Ha Ha Britney Bombs

Irony makes public spectacles all the more fun.

As regular readers of this space know, I am not a fan of either celebrity culture or of MTV. Alas, I must confess that I did tune in to the VMAs last night to take a quick peek at the hilarity. The VMAs of the late 1980s and early 1990s were generally well-put together spectacles that had more than their shares of great performances. The Red Hot Chili Peppers followed immediately by Pearl Jam stands out, as does the Green Day/Beatie Boys twin bill. REM doing their semi-acoustic performance of Everybody Hurts and then moving into Drive was classic. Krist Novaselic bashing his head in with his bass.....Garth from Wayne's World double drumming with Larry Mullen Jr. while U2 performed on the ZOO TV stage. You get the idea.

But over the last decade or so, the VMAs have turned into the shilliest of shill pieces. The awards generally go to the artist who has allowed MTV the most access into their tours/lives/scandals and the videos which have been paid...er...played the most on the network. Evidence of this fiasco came about two days before Johnny Cash died. Cash was nominated for Best Video, Best Male Video, Best Direction, and a couple more for the amazing video for Hurt. He won the one for best editing (I think....it was some minor category) and they gave the Video of the Year to Missy Elliott and the Best Male Video to Justin Timberlake. I swore off caring about MTV at that exact moment and I have remained true to my word. It is somewhat ironic, then, that when Timberlake accepted his award he started with "This is a travesty." He was pretty much right.

The hype around this year's VMAs outdid those of year's past. Not only was there a VMA commercial inbetween every inning of the Atlanta Braves and during most prime time commercial blocks, but I could also register at Steak and Shake for a trip to go see them live (what kind of audience are they going for there?). Then Britney became the headliner. Its the Return of Britney they said.

My how far the mighty have fallen.

They said that Criss Angel had served as consultant on the performance, so I was expecting her to magically appear after being chopped up by a woodchipper or to levitate in from the ceiling, but there was no magic to be had anywhere. Trust me.

If Britney was not stoned or drunk she missed a good chance. She looked literally like she had just woken up and couldn't find the nearest Starbucks. She was out of step with the dancers. Hey lip-synching (which is apparently one of her top 3 talents....you can decide what the other two are) was off. She had no energy in her face. If she had been in a wrestling ring she would have gotten a legit beat down for not selling anything.

As this was an MTV event, they regularly cut to the audience to show what kind of stars were in attendance. Puff Daddy looked confused....until he noticed the camera and he perked right up. 50 Cent had this stunned look on his face like "what is this girl doing?" All the PR machines in the world couldn't spin that performance.

So, on this the 10th day of September 2007, we can likely put in the final line to Britney's career. She is no longer a pop sensation with any selling power. She will, however, live on in American culture through the celebloid shows and newspaper. We won't be rid of her quite yet (and in a month's time expect to see her do something totally outrageous to get back in the spotlight), but she is no longer relavent in the music business.