As promised yesterday, I'm gonna tell you why Britney Spears' most recent release, Blackout is the dance pop equivalent of Mission Impossible III. I understand that such a simple comparison is basic Klosterman-y pop sociology 101, but I've long been a populist apologist who becomes enamored by certain phenomenon (or lack thereof) way too late (for whatever reason, I always fall in love with Spoon albums exactly a year after their release) and this is the best way I could find to discuss both. Lucky me my opinions dovetail.
It should be obvious (by sheer virtue of me wasting this much time discussing said subjects) that I enjoyed both Britney's album and Tom's movie, but for whatever reason, i feel like the only one on both accounts. Anyone who reads People or watches any amount of television can draw the parallels between the stars:
1) They both suffer from media over-saturation.
2) They both were widely considered to be the biggest at what they do (Britney - dancing in skimpy outfits to hugely successful pop music. Tom - Running really fast and being cool in borderline homoerotic blockbuster films.)
3) They're both apparently batshit insane.
Now, neither Blackout nor MI3 were exactly panned critically or commercially. They both did respectable numbers and were accepted for what they were, but for me, both projects should have helped to get their respective stars out of their public relations nightmare holes.
Blackout is a modern, shimmery dance pop record that is easily the best and most consistent of Britney's career, sufficiently catapulting her into Madonna territory, while MI3 is a thrilling, deftly executed, character-driven action piece that runs away with the series and is perfect popcorn pop candy. What more of a comeback could the general public expect? Surely this would be the end of the Best Week Ever bashing and water-cooler joke-offs about both formerly beloved pop icons?
Such was not the case.
Tom is still a joke and most people wonder if he's still worth the $20 mil and Britney, well, the less said about Ms. Spears the better. I just don't get why. Blackout is fucking fire, and who the hell doesn't love a little Tom Cruise/ Philip Seymour Hoffman fight action? Several people, apparently, but fuck, it just isn't right.
There are two major arguments as to why these comebacks didn't exactly, well, come back. The first is fairly logical, and the second one is a bit of a stretch, but personally, I feel very very valid.
ARGUMENT 1:
Both Blackout and MI3 are a better showcase for the people behind the scenes than the stars on the cover.
The primary producer behind Brit's album was longtime Timbaland-sidekick Danjahandz. If Timbo is Batman and Danja Dick Grayson, this album is his Nightwing moment. Flying solo, he manages to show how he could hang with such a superproducer and not get dwarfed. We've seen his futuristic soundscapes before, most notably on the DJ Khaled posse cut "We Takin' Over" and the underrated Trey Songz burner "Wonder Woman." In addition to being a chief architect of the synthy sound Big Timmy's turned into a radio-smothering trend, he also did a lot of work on Duran Duran's last album (beats that, really, would've been better used elsewhere.)
Along with some help from T-Pain, Keri Hilson and Sean Garrett on writing duties, Pharrell producing a track and the additional production work of Bloodshy & Avant and The Clutch, Danja makes Britney sound less like a TRL joke than she has since she arrived. She actually sounds like a woman (a one-dimensional, sex-hungry woman, but a woman nonetheless.) It's a step into Janet Jackson territory that tracks like "Toxic" only hinted at.
As much of a triumph it is for Britney, Blackout is really Danja's solo coming out party, proving to the world he can handle his own business without Timbaland behind him making weird noises with his mouth.
Ditto J.J. Abrams, the television god who made his film directing debut with MI3. Yes, he was criticized for not having a strong mastery of the widescreen and that his framing was too "TV" but the movie proved that J.J. was ready to run with the big dogs, as evidenced by his being hired to revamp the Star Trek franchise with untold millions of Paramount's money. He did Tom justice, no doubt, but it was his show as well.
ARGUMENT 2
Gravitas.
For all intents and purposes, Blackout should've been widely considered THE dance record of the year. Too bad M.I.A. released Kala in the same year. You see, as much as people don't like to admit it, Britney and M.I.A. are the same kind of artist. They both make female driven dance pop. The main difference is that while Britney is thought of as vapid and radio-friendly, M.I.A. has more gravitas by virtue of the fact that her music is more global and she occasionally shouts out things that sound vaguely political.
Dance pop is generally repetitive and empty music made to dance to, and Britney delivers that in spades. The song structures and hooks on Blackout are sugary and easy to digest, but SO ARE THE ONES ON KALA! Just because Britney is talking about fucking and M.I.A. is talking about third world democracies, doesn't instantly make her album better.
How is "Hands up. Guns out. Represent the world town." any less bullshit than "Gimme gimme more..." (For further understanding of the vacancy of the M.I.A. formula, listen to Santogold, who is basically M.I.A. but talking about what appears to be absoluetely nothing at all.) Both are totally vague, empty statements designed for repeat recitations while gyrating your hips. Fans react to both of them the same way. They dance, sing a long and fantasize about fucking the singer. Just because the guy fantasizing about fucking M.I.A. is wearing a Che Guevara shirt doesn't make her album BETTER.
It annoys me that M.I.A. gets all of this extra love based on a flip-side of the type of soulless imagery marketing people constantly criticize major labels for propagating. Probably the same way it annoys Tom Cruise that he was doing the same shit Matt Damon was doing in the Bourne series, but since Paul Greengrass had darker lighting and shakier cameras, his film got the love and awards while Tom seemed like an unimaginative douchebag. It seems all you have to do in this world to seem more legitimate is to abstractly invoke the post 9/11 landscape and look moderately morose.
If Tom had put on some Jack Bauer angst or if Britney had worn a dashiki, I imagine they both could have gotten in on the action, but that's just the way it is. Things designed to be popular and enjoyed on a massive scale are supposed to get lambasted or ignored by the intellectual elite. If Britney Spears isn't "commercial", then how can M.I.A. be so "cutting-edge?" Britney Spears and Tom Cruise are like populist, sacrificial lambs, making it easier for people to like danish filmmakers and Sri-Lankan dance crazes.
It may sound like I don't like M.I.A. I don't. I love her. Ditto Jack Bauer and Matt Damon. I'm not saying these things suck or are lacking. I just wish my man Tom and my girl Brit could get a little of that elitist love themselves. We all know they cry into their money-filled pillows every night craving it. Why not give them a little?
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