Blown Away

This morning as I was toweling off my just-outta-the-shower-ripped body I was watching Boy Meets World, as I'm want to do, and someone makes a joke about a Britney Spears song. I don't know exactly when the episode aired, but I see the show ended in 2000, so at the latest it was 12 years ago.

In 2008 I wrote:

This October was the TENTH anniversary of Britney's first album. 10!!!! Since then she’s released a few records here and there – mainly she’s in every magazine every day cause it’s important for several industries to keep her famous, whether she’s “singing” hits or not.

Matter of fact, look at the sub-headings on her Wikipedia entry:

1998–2000: ...Baby One More Time and Oops!... I Did It Again
2001–2003: Britney, Crossroads, and In the Zone
2004–2005: Marriages, first child and compilation albums
2006–2007: Personal struggles, second child, divorce, and Blackout
2008–present: Conservatorship, custody settlement and Circus

Of the 5 eras, 3 of them are not highlighted by music at all, mostly her travails – any actual albums are afterthoughts. What does it take for our culture to think “well, so and so is not a viable artist anymore, let’s find somebody who is actually making music”?

This also goes for people like Gwen Stefani, who is in every magazine in the world every week, and yet nobody seems to really know or care when/if she even makes music anymore. This is in contrast to The Beatles:

Meanwhile, from 1963 – mid 1966 the Beatles, while completely changing modern culture as we know it, put out 7 full-length albums, several EPs, 13 singles (6 of which the A side (and plenty of time both sides, actually) wasn't on albums at all) and, just for kicks, were in two movies (one of which is an actual classic.) I will not even bore you with blatherings about the amazing quality of all of this material. All that work in just about 3 years…and yet when several months passed after Revolver with no music coming out from the fellas, the public was ready to pack it in. “Oh well, they had their day, they’re over.” While there are many people that still would still love the old records, the general mood was “time to move on.” Of course the public was soon hit with Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane and then Sgt Pepper, and that was it for any “they’re done” talk.

And yet a band like Blink 182 or whoever can put out one record every 5 years and we still gotta see their mugs showing up at parties, and on tv, as if they fucking matter. This lifeline we give our “artists” nowadays; it’s like okay, you can float out there forever, once you’re locked into the Hollywood crapfest, you will have a camera on you forever, no matter what. Whatever happened to the saying "It's tough to get to the top, but even tougher to stay there?" Now it's "It's tough to get to the top, but IMPOSSIBLE TO NOT STAY THERE."

My italics (of, of course, my on quote.)

I remain amazed at how long Britney Spears has been famous now.

Not, of course, that I'm complaining....