pop princesses uniting by doing the exact same thing and ganging up against Gaga.
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PART TWO by Nick Rennis
Actual history. Let’s see how accurate we were.
1) “Baby One More Time” Duh. We were just more elaborate with the title.
2) “Sometimes” That’s the name of it. Slow jam. Slow mo.
3) “Crazy” Looks like we combined two or more into one. But we were right with the chronology.
4) “Born To Make You Happy” Futuristic room? What is this? She looks like Faith Hill?
5) “From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart” We’re still just on her debut album here, people. Milkin’ it. Another slow jam. She’s wearing normal people clothes.
6) “Oops… I Did It Again” THIS is the one with the red jumpsuit. Finally on to her second album. (I’ve always found her Herman Munster shoes disturbing and VERY unsexy, though.)
7) “Lucky” We’re still chronologically correct, we just forgot a lot of stuff. Didn’t forget this one. Emo.
8) “Stronger” SPARKLY CHAIR VIDEO. FORD MUSTANG IN A THUNDERSTORM. Totally nailed it.
9) “Don’t Let Me Be The Last To Know” Side-boob beach slow jam deux.
10) “I’m A Slave 4 U” Again, chronologically ON IT. This is why we run a record store, people.
11) “Overprotected” This one has TWO DIFFERENT MUSIC VIDEOS. Nobody ever saw either of them.
12) “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman” Crossroads. Purple mountain majesty. God. Bullshit.
13) “I Love Rock N’ Roll” COVER. We’re not including this.
14) “Boys” Apparently from the Goldmember soundtrack. This is a weird moment in the career.
15) “Me Against The Music” Another new album. Madonna decides it is a good career move to get a divorce and make out with Britney in a music video. Nobody cares.
16) “Toxic” We are still chronologically correct. Diamonds.
17) “Everytime” Another forgotten one in which there seems to be a direct correlation between Jesus (Christ) and Britney (Spears).
18) “My Prerogative” Lead single (cover) of yet another album. Did I mention that the lead single is a cover? Bummer.
19) “Do Somethin’” In which her and her friends all try to get laid at Buffalo Wild Wings.
20) “Gimme More” Lead single from ANOTHER FUCKING ALBUM. She dyes her hair black and begins pole dancing.
21) “Piece Of Me” Another single with two different videos. We don’t remember this one either, but she almost certainly does that weird heart-thumping hands-criss-crossed dance move.
22) “Womanizer” Just forgot the name of the comeback. Steamy sauna side-boob scenes.
23) “Circus” The one at the circus. Remember “Lucky”? Do that again.
24) “If U Seek Amy” Okay… the comeback clearly isn’t going as planned. She’s doing the AOL Instant Messenger abbreviations again.
25) “Radar” Let’s go high-brow. This is probably around the time when the Beckham’s were moving to the U.S.?
26) “3″ Let’s be Beyonce. Also, there are 4 dancers in this video. Not 3. 5 total people. Still not 3.
27) “Hold It Against Me” We’re up-to-date with this album. Huge phallic dress. Sperm dancers within.
28) “Till The World Ends” Lots of lens flare. More “I’m A Slave 4 U” hype.
29) “I Wanna Go” Crossroads 2. We’re definitely out of the realm of our knowledge at this point.
30) “Criminal” New BF. Let’s kiss on film. Also, THIRTY SINGLES? Give up.
This works out to exactly triple our list… but strictly speaking, we weren’t wrong about anything.
What’s next for this jack of all trades? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. One thing is for sure, she isn’t finished yet. But we are. We’re going back to work now. Also, we don’t carry any of this music in the store. Sorry.
