MTV's resurrection of Britney

By George Lang

Published: September 17, 2008

Britney Spears looked like a fair approximation of her old self Sunday at the MTV Video Music Awards, and the former music channel's bestowing of three statuettes to Miss Teen Pop 1999 was the "welcome home, all is forgiven" that Spears' career needed.

But this was a hollow gesture. "Piece of Me," which won three awards including video of the year, was no groundbreaker or even one of MTV's most popular recent videos. It all just played like an attention-getting scheme in which MTV and Spears' codependent relationship was given new wedding vows only to face a quiet annulment when MTV realizes it was so much happier with Rihanna all along.

Britney is back because it was time for a new chapter, not because she suddenly became amazing. Last year, when she appeared on the VMAs as an out-of-shape simulacrum of a pop star absent-mindedly vamping through "Gimme More" as if it were an all-animal tranquilizers production of "Cabaret," the Britney fame engine seemed to give up one last blast of cheese puff-scented steam and grind to a halt.

Never mind the divorces, the rehab, the competency hearings and the custody battles — the 2007 VMAs performance was the low point because it served as evidence that Spears couldn't even do what she was once famous for doing. That is, she couldn't convincingly be an ultra-choreographed pop machine anymore. Once that was gone, she was no more relevant than, say, Kim Kardashian or any number of semi-employed reality television nightmares.

She could have completely bottomed out like Amy Winehouse, whom I've given up on having any measurable chance of making good music again, but who needs another Edie Sedgwick in the long line of starlets gone seedy? No, anything worse did not fit the narrative.

MTV could not extend the pork rinds and Camel Lights version of Spears, which had grown tiresome and lost ground at the scandal rag level to other well-heeled disasters. No, it was time for that thing we all love in popular culture: a resurrection.

But MTV could have at least waited until Spears had something to celebrate other than speaking coherently and looking good in a sparkly dress. With only the forgettable "Piece of Me" to honor, and the reality that, even if it wanted to, the station could never compete with YouTube for music video satisfaction, MTV just looked more pathetic in its nostalgia for the days when it played "Baby One More Time" once an hour, all day and all night, in stereo. Those were the days when you couldn't just surf around for something better.

(an excerpt from The Oklahoman, Sept. 12)

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