Britney Spears and the MTV Video Music Awards have a history of putting out show-stopping performances, be it Britney Spears writhing with a snake or Britney Spears getting off with old ladies with tongues.
So the news that Britney Spears was going to seal her comeback to the musical scene after a tumultuous few years by opening yesterday's MTV VMAs was greeted with all sorts of heady anticipation – just how would Britney Spears manage to create an MTV show-stopper this year? As it turned out, Britney decided this would be best achieved by donning a skimpy outfit that best showed off her twice-pregnant gut and then lurching around miming her new single while dancing like your Dad at the end of a wedding reception. But, hey, let's not knock Britney Spears – technically her MTV VMA performance was a show-stopper, in that people felt so ill afterwards that they just wished the show would stop. We have the video to prove it, too.
It's hard to overstate just how important Britney Spears's performance at yesterday's MTV VMA awards were to both Britney Spears and MTV. MTV – now exclusively devoted to My Super Sweet 16 and documentaries about how appalling Jodie Marsh is – needed a spellbinding Britney Spears performance to grab headlines and remind everyone that it's a music station, while Britney Spears needed to play a blinder at the VMAs because she'd become even more of a joke than ever; not bad going for someone who once wore a red pleather catsuit in a non-ironic way.
By now you know all the nonsense that's happened to Britney Spears since she last had a hit – the accidental pregnancies, the divorce from Kevin Federline, the accusations of child abuse, the geysers of high-pressure red-hot vomit, the bald head, the Antichrist, the public access to her vagina – so yesterday's performance at the MTV VMAs was Britney Spears' time to show the world that beneath her nylon wig beat the heart of a true musical genius. Except it didn't exactly happen like that.
Perhaps because Britney Spears knew that MTV would be short of one staggering, barely coherent dimwit after Amy Winehouse cancelled her performance, Britney Spears decided to use her MTV VMA opening performance to treat the world to a display of some first-class half-hearted choreography, belief-defyingly amateurish miming and unsuitable costumes that even managed to make 50 Cent look all confused. Take a look…
And now Britney Spears has to face the blanket critical disdain that her lousy MTV VMA performance has seen her receive. Like this, from The Washington Post:
As in most train wrecks, it was hard to focus on just one thing as the Britney Spears disaster unfolded. There was just so much that went wrong. Out-of-synch lip-synching. Lethargic movements that seemed choreographed by a dance instructor for a nursing home. The paunch in place of Spears' once-taut belly. At times she just stopped singing altogether, as if even she knew nothing could save her performance… "It definitely could have been a lot better," the hitmaking singer and producer Akon commented afterward. "She seemed nervous … you could tell by the expression on her face. Instead of just blocking everybody out and doing her thing, you could tell she was thinking about it."
It's honestly hard to know what to make of Britney Spears' MTV VMA performance – wasn't Criss Angel supposed to be involved somewhere? Wasn't that why Britney kept hanging around him last week? Honestly, what could Criss Angel's contribution to that car crash of a performance possibly have been? Did he tell her not to bother learning all the words to her new song? Did he help her pick the outfit that'd offend the most people? At any point in time, did Criss Angel ever say to Britney Spears "No Britney, try to make your eyes look even more cold and dead. Like an inexpensive prostitute, that's right"?
Where Britney Spears goes from here is anybody's guess. Remember, though, that she still earns way more than you – so perhaps Britney Spears can go and live a life of comfortable semi-retirement where she can cover herself in shit in private without ever having to do anything as difficult as singing a song with her own voice or looking like she knows what's going on in public.
As for the rest of the MTV VMA awards, leading VMA nominee Justin Timberlake scooped a couple of awards and Beyonce only won one – for her duet with Shakira – but she would have won more if there'd been an MTV VMA category for painful accidents. Oh, who are we kidding – Britney Spears would have won that award hands-down.
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Phsyt says
I never thought id say this but i now actually feel sorry for her.
Maybe she is turning around… just to late.
Bruno says
“donning a skimpy outfit that best showed off her twice-pregnant gut ”
Let’s be honest here, that was no gut, that was a GUNT. The whole “performance” wasn’t just a train-wreck, it was like a plane that crashed into a train that had hit a car that ran over an armadillo.
euclid says
Britney is a true visionary. She has already achieved so much (with so little) that she no longer even has to try to entertain us. While most of her ilk would seek to reclaim or surpass their former glory, Brit has the vision to shoot beyond that. Far beyond. She sees past the fame. She see past the glory to the sad lonely desperation of the crack-addled West Texas pole-dancing Brit imitator that lurks deep, deep inside each of us. And she courageously brings her vision to the fore for all to see. You see, as a visionary, Brit sees beyond what we see (hence the cold reptilian gaze). She sees the future, and as a true artist and visionary, she is honor-bound to bring that vision to life. Even when she is looking past the apex of the mountain to the deep, dark gorges of her loneliness and failure.
She see the true nature of fame: being emulated by the second prettiest alcoholic, drug-addled mother of 8 pole dancer in Waco, Texas.
And she brings this vision to us to show us, to enlighten and inform us about the true nature of fame. The truth is not always pretty, she reminds us. Such brilliance; such courage; such vision. Once again we find ourselves deeply in debt to her for all these meaningful jewels she has given us.
leah says
A performance so bad, it inspired an online comic:
http://www.itgumbo.com/mumbogumbo/2007/09/main_stream_media_britney_fail.php
Evorgleb says
We’ve been having quite a laugh talking about Brittany’s VMA trainwreck over at Highbrid Nation. Its ashame, I feel like her comeback has been derailed before its even begun. Oh and someone tell her about that weave. Looks horrible. Just rock the short hair. lol, I’ve been just watchign the video over and over.
Joaquin says
Mr “Britney is a true visionay” I can only see two choices: You are the most stupid, pathetic, common sense lacking person who has ever step on this planet or you have posted the longest sarcasm ever typed and I admire you for that.
Adam Gade says
He’s being sarcastic, masterfully so at that.
JBollocks says
Bummer, that video didn’t last long. Pulled quicker than a 13yr old boy with a new porno mag.
I feel deprived in a strange way.
Dr Robert says
Britney Spears Lacks true talent. This woman probably can’t even read music.
There are people who can do karaoke better than she can. The only reason she is big
is all that internet marketing that plug all the hype of her first album.
It is sad that people are more interested in entertainment than good music.
She is just like Madonna, popular only because she has a big gash in between her legs and can shake her ass.
Eben Foster says
You’re all wrong. Britney Spears is actually an Andy Kaufman-esque comic genius who has turned her entire life into a highly advanced form of performance art, purely for our entertainment.
Show some respect!
Gilbert Wham says
Gah! I can’t believe they’ve ganked the video! First no nekkit High School Musical chick photos, now this! I am bloody furious,let me tell you. Euclid sir, you are very funny.
Ernesto says
Britney Spears’s regrettably dismal performance at the MTV VMA has come and gone. Britney has given amateurs a bad name, and set a new benchmark for bottom-of-the-barrel, worst of the worst performances. She has become the poster-child of mediocrity and blandness.
Now that Britney Spears has shown us what a talent-less mutt she truly is, she can focus on staying sober, keeping out of the limelight, and being a good mother to her young boys. If she can do this, she will have raised herself from the self-pitying pit of despair she currently occupies, and be someone we can respect and admire for the things that really matter.
jAMIE leE says
BRITNEY SPEARS IS A DISSAPPOINTMENT TO ALL VMA WATCHERS. WHAT IN THE WORLD WERE THEY THINKING TO PUT HER AS AN OPENING PERFORMANCE. AT LEAST PUT HER IN THE END WHERE PEOPLE WONT SEE HOW LAME SHE HAS BECOME. I MEAN NOW ALOT OF PEOPLE ARE SAYING THE VMA’S ARE A BUNCH OF CROCK BECAUSE THEY COULDNT FIND A BETTER PERFORMANCE. KNOWING HOW HER CAREER HAS GONE TO THE DRAIN WHY HUMILIATE HER EVEN MORE. SHE WAS SO NOT INTO HER PERFORMANCE LIKE SHE WAS STIFF BECASUE HER BIKINI WAS TOO TIGHT OR SOMETHING, POOR THING EVEN LOOKED CONFUSED AND UNSURE OF WHAT NEXT DANCE MOVE SHE WAS GOING TO MAKE. ALL I GOT TO SAY IS AFTER HER PERFORMANCE NO ONE WANTED TO WATCH THE VMA’S CAUSE IT STARTED OFF TOO STUPID.