Britney Spears: Artist Discussion

[think pink.]

Oct 19, 2018 16:32:38 GMT -5 Codex said:

Oct 19, 2018 16:27:58 GMT -5 think pink. said:

This.

I've made peace with this long ago. Britney just wants to raise her boys and live a happy and comfortable life. She gave us so much in such a short amount of time and went through so much in her life and the media since she was just 17. She has the right to do as she pleases and if that means having her career take a back seat then so be it. As long as she continues to deliver great albums, I'll always be a fan.

She cared about her career for approximately 5 years between 1998-2003, yet we continued to support her until 2013. Is this the right career choice for her regarding her mental health and financially? Yes. But we have a right to feel disappointed that she's completely ruined her legacy along the way.

That is your right to feel that way. I was just speaking for myself as a fan.

[Marooned@Midnight]

And if anything it’s cemented her legacy. A ruined legacy doesn’t command half a mil per show. Legend.

[PrinceAli89]

You guys are making great points about Britney in regards to her legacy. She is allowed to do as she wishes and she will continue to make music and videos but she has just removed the touring aspect of it now.

[Anticonformity]

I always support her putting her mental, physical and emotional health first, her family first etc...
But that whole spectacle was honestly sad to watch, like believe me I don't expect ZOMG BEND YOUR KNEES, ETC and I'm all for getting money (though honestly the ticket prices are crazy this time around) like most but honestly it was sad that she couldn't interact or say something...

[It's me, bitch.]

Oct 20, 2018 2:58:35 GMT -5 Anticonformity said:

I always support her putting her mental, physical and emotional health first, her family first etc...
But that whole spectacle was honestly sad to watch, like believe me I don't expect ZOMG BEND YOUR KNEES, ETC and I'm all for getting money (though honestly the ticket prices are crazy this time around) like most but honestly it was sad that she couldn't interact or say something...

It is odd because she actually seemed comfortable. Her little dancing and waving coming up. Then just walked to her car. Weird.

Ticket prices aren’t bad. Pit is $151 for when I looked. Same as other show.

[Deleted]

Wait....ANOTHER RESIDENCY FUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCK
At least give us a feature on a song, it's been such a drought and so much trolling

[schnetzka]

Do we even know if she's been in the studio recording music? I feel like with her we normally know. Idk, maybe it's just me.

[SHOOTER]

I seriously need a new album to match this theme!

[think pink.]

The last we heard is that she is featured on a track with Pitbull and Marc Anthony.

[Anticonformity]

Oct 20, 2018 11:17:09 GMT -5 It's me, bitch. said:

Oct 20, 2018 2:58:35 GMT -5 Anticonformity said:

I always support her putting her mental, physical and emotional health first, her family first etc...
But that whole spectacle was honestly sad to watch, like believe me I don't expect ZOMG BEND YOUR KNEES, ETC and I'm all for getting money (though honestly the ticket prices are crazy this time around) like most but honestly it was sad that she couldn't interact or say something...

It is odd because she actually seemed comfortable. Her little dancing and waving coming up. Then just walked to her car. Weird.

Ticket prices aren’t bad. Pit is $151 for when I looked. Same as other show.

I paid under $250 for pit (which is my LIMIT) WITH fees and this time around its almost $350 with fess $271 without...
That's pushing it like damn...

[MiniMusic]

Oct 21, 2018 0:17:50 GMT -5 Anticonformity said:

Oct 20, 2018 11:17:09 GMT -5 It's me, bitch. said:

It is odd because she actually seemed comfortable. Her little dancing and waving coming up. Then just walked to her car. Weird.

Ticket prices aren’t bad. Pit is $151 for when I looked. Same as other show.

I paid under $250 for pit (which is my LIMIT) WITH fees and this time around its almost $350 with fess $271 without...
That's pushing it like damn...

When i looked for a date in february it was only around 170 dollars for a pit ticket! (With fees included!)

[It's me, bitch.]

Oct 21, 2018 0:17:50 GMT -5 Anticonformity said:

Oct 20, 2018 11:17:09 GMT -5 It's me, bitch. said:

It is odd because she actually seemed comfortable. Her little dancing and waving coming up. Then just walked to her car. Weird.

Ticket prices aren’t bad. Pit is $151 for when I looked. Same as other show.

I paid under $250 for pit (which is my LIMIT) WITH fees and this time around its almost $350 with fess $271 without...
That's pushing it like damn...

Not sure where you are looking. Like my previous post said, I saw pit for $151 for the show I randomly selected.

[Anticonformity]

Well damn wtf am I looking at then? hhahaha
Thanks guys... I'll probaly wait for her 2nd leg to go anyway "=]

[Deleted]

Ugh, I just can't imagine Britney pulling off anything "Domination"-like these days. I'll always be a stan, but it's so hard to see her just going through the motions to get a "paycheck" for her "day-job".

[mc54]

I honestly think POM wore on her. She got sick & tired of the "revamped" show for the last 2 years/wasn't adding anything new besides the 2 Glory tracks on tour.
I hope the new choreographers for the new show bring wardrobe, a sexier setlist for her, and an overall better experience.

[Keelzit]

I'm in my mid-twenties and I relate so much to 2007ney. Obviously being the most famous celebrity in the world is not my reality but still, sometimes I feel like I just wanna put a cheap pink bop wig on, drive to the gas station, get snacks and smoke cigs at 4am to escape from the messiness so, please don't shoot me but I've been thinking that maybe 2007ney was actually the sanest she's ever been instead of the other way around. She definitely lost control at some point but really, was most of it as erratic as it seemed or was she just a normal 20something with way too much on her plate who decided to say 'f**k it' and just lived life as uncensored as possible?

[Relaxing Cup]

[Ivy Leegue™]

A true legend only has to show up and smile and wave. That guy is so dumb with the "...don't know why she's popular" quote. A simple Google search will tell one all one needs to know.

[slw84]

20 years of ...baby one more time.
Legendary
Iconic
Game changing

Gonna play/stream baby one more time era videos, songs and performances from now up until the next anniversary
Will aim for 20 year anniversaries first then others

Will stream my only wish, hold it against me, any new songs, bomt era until March (femme fatale era)

[Zinc.]

US WEEKLY: Britney Spears’ Debut Single ‘…Baby One More Time’ Turns 20: How It Created a Pop Icon

Britney Spears' career almost got off to a very different start.

In 1997, when music on the radio ranged from bubblegum dance (Aqua’s “Barbie Girl”) to gangsta rap (The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Mo Money Mo Problems”) to soft-rock power ballads (Céline Dion’s “All By Myself”) and everything in between, songwriter Max Martin penned a catchy pop track titled “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” He originally intended for it to be included on TLC’s album FanMail, but the R&B girl group ultimately rejected it. Instead of scrapping the tune, Martin decided to send it over to Jive Records, which had just signed a 15-year-old singer from a small town in Louisiana whom the label hoped would become its next big act.

Right off the bat, Jive executives had one major concern: They feared listeners would think the song condoned domestic violence. (It turned out that TLC’s Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins also sought issue with the lyrical content, as she told MTV Opens a New Window. in 2013, “Was I going to say, ‘Hit me baby one more time?’ Hell no!“) Luckily, the solution was a fairly easy one. “Hit Me” was removed from the title and replaced by an ellipsis, though the lyrics remained untouched.

The label invited Spears to a studio in Stockholm in March 1998 to record her vocals for “Baby.” Due to nerves and inexperience, the teen underperformed in the booth. She returned the next day feeling more relaxed and gave it another go. The second time around, she knocked it out of the park.

“I knew it was a great song,” Spears, now 36, told The Guardian Opens a New Window. in August ahead of the 20th anniversary. “It was different and I loved it.”

“…Baby One More Time” was released on October 23, 1998, as Spears’ debut single. She was just 16 years old at the time, but quickly made her presence known with the earworm’s instantly recognizable three-note introductory motif followed by her delivery of the now-iconic first line: “Oh, bay-beh, bay-beh.” Entertainment Weekly Opens a New Window. reviewed the track as a “candy-pop-with-a-funky-edge smash,” while Rolling Stone Opens a New Window. went on to call it “some of the best radio pop of the past decade-plus.” In January 1999, “Baby” secured the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, where it remained for two consecutive weeks. It found even longer success on MTV, which had the accompanying music video on heavy rotation each afternoon on TRL.

But like the song itself, the video got off to a very different start. It all began when director Nigel Dick, who had previously worked with rock bands such as Guns N’ Roses and Oasis, signed on to helm the project. “I’ve always been a fan of great pop songs, and this one impressed me right away,” Dick tells Us Weekly exclusively. “Once we started on the job, [Spears] struck me as extremely professional and hard-working.”

So hard-working, in fact, that the ex-Mouseketeer immediately took control of the vision. “The record label rejected my initial idea and simply said, ‘Britney has an idea. Why don’t you get on the phone and talk to her about it?‘” Dick recalls to Us. “Initially, I was a bit bent out of shape, and then I realized that A) I’d gone to an all-boys school in England, and that B) I was no longer 16, so perhaps Britney had a better grasp of what 16-year-old girls might want to see in a music video.”

Spears even made sure that she had a say in the wardrobe. “It was my idea to do the whole schoolgirl outfit and us being at school and having the dance numbers throughout it,” she told Vevo Opens a New Window. in 2012.

The “Baby” video was filmed over two days in early August 1998 at Venice High School in Los Angeles, the same location used two decades earlier for John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John’s movie Grease.

“It was really, really hectic and nerve-wracking because it was my first video and I was really nervous about how the end results were going to turn out,” Spears said in a behind-the-scenes video Opens a New Window. released at the time. “I remember the first day I was on the set when we were shooting ‘…Baby One More Time.’ There was, like, all these people there. I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness.’ I didn’t realize it was going to be that big of a production.”

The video began with Spears sitting in class, tapping a pencil on her desk and staring at the clock rather than her teacher, who was played by her real-life assistant, Felicia Culotta. When the bell finally rang, Spears and her classmates ran into the hallway and began a choreographed dance routine. The budding pop star, with her hair in pigtails, wore her risqué take on a traditional Catholic school uniform: a gray cardigan over a short black skirt and a white button-down shirt tied around her midriff.

“She rejected my plan to wear jeans, T-shirts, etc. and said, ‘Wouldn’t I be wearing a school uniform?’” Dick recounts to Us. “It was a simple step to take her ideas on board. Plus, I really like it if the artist has a usable idea because then the video is truly something that reflects them and not who I think they might be.”

Throughout the shoot, Spears was “always ready to do another take,” according to the director.

“[She] impressed me a lot,” Dick tells Us. “I subsequently worked with another young female artist who wanted to do a dance video, and she said she wanted to ‘out-Britney’ Britney, and I thought, ‘You’ll have to work very hard to do that.’ In the end, the other artist didn’t even come close.”

Dick went on to direct three more of Spears’ videos: “Sometimes,” “(You Drive Me) Crazy” and “Oops!…I Did It Again.” He admits that he has not seen her since 2000, but he has continued to follow the many ups and occasional downs of her high-profile career.

Two decades later, “Baby” remains one of the bestselling singles of all time and is widely regarded for redefining pop music. It scored a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance as well as three MTV Video Music Award nods. To date, the music video is the most-watched on Spears’ YouTube Opens a New Window. page, with more than 365 million views. “Baby” has also been a staple on all of Britney’s setlists, from her arena tours to her four-year Las Vegas residency, Britney: Piece of Me.

“It was such a fun and crazy time,” Spears told The Guardian in August. “It was a bit of a blur.”

[Zinc.]

'Britney Spears wanted to be a star': An oral history of '...Baby One More Time'

[Gary]

'Baby One More Time' Video Director Nigel Dick on the Iconic Video 20 Years Later: 'It's All About Britney'

News

By Melinda Newman | October 24, 2018 12:16 PM EDT
Britney Spears "...Baby One More Time."



“She just [said], ‘Put me in a classroom with some cute boys. And I want to dance.’"

Britney Spears’ video for “….Baby One More Time” has nearly 368 million views on YouTube. It’s a safe bet that none of those views come from the clip’s director, Nigel Dick.

It’s not that he isn’t fond of the now-iconic clip for Spears’ first single, which celebrated its 20th anniversary on Tuesday (Oct. 23). It’s just that Dick, who's directed more than 400 videos, has no desire to look back. “I love it. I was there on the day,” he shrugs. “People say, 'Do you know...? And this bit happened…?’ And it's like, ‘Yeah, I f**king directed it. You don't need to tell me what's in it.’”

Shot at Venice High School in Los Angeles over three days in August 1998 for $300,000, the legendary music video set Spears, then just a 16-year-old a couple of years removed from The Mickey Mouse Club, on her way to superstardom. Clad in a not-that-innocent school girl uniform, Spears prettily pouts for the camera, her expressive brown eyes filled with yearning for the boy that got away. Spears premiered the video on MTV’s Total Request Live in December, and music video history was soon made.

Though the image of Spears in a short blue skirt, a tied-up white shirt revealing her midriff and thigh-high socks in the school hallway is seared into most people’s brains, the clip has several other memorable sequences, including scenes on the school terrace and in the gym. The concept, of a girl daydreaming in class and longing for the boy she lost, was developed from an idea Spears had after Jive Records rejected Dick’s original treatment -- which he declines to reveal, preferring to save the story for a book he’s writing.

“The label just rang me and said, ‘Look, this isn't the idea we want to do, but Britney has an idea. Why don't you guys get on the phone?’” he says. “I had a momentary hissy fit about why should I be on the phone with a 16-year old girl? And then you just have a moment of realization -- that she probably understands her market better than I do.” Dick also admits his attending an all-boys U.K. boarding school left him ill-equipped to replicate the American high school experience. “She just [said], ‘Put me in a classroom with some cute boys. And I want to dance.’ You go, ‘Okay,’ and then you just flesh it out.”

Dick, who had directed such clips as Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and “Head over Heels”; Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child of Mine” and “Paradise City”; and Oasis’ “Wonderwall,” was an MTV fixture renowned for his work with rock bands before crossing paths with Spears. His colleagues even advised him to pass on directing a clip from the new pop ingenue, fearful it could damage his reputation. “Their advice was work with established artists, and without being pompous about it, I just tried to always be open,” he says. “If I like the music and I'm going to get paid for doing it, I'll do it. I've done so many things where people have said, ‘You shouldn't do it,’ or the artist was unknown or difficult or whatever, and it turned out to be very important to my career.”

Despite his current (and realistic) fear that “when I die, people will say, ‘The guy that did Britney Spears videos is dead,'” Dick good-naturedly discussed in detail -- with near perfect recall -- the making of the classic clip with Billboard in September over coffee in a cafe in Los Angeles. He declined, however, to watch the video again: “I don't want to be that guy at the bar saying, 'Do you know I was the bloke that did this?’ I'm still working. I want to look forward.”

Meeting Britney: “She was very bubbly, she was very open. It was a very brief meeting in New York,” Dick recalls. “I had no idea what the Mickey Mouse Club was, because even though I'd lived here at that point for probably 10 years, I had better things to do than watch kids programs. So it wasn't till she became quite successful that people said, ‘Well, she knew Justin [Timberlake] in the Mickey Mouse Club and Christina Aguilera.’ And then you find out it was basically a school for young showbiz kids on some level.”

Dick credits her Disney training with her seasoned work ethic. “That explained to me why she was so accommodating at that young age,” he says. “She knew she needed to rehearse. There were no complaints. She was very professional. That had a big impact on the start of her career, and she'd obviously had years of training to get to that point.”

That Uniform: “I was told at the time no piece of clothing in the entire video cost more than 17 bucks -- it was all from Kmart,” Dick says. “I got the wardrobe person to come to the set with a bunch of jeans, sneakers and t-shirts. Britney just turned around and said, ‘Well, shouldn't I be wearing a school girl's outfit?' And I'm like ‘No!’” he recalls, forming a cross with his index fingers.

Not everyone shared his viscerally negative reaction, however. “My producer and the executive producer from the label -- who are both women -- go, ‘No, I think that's a really good idea,’" he says. "Music mags said this artist was conceived by a bunch of dirty old men in a conference room wearing raincoats. Which, in my experience, was not how it occurred at all.”

Location, Location, Location: After scouting several schools, Dick selected Venice High School, which had already achieved fame as the school where Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta filmed the classic movie musical Grease. “Summer school was in session. The first thing we shot were the shots of Britney in the car and the covered luncheon area,” Dick says. “The next day we did the gym, and the final day we did the classroom, because that was a weekend by that point and there was nobody there. The most shocking thing about looking for locations was we had difficulty finding a hallway with lockers in it, because most of them had been removed or welded shut so that kids would not bring guns to school.”

The most complicated shot of all? “Probably her dancing in the [corridor] because you can't get around the side,” Dick continues. “It's like looking down the barrel of a gun. Having the camera three feet on either side is not really gonna change the angle that much. Everything is looking at the front. [It’s] not complicated, but you go, ‘Okay, I'm constrained here. How am I gonna get the coverage I need to get?’ Just a practical filmmaking thing. The beauty of the video on some level is there's nothing fancy about it. It's very… ho-hum isn't quite the word, but it's very ordinary on some level, which is I think, one of the reason Britney shines -- because it's all about Britney.”

Flipping Out: Spears’ two impressive back flips during the terrace segment were her idea. “I remember saying something like, 'Do you need a pad?' If I'd been a parent she'd have gone, 'Dad!' No, she could obviously do it,” Dick says. “I was like, ‘All right, go for it!’ That’s the beauty of working with somebody who's 16. They've got boundless energy. It's not like somebody comes up to me after a first take and puts a hand on your shoulder and goes, ‘Just so you know, I only got three more takes in me.’ No. That's the glory of working with young people.”

Family Ties: Spears’ love interest, who is seen only briefly in the gym as they exchange glances, was her cousin Chad. “She said, ‘Can my cousin be the guy?' I said, 'Sure, why not?’” Dick says. “It's like, ‘Okay, that's another decision we don't have to make. Moving onto the next one.’ Because shooting any job, however big or however small, is a combination of 10,000 decisions. It's a glance. He glances back. Next. Don't turn it into Gone With the Wind.”

Missed Shot: During the gym scene around the 3:09 mark, a student wearing a basketball jersey with the number 91 makes a dazzling twist toward the basket -- and misses the shot. “He's probably in his 40s now, going, ‘I’m the guy who missed the f**king [shot]’,” Dick says with a chuckle. “I can't remember if he just couldn't do it or if I picked the one where he didn’t do it. But that's real life. They're not all LeBron James.”

Miss American Dream: “It's really about the song and about Britney -- I had my part in it, but I would be a fool to go up on a podium and say, 'Without the video I made for Britney…,’” Dick says. “The thing that made me the happiest was that immediately after the video was done, a number of people said, ‘That really reminds me of what it was like to be in school,’ except there was no dancing. And having never been inside an American school as a schoolboy, my entire experience of American school life was from movies; to recreate a life experience that everybody I meet in America has had… job done.”

Oops: Dick and Spears worked together again on the clips for 1999's “(You Drive Me) Crazy” and 2000’s space-themed “Oops!…I Did It Again,” which featured Spears clad in an unforgettable red leather bodysuit. As grown-up as that ensemble was, it has nothing on Britney’s original wardrobe choice. “She walked on set wearing a [revealing] outfit, and I just turned to the manager and the label [rep] and said, 'Are we absolutely sure this is what Britney should be wearing?' I got them to dial that outfit back,” Dick says. “Whatever it was, which I don't remember now, was very, very overt -- and at that point I said, 'I just don't think this is appropriate for this artist at this stage of her career. She's racing ahead of her audience.’”

“Oops” was the last video Dick directed for Spears. To this day, he doesn’t know if it was because he voiced his objection to her outfit, or for some other reason. “I'm sure there were a number of other factors, but subsequently, you go, ‘Well maybe that had something to do with why we never worked together.’ You don't know,” he says. “The last time I saw Britney was [after] having cut ‘Oops!…I Did It Again.’ She was rehearsing for some TV show in The Valley, and I went over with [the finished video] and showed it. I walked away and have never seen her again.”

[think pink.]

The most iconic debut in history.

[PrinceAli89]

I still can't believe, 20 years later, she's literally re-defined Pop music. She achieved all her dreams of becoming the next Madonna, having children at a young age, etc. I'm so happy to be a part of the ride and will continue to be forever. :)

[think pink.]

Greatest album of all time.

http://instagram.com/p/BpXoHCmBp7_

[It's me, bitch.]

Any reports on ticket sales so far?

[Caviar]

Nov 1, 2018 20:20:27 GMT -5 It's me, bitch. said:

Any reports on ticket sales so far?

Ouch

[thezatch]

Her problem now is that there is no anticipation, build-up or hype for this show. She's techinically only been gone from Vegas for a year but spent a good portion of the summer touring and seeing the fans who were broke couldn't see her in Vegas so she hasn't really been silent in between residencies. There is no new music (single, album or otherwise that we know of), no behind-the-scenes look, a snazzy trailer, no promise of new pre-recorded vocals, live "uh-huhs" and "yeahs", news of throwing in some deep cuts or b-sides to spice up the setlist ("Lonely", "Showdown", "Before the Goodbye"...), something cool or even



to get us all excited, so why rush out and snatch up tickets to a show that will probably be similar to what we've watched on YouTube or seen in person already? Also that first MONTH at least is going to be rough until she gets used to all the new stuff and isn't walking around the stage like a robot, showing no emotion.

At least, give us a new E! documentary about the making of the tour in December or something ("Britney Spears: I Am The Dominator"?) to get people excited and promise new music after the freeze in January. The marketing design is too good to let it go to waste with a POM 3.0.

[It's me, bitch.]

Nov 4, 2018 12:08:45 GMT -5 Caviar said:

Nov 1, 2018 20:20:27 GMT -5 It's me, bitch. said:

Any reports on ticket sales so far?

Ouch

This is what I was expecting! Too soon and too little demand. Thanks!

[think pink.]

We should have got another album before a new Residency announcement. Or have them both go hand in hand.