Oh, Britney, Britney.
I won’t say our once-beloved Kentwood native’s latest foray into the music scene was a letdown. Disappointment requires high expectations.
But I must confess my sentiments about Britney Spears’ new single shatters all conventions of eloquence. “Hold It Against Me” really sucks.
We should expect nothing else. In the past decade, 29-year-old Spears has sporadically swung from tabloid mania to invisibility, endured two whirlwind marriages, two pregnancies and is now trying to revive a career in pop music, the most volatile of genres.
Cultural values are most accurately assessed by outsiders, whether it’s unpopular individuals trying to assimilate or has-beens emerging from an underground semi-sabbatical.
Britney is a little of both, as “Hold It Against Me” and its accompanying video reflect on various levels.
The most obvious respect is the song itself, which infuses the prevalent sounds of techno-electronica and dubstep with Spears’ classic porpoise-on-helium vocals. Add the hackneyed lyrical narrative of a romantic dance club encounter — centered around the titular double-entendre — and the single is a formulaic recipe for pop-chart success.
The music video is even more iconic, realistically and symbolically, of Britney’s battle to remain relevant.
Again, I begin with the most visible manifestation: the two-phase “plot” that bears no correlation to the lyrics and suggests a broader commentary.
The initial premise? An extraterrestrial pop singer lands on 2011 Earth and illustrates the creation of modern superstars.
It’s also somewhat like “Britney History 101,” with her current self surrounded by televisions playing her old music videos.
The most telling aspect of this segment is its shamefully blatant product placement. In the first two minutes, we’re bombarded with five clearly labeled brands.
Even the frenzied way these products are displayed characterizes the 21st century’s fragmented, ad-centric mass media culture. The effect of the music video and our fast-paced society is our inability to digest — literally and figuratively.
“Hold It Against Me” conjures the image of someone conglomerating the music industry’s most appalling trends and vomiting them into a video.
Ready for the second course?
The dyspeptic metaphor gets graphic, with Spears spurting neon-colored liquids from fingertip IVs and collapsing in a wedding dress that soon resembles a not-so-amazing Technicolor dreamcoat.
If pop music could be regurgitated, it would look like that.
The concluding section shows Britney’s allegorical power struggle turning physical, as the diva dukes it out with her alter ego and performs a telltale final dance sequence.
Ironically, unlike the conspicuous commercials, the final two-plus minutes communicate the most subconscious statements.
Subliminal messages are justifiably associated with sinister, propagandistic motives and hidden agendas.
Here, the rather unsuccessful cover-up lies in the choppily filmed routines designed to disguise Spears’ lack of fitness and lackluster work ethic.
Britney’s lip-syncing and dancing are unintentionally robotic and half-hearted. She looks bored and straining to keep up. But so are the viewers of this chaotic video — let’s not hold that against her.
This isn’t a critique of the imploding superstar we formerly idolized. It’s a censure of the cultural climate that demands singers resort to such extreme popularity tactics.
Like the music video, I’m mocking celebrity consumerism and desperation. An alien singer strives for success by emulating materialistic peer rituals, while a fallen icon contemplates how the fame game has changed.
In both rounds of Britney vs. Britney, all end up passed out on the floor. Even when she resurrects and dances her way to the finale, the real victors — time and age — conquer all.
It’s unclear whether Britney’s artistic self-destruction indicates a change in her musical style.
I won’t buy her seventh album to find out, but I do appreciate “Hold It Against Me” for its laughably legitimate portrayal of the pop industry.
Kelly Hotard is a 19-year-old mass communication junior from Picayune, Miss. Follow her on Twitter @TDR_khotard.
 
 
 
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contact Kelly Hotard at [email protected]