Why I Love Britney Spears

Think what you will of it,  but I’ve always had a soft-spot for Britney. To some extent I can justify this (if it requires justification at all, which I’m not entirely sure it does) by blaming the music marketing industry, which 11 years ago hatched Britney Spears, pointed to its newest shiny toy with its withering finger and told teenage girls everywhere: “This is who you must adore now. ” 11 years ago, I was almost 15 and even though by that time, I’ve had a good 4 years of true-blue Radiohead record spinning behind me, and was already very much up my own ass when it came to music just because I loved the Beatles and Nirvana and Led Zepplin when everybody else loved the Kelly Family; they got me with Britney. It took me 11 years to come to terms with this, but there you have it, black on white. Have your GaGa or whatever, when it comes to pop princesses I am on Team Britney all the way and listed below are my reasons.

1. Hit Me Baby One More Time

Because I’m not American, I didn’t grow up with the Mickey Mouse club, nor did I know such a thing existed before Britney and Justin came to town. I think I was half-way through Uni when I learned the same show hatched the curly crying Felicity as well. When “Hit Me Baby One More Time” came out, it was a special time for me: I was finishing elementary school and I finally made it in with the cool kids which meant I got to do all sorts of cool things, like smoke behind the school and drink cheap booze until vomiting every weekend. It was also the time I had my first real boyfriend, and the first time in my angsty-teenage life when things actually felt pretty awesome. My happy teenage bliss went down just as Britney Spears was being launched into pop star immortality and the song was everywhere all the time. Because of this, “Hit Me Baby One More Time”  will in my mind forever be the soundtrack of that one enchanted summer between elementary school and high school, when I didn’t know yet the crappy four years that were ahead of me, and it seemed that dreaming big really was an option.

2. Everytime

I know. Trust me, I know. This song out-cheeses the cheesiest of them and it took a little effort to get through the video just now. However, this song for me is also a reminder of the end of high school, specifically the month I was taking my final exams. I carpooled with this girl who lived close to me, and who I didn’t really like that much, but when she offered we split the driving duty to school where we were taking our exams, all I could see was extra time I could spend cramming math equations in the passenger seat. The girl had only one cassette tape in her car (notice the word cassette tape -> THATS how old I am) an on it there was a very random selection of music going from sad pop to severly angry metal. Somewhere in between Slipknot and Evanescence (I kid you not) there was Britney and  ”Everytime”, also a very huge hit in that moment in time. Now whenever I hear it I am instantly in that car again, being driven home with that post-exam feeling of accomplishment, basking in the June sun, half sleeping next to my designated driver and with Britney wooing in the background. Those were also the years I was obsessed with my best friend from high school, who at that time, I was sure was my one and only soulmate, so that song kind of reminds me of him too.

3. Gimme More

In 2007 I went to New York for almost a month. I wanted to go for a very long time, I almost went twice, but in 2007 I actually pilled up the money and went. It was beyond words. It was non-stop party and it was just perfect. My NYC crew, with whom I trolled that city day and night, consisted of two very hot gay boys, and one very hot “confused” boy who I singlehandedly in the three-odd weeks I was there successfully convinced that he in fact prefers boys after all (as you do). We did a lot of happy hours and a lot of clubs of various sexual orientations and I lost a lot of shoes and shirts but I don’t remember caring at all, because I was young and I was in New York! It just so happened, the city and I were getting to know each-other at the same time miss Spears had that hilarious performance at the VMA’s , or as I like to refer to it,  a live demonstration of  what happens to you after you take large amounts of some very strong drugs. Because of that strung-out performance, a club hit was born almost instantly and as we were spending most of our nights getting down with our bad selfs in this club or another, it didn’t take us long before we completely owned that song. Soon we were all like “It’s Britney bitch!” and “Gimme gimme more!” while mimicking Britney’s spastic show moves mid day on Washington Square or wherever else we happened to be, just because it was so much fun.

4. Toxic

This song doesn’t need explaining.

5. Womanizer

After Uni, I got my first full-time, and to this they still the most amazing job, working for MTV. I was ECSTATIC. I landed a high-payed, high-swag producing job while  the recession was eating media people for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I adored my co-workers, the regime, and of course: the job itself. I was the Junior of Talent and Management, which ment I was responsible for looking after the video playlist. “Womanizer ” was the first song I was instructed to “push” and I think it came on at least once every two hours. So now, when I remember my MTV beginnings, I hear “Womanizer womanizer, oh, you’re a woma-womanizer” and so on, and so forth.

6. The New Britney

I am in serious heat for this song at the moment. It makes me all happy and pumped, which is probably why the play-count only after one day of owning it, is already embarrassingly high. I think I’m going to spin this until I physically wont be able to take it anymore. But you know what? I’m ok with it. I embrace the gay-man inside me, who lives for this type of shit and I let him come out and play whenever a tune like this comes about (For past references, see examples such as Lady GaGa with Bad Romance, Kylie Minogue with All The Lovers and Alexis Jordan with Happiness). I can’t wait to go crazy sweaty dance with him and my entire dancing posse to this sometime in the very near future.