(Though you do have to wonder why there’s a guy wearing a Burger King hat at Britney’s press conference. Did he just sneak in or is he a reporter who was having lunch when he got an emergency text telling him that he needed to get across town immediately? Either way, that crown saves him from the wrath of Britney.)
With this song and this video, Britney Spears tells the paparazzi and the haters and the exploiters and the judgers to all go to Hell and it’s totally awesome. Britney also pokes fun at her own image in this video, which is something that she never gets enough credit for.
The opening of this video also pays tribute to the press conference in Fellini’s 8 1/2. Fellini, I think, is a filmmaker who would have appreciated Britney Spears. Perhaps he also would have appreciated actor Guillermo Diaz, who appears as the driver of a convertible.
Be sure to keep an eye out for Crossroads 2: Cross Harder.
I’m not really sure what this day is supposed to be celebrating. I mean, I assume that it’s the day in which the workers are all supposed to unite or join a union or whatever but I’m not sure how that links to a few people getting the day off and no trash being picked up. Personally, I’m just happy for the long weekend and I’m going to hope that none of my neighbors accidentally put their trash out tomorrow because then it’ll end up sitting out in the alley for three days and a 3 day-old trash bag is not something that anyone needs to see.
Anyway, it’s a part of the Bowman family tradition that, for the entirety of Labor Day weekend, I only listen to Britney Spears. Usually but not always, I not only listen but I also sing along. For the most part, it depends on the air quality. As important as it is to sing along with Britney, that part of the observance can be ignored if you were running the danger of losing your voice before the holiday began. The important thing is that you have to make your decision whether or not to sing along before Labor Day actually begins and, once you make the choice, you have to stick with it. This year, due to some seasonal allergies, my voice was already a little bit hoarse before the holiday weekend began so I’ve chosen only to sing along to a few of Britney’s songs.
Anyway, this being Labor Day and all, it only makes sense that today’s music video of the day should be Work Bitch. Now, I already shared the first video for Work Bitch. The version that I’m sharing today is the live version, which was filmed during Britney’s performance at the 2016 Apple Music Festival.
Work Bitch is probably my favorite Britney song. If nothing else, it’s the one that my sister Erin and I seem to quote from the most. “You better work, bitch,” is a phrase that has many different meanings in Lisa-and-Erin speak. To understand the phrase’s meaning at any particular time, it’s important to listen for which word gets the most emphasis. “You better work, BITCH,” is actually the most affectionate use of the phrase. On the other hand, “You BETTER work, bitch,” means that someone’s in trouble.
Britney’s been going through a lot recently and, as always, she’s had to do it all in the glare of the public spotlight. (Just imagine how any of us would come across if our every personal difficulty and/or emotional moment was displayed on TMZ?) On this Labor Day, keep her in your thoughts.
This video for Kill the Lights finds Britney Spears being — what else? — hounded by the paparazzi so she promptly flies off into space and goes to another planet. Unfortunately, it turns out that the entire universe is apparently obsessed with robbing Britney of her privacy.
This concept behind this video was the result of a fan fiction contest, in which people were asked to send their ideas to Britney’s management, via her website. The winner of the contest was a girl from Argentina, who titled her submission “Known Everywhere.” Believe it or not, I came very close to entering this contest myself. You have to remember that this was back in 2009, when I was in a much darker place than I am today. As such, my idea was for the video to be an homage to Lucio Fuci’s Zombi 2, with Britney going to a Caribbean island to investigate the death of Justin Timberlake and then getting bitten by a zombified Joey Fatone. My idea was that the video would end with zombie Britney eating Kevin Federline. Personally, I still think it’s a good idea but I never actually submitted it so I’ve got no one to blame for this video but myself.
Still, just imagine if I had submitted my idea and it had been accepted. (Seriously, I totally would have won if I had entered the contest.) Not only would Britney now being getting credit for the zombie revival but she’d probably also would have gone on to do any number of horror-themed music videos.
So, basically, I made a huge mistake by not submitting my idea and now the world is suffering.
I was actually planning on featuring another Britney Spears video for today’s music video of the day but then I came across this cover of Suspicious Minds.
Let’s just start with the obvious. I absolutely love this video. According to video’s description on YouTube, this was shot on an iPhone. The video has this wonderful sort of dream-like feel. Some of that’s due to the song itself. Some of that’s due to the fact that the majority of the video takes place in Las Vegas, which is like the most surreal city in America. (There’s a reason why David Lynch set so much of Twin Peaks: The Return in Vegas.) It all comes together to create a wonderfully hypnotic video, one that is both inviting and ominous at the same time.
The song itself is best-known as an Elvis song but it was actually originally written and performed by a songwriter named Mark James. In 1969, after James’s version failed to chart, the song was handed over to Elvis and it quickly become on his signature hits. Of course, you really can’t do anything Vegas-related without including a reference to Elvis. I can’t remember if there were any Elvis impersonators on Twin Peaks but I do remember that you can spot a few in Saved By The Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas.
(And, of course, this bring us all back to Britney Spears, who will launching her second Vegas show on February 13th. Everyone ends up in Vegas, where they get to hang out with my friends Jennifer and Xander. Lucky them!)
Britney Spears certainly did not invent the “I don’t need my cheating boyfriend to feel strong” genre of music but, over the past 20 years, she’s done a lot to popularize it. Stronger was the first great “I don’t need you” song from Britney and I’ll admit right now that I’ve got the song memorized. It’s a great one to sing along with. “I’m not your property?” Hell yeah! “I don’t need nobody.” Uhmmm, okay, the grammar could use some work but still …. you go, girl!
(Technically, that’s a double negative so, when Britney was singing “I don’t need nobody,” she was actually saying that she does need someone. I used to frequently point that out, mostly because I was annoying like that. “I don’t need anybody” may be the correct way to phrase the sentiment but nobody sounds better than anybody when it’s sung aloud. Anyway, I’m just kind of rambling right now….)
As for the video, I guess the first question we should ask ourselves is, “Is Britney in the future?” Now, seen today, the video might not seem extremely futuristic but, way back in 2000, this was like some serious Matrix shit going on. Even in the future, though, Britney still has trouble finding a good man. Upon finding her boyfriend cheating on her, Britney announces, “Whatever,” and then proceeds to drive a car and dance in a chair. Apparently, Britney can use her magic chair to make people trip and fall. Past, present, or future, you don’t want to get on Britney’s bad side. Whenever I’m watch this video, I’m amazed by both how good a dancer Britney is and also how bad everyone else in the video is. Watching everyone else dance in the spinning future night club, I was reminded of the infamous “Hanging Out With My Family” dance scene from Birdemic.
This video was directed by Joseph Kahn, who began his career in the 90s and who has directed videos for basically everyone. He’s worked with both Britney Spears and Taylor Swift, which means that we’re pretty much living in Joseph Kahn’s world now, whether we realize it or not.
Okay, it’ll probably never happen. I mean, I’ve watched Crossroadsmore times than I care to admit but even I have to admit that Britney is a better singer than actress. That said, we’ll always have the music video for Lucky, in which Britney does win an Oscar. Well, actually, Britney plays an actress named Lucky who wins an Oscar but, even before the tabloids did their thing, it was obvious that Lucky and Britney were one in the same. With the benefit of hindsight, there’s a poignant subtext to this song and this video. Lucky was the first video that Britney did that centered around the struggle to balance fame with happiness. It would not be the last.
Lucky was the second single to be released off of Oops! …. I Did It Again and it’s hard not to feel that both the song and the video were designed to let us know that, regardless of what we may have heard, Britney wasn’t always playing with hearts and getting lost in the game. Much as how Sometimeswas meant to counterbalance the more exuberant ….Baby One More Time, Lucky seems to be saying, “There’s more to Britney than what you’re reading in the tabloids!”
This video was directed by Dave Meyers, who has directed videos for …. well, just looking at his credits, it seems like he’s directed videos for almost everyone. Kid Rock, Master P, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Lopez, P!nk, Imagine Dragons, the fucking Dave Matthews Band …. he’s worked with them all. In fact, he directed that video for Katy Perry’s Fireworks. (Remember how sick we eventually all got of hearing that song? Seriously, all through 2010, I dreaded watching any sort of “inspiring” video because I knew Fireworks would be played at some point.) Anyway, Meyers has worked with Britney a few more times, directing the videos for Boys, Outrageous, and Radar.
I know that because I use a site called CheckiDay, which is a really fun site that I recommend to everyone. Now, I’m not sure who exactly decided that today was National Bootlegger Day or why they decided that it should be on this particular date but, ultimately, the why isn’t important. What’s important is that the day just is.
Of course, when we think about bootleggers, we think about the 1920s and Al Capone ruling the streets of Chicago while Zelda danced and F. Scott wrote. The 1920s, which is one of my favorite decades, was a wild time, largely due to the fact that prohibition was the law of the land. I mean, just try to imagine it. Having survived both World War I and the Spanish Flu, Americans were told that they couldn’t even have a drink to celebrate. I mean, I don’t even like alcohol but I can definitely understand why that would piss people off. Bootleggers worked outside of the law and became folk heroes to a frustrated nation. Prohibition may have been passed to for reasons of health and morality but all it really did was show many Americans that sometimes it pays to defy the government.
Of course, there’s other reasons why I love the 1920s. It’s not just the bootleggers. There was also the music and the dancing and the fashions and the fact that we had three great Presidents in a row. (I know some of y’all are going to debate me on that but we’ll have to get into it later. Warren, Calvin, and Herbert for the win!, regardless of what Upton Sinclair may have had to say.) It was just a great decade.
And speaking of that decade, check out today’s music video of the day. This is a cover of Oops! …. I Did It Again, re-imagined as a vintage, 1920s song. The song is performed by a British band called Nouveau Lounge. (Singing is Amanda Davis.) This is a perfect video for National Bootlegger Day, don’t you think?
Now, if you want to know more about Nouveau Lounge, check out their Facebook and their Instagram. And definitely check out some more of their videos on YouTube.
(And if you want to learn more about prohibition, check out Daniel Okrent’s history of the era, Last Call!)
It’s a nice little town, somewhere down south. It’s a place where you can spend the day swinging back and forth on a tire swing and where you and your boyfriend can chastely spend the night sitting on the back of a billboard. It’s also the setting for the music video of Britney Spears’s From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart.
From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart was the last single to be released from Britney’s debut album and I have to admit that, when I watch it today, I have mixed feelings about this video. On the one hand, the song showed, in its own simplistic way, that Britney was a singer who was capable of delivering emotional content. On the other hand, there’s a soft-focus blandness to the video that kind of reminds you of why it took critics a while to take Britney seriously as a performer. Some of the problem is that the guy that Britney’s singing about doesn’t really seem like he’s worth all the drama. The other problem is that the video itself could have just as easily been set in the 1950s as opposed to the start of the 21st century. This is the safe, non-threatening Britney, as opposed to the Britney who, in her next big hit, would joyously and triumphantly celebrate getting “lost in the game.”
For such an inoffensive music video, From the Bottom of My Broken Heart was surprisingly controversial when it was released. That’s because was directed by Gregory Dark. It’s one of the many videos that have been directed by Mr. Dark and, in fact, one could argue that, in the 1990s and the early aughts, he was one of the best video directors around. However, before he directed music videos, Gregory Dark directed not only hardcore adult films but also several erotic thrillers. Even though, by the time that this video came out, Dark was no longer making adult features, it was argued by some critics that Dark directing this video was evidence that Britney was an unwholesome influence. That’s especially hilarious when you consider that this is probably one of the most wholesome videos in which Britney Spears ever appeared.
Before The Martian, there was …. Oops! …. I Did It Again!
Oops! …. I Did It Again is one of Britney Spears’s best-known songs and it’s certainly one of the most fun to sing at the top of young lungs when you’re speeding down the interstate on the way to Lake Texoma. (Just ask my sister.) But I think that people forget just how weird this video is.
Basically, we’ve got an astronaut (Eli Swanson) exploring Mars when he comes across an image on a Martian stone, the cover of Britney’s second album, Oops! …. I Did It Again. On Earth, the nerdy NASA guy is impressed while the astronaut wonders if it’s possible that Britney Spears has come all the way to Mars just to play with his heart….
And she has! Suddenly, there’s a stage on the Martian surface and Britney and the backup dancers are performing while the astronaut watches. Eventually, Britney approaches him and proceeds to …. TAKE OFF HIS HELMET! (Britney will not only play with your heart but apparently, she’ll also try to kill you.) For a few brief seconds, it appears that the astronaut’s head might explode but no, he survives. He then hands her the Heart of the Ocean, the extremely tacky blue diamond that was at the center of the film, Titanic. The astronaut explains that he went down to the bottom of the ocean to get it for her and then he took it to Mars for some reason. (Remember, the video makes it pretty clear that the astronaut wasn’t expecting to run into Britney Spears during his Martian exploration.) In one of the most badass moves of all time, Britney says, “Oh, you shouldn’t have” and then walks away. As for the astronaut, he hopefully managed to get home. I mean, if Matt Damon could do it, anyone could do it….
Yeah, yeah, we know….
This video was directed by Nigel Dick, who also directed the video for ….Baby One More Time. During filming, Britney was actually struck in the head by a falling camera and had to get four stitches before she then went to finish the video. Like all great artists, Britney suffered so that you may enjoy.
So, this year, Britney Spear’s debut album, ….Baby One More Time, is 20 years old and good people everywhere are celebrating. Myself, I’m going to be listening to Britney all week and I’m also going to be singing every single song out loud. I’ll probably end up annoying a lot of people, as that seems to be what happens whenever I loudly sing Britney. (My sisters claim that, when it comes to singing, I’m borderline tone deaf but I think that’s going a bit too far. I will, however, admit that my accent probably never sounds more Texan then when I’m singing.)
Anyway, Val has already taken a look at the video for ….Baby One More Time and, yesterday, I featured the video for (You Drive Me) Crazy. So, it only seems appropriate that today’s music video of the day should be the video for Sometimes, which was the 2nd single to be released off of ….Baby One More Time.
Sometimes finds Britney on the beach, watching as a male model named Chad Cole runs alongside a dog and then stands around tossing a football up in the air. (Chad Cole is crazy hot in this video, though I have to admit that I’ve always preferred people who spend their time at the beach writing poems about dead trees and industrial pollution.) Anyway, when Britney isn’t stalking Chad, she’s performing with her back-up dancers. Everyone’s wearing white, which is not only designed to play up the video’s pure intentions but also makes it seem like everyone in the video came to the beach straight from a Backstreet Boys theme party.
With this video, you can tell that the main aim was to provide a contrast to the sexualized Britney of the ….Baby One More Time video. In this one, Britney’s dressed in all white and, instead of asking to be “hit” one more time, she’s instead demurely watching the all-American boy from a proper and chaste distance. This is the Britney who wouldn’t have been out-of-place in one of those sun-drenched, virginity-celebrating beach films from the early 60s. “Fear not, moral guardians,” this video announces, “our Britney is a good girl!”
Interestingly enough, the video’s original concept was that Britney would be looking the beach and having flashbacks to a past relationship. However, in the video that was actually shot, the idea is that Britney is looking to the future, thinking about the perfect relationship that she’ll someday have.
Through the Shattered Lens 