On the heels of two rather especially “meh” videos from Ariana Grande, “Positions” and “34+35,” it leaves one wondering how a fellow Princess of Pop, Britney Spears, managed to achieve so many iconic moments with her own slew of basic concepts. Let us start, most obviously, with the video that pivoted her into immediate icon status, “…Baby One More Time.” Taking the simplicity of a Catholic schoolgirl outfit (the only thing people ever remember about the video) and sexualizing it with Lolita flair while parading around a high school, Spears activated the palpitating hearts of a thousand pervs, in addition to making every tween girl covet her hyper-sexual style.
The director of said video, Nigel Dick, would continue to provide Spears with more memorable visuals via simple ideas, keeping the momentum going with her second video, “Sometimes,” shot in Malibu with Britney dressed in that virginal white (crop top and cargo pants) as she dances her arse off in a way that Grande can’t seem to deliver in her own flaccid, “Hehe, I’m lightly bopping around” videos. Need one remind that Britney injured her fucking knee while rehearsing the choreo for “Sometimes”–that’s the goddamn testament to its intensity. And even to this day, we still remember visions of her dancing on a boardwalk in white.
With her second album, Oops!… I Did It Again, Dick would direct Spears as a Martian sex goddess (sort of playing into the fembot trope Grande favored for “34+35”) dressed in a now immortal red catsuit–one that, try as girls like Miley Cyrus might, could never be carried off the way Britney managed it. But that wasn’t the only image that stuck out in people’s minds. There was also that infamous overhead shot of Britney lying on her back in white as though specifically to cater to the male gaze, as well as amplify her “unwittingly” tongue-in-cheek portrayal of “chastity.”
As the 00s wore on, Britney would continue to perfect the iconification of what would otherwise have been the most prosaic “narratives” were it not for the fact that she gave her everything to the choreography (this, perhaps, is why people were so shocked by her lack of enthusiasm during her first live performance of “Gimme More” at the 2007 VMAs). From “I’m A Slave 4 U” (also made recognizable by her snake-toting 2001 VMA performance of it) to “Boys,” Spears always brought a layer of memorability to run-of-the-mill ideas with her dancing and costumes. As for the latter video, the accompanying track was on the Austin Powers in Goldmember Soundtrack in 2002, and Britney herself made a very notable cameo in the movie where she herself turns out to be a fembot–so sorry Ariana, once again you’ve ripped someone else off–this time a pop singer who was actually part of the project when it was still relevant.
In 2004, Britney reached another zenith with her music video storylines via the one-two punch of “Toxic” and “Everytime.” The former video is the very pinnacle of “keeping it simple” as Spears takes on the persona of a seductive flight attendant (with certain international espionage tendencies). It is indeed very much the type of “brainchild” one could see Ariana Grande running with if she had been around before Britney and could feasibly make the visuals her own. But “Toxic” and its flight attendant aesthetics belong forever to Spears the way the wedding dress worn by a writhing bride does to Madonna (even if she briefly allowed it to be donned, complete with Boy Toy belt, for an homage to her by Britney and Xtina in 2003).
The David LaChapelle-directed “Everytime” was arguably Britney at her greatest artistic departure from basic concepts past, reflecting on a paparazzi harassment-fueled time that takes place within the contextual framing of a Vegas hotel (as though she foreshadowed her own residency) and an abusive boyfriend. Sinking into the bathtub as though she might cut herself to further numb the pain, Britney went to a dark place that one can’t really imagine Ari exploring despite her frequent championing of openly discussing mental health. After her breakdown from 2007 to early 2008, Britney was put back on the (dead) horse to create the Circus album, also replete with memorable videos, including “Womanizer,” “Circus” and “If U Seek Amy.”
Still, it was at around this point that Spears started to lose the audience that had made her, and it was as though drifting away from the “teen dream” persona broke the spell of making music videos that fell into what can be deemed the “Halloween costume cachet” category. On a side note, Miley Cyrus recently remarked that she thinks about most of her looks from the perspective of whether or not fans can easily re-create them as costumes for Halloween (or any day really). Spears, by the time 2009 rolled around, seemed either averse to or uncaring about this notion, and none of her videos have ever quite remained in the collective mind’s eye the way they did from …Baby One More Time to In the Zone. But regardless, it has to be said that she could lend “instant classic” historicalness to just about any video during this period. Which cannot be said of really any of Grande’s videos, equally as “down” for… accessibility.
