project britney?

last week, xmas eve, and mark wants to buy cds for the car trip to my parents house. it's only 1.5 hours. i don't want to go shopping (because it's xmas eve) but we do. he buys the new kaiser chiefs and britney's circus.

i only lasted 6 songs from circus (though the latter few were skipped over after a minute or so). i started to get all grandpa and launched into a rant about pop music.

i quite like pop music and can be somewhat defensive of it given that i was raised by pop. but on this day i felt sad and wanted to return to a time of early madonna, prince, cyndi lauper, etc. mostly because those artists (at this time) were less polished and gave us interesting lyrics to grasp and consider. they had edge. circus does not, and it certainly lacks in the lyrical department. though britney used to give good lyrics. think toxic, slave 4 u, everytime, baby one more time, do somethin'...

not that i ask for pop lyrics to be well-considered and poetic (this i can find in other music), but at least they can be interesting and cleverly composed.

mark says he doesn't really hear lyrics so much as sounds. he likes britney on this basis. i find this interesting, but then can't help but consider what role britney has in these sounds. probably very little, just like the lyrics (she co-writes 3 of the 13 tracks, all buried in the latter half of the album).

i can't help being cynical about britney. indeed, she is a concept, a brand, a vehicle upon which to move dollars. which is not to say she can't be good. rihanna is the same, yet some of her gems allow me to forgive this (if only to enhance my listening pleasure). yet i would never pay money for the recordings of either artist.

in the past i've criticised claims of inauthenticity thrown at pop music, made on the basis that pop is shallow, vacuous, apolitical, mass-produced. rather, it can be said that pop music is truly postmodern in its rejection of the authentic. it is ever-changing, historically derivative, intertextual, an interplay between the real and the fake - thereby challenging the stability of either.

yet i think what bothers me most about circus is its claims for authenticity. the lyrics seem to play on the public britney phenomenon. there's a lot (once again, á la gimme more) about the media and paparazzi savaging her, her struggle to take back the power, her refusal to be a victim - "i call the shots" (circus).

but she didn't write these words. she's singing about herself through someone else's pen. as a writer of the personal (and not simply a consumer of pop), i feel somewhat affronted by this. by no means do i consider my own writing as an enterprise in authenticity, but it's my own grappling, play, thought-processes. here, britney is absent from such process. she only inhabits these words through her (heavily manipulated) voice.

as someone who can't help listen to (and dissect) lyrics, i can't be comfortable with new britney. i'd rather pop that doesn't pose as autobiography. i'd rather pop that lets listeners recognise themselves in lyrics, rather than dressing them up as those of the performer. if anything, this is just an extension of the britney phenomenon. another chapter of the fuss that is worth little more than a yawn. poor britney? fuck off.

there's no shortage of personal writing in pop music, much of it atrocious. but some of it brave and worthy of mentioning. i'm thinking madonna (particularly the like a prayer album) and pink. both classic pop artists in their inflections of self, their risk-taking, their generosity, their edge.

not that pop artists need to give their selves. i'd rather delta goodrem didn't share her cancer battle in stringing together a bunch of 'i'm a survivor' clichés. yet, this was an expectation by many, including her fans. as it was for kylie. i remember a SMH reviewer saying of kylie's x album that it was a perfect opportunity for her to give us something personal. but kylie has never been generous in this way. undoubtably, for good reason.

surely if britney wanted to take back the power and "call the shots" she might just sing about something that is not her. womanizer works on this level (though reviewers have found personal meaning in these lyrics too). but surely it's just a song about about a girl striking out at a boy (for being "nothing but a womanizer"). inches removed from the girl dumps boy genre (see beyoncé's irreplaceable and rihanna's take a bow). an interesting genre, but hardly one i would call feminist, as others have.

so anyway, i'm driving my sister's car and ranting about pop music and i say to mark 'i think i feel another zine coming on'. i'm not sure if this is a good idea, or just a desire to write again. my writing arm has taken vacation, resting by my side as i consume novels, books and films but write nothing of them, or me. the ease and vigor with which i write this tells me its probably a good way to occupy myself in the coming weeks.

not that my project will be about the britney phenomenon. i'm sure dozens of cultural theorists are writing about that. and while fascinating on some levels, i'd rather look at pop, and my own grapplings with that and with myself as fan/consumer/grandpa.