Idolator
Here it is, y'all: The first Britney Spears video to be on TRL in two years! I'm liveblogging its first airing for posterity, and also because the host of TRL asked sardonically if this clip could live up to the performance at the VMAs, which makes me think that it's not going to be making a return to the show anytime soon. Also: This will probably definitely be our last post about this video ever, I promise. Gratuitous ass shots, we knew you well...
4:23 p.m. Oh it's not a good sign that Damien Nolastname called the song "Gimme That."
4:23 p.m. He corrected himself—over the "It's Britney, bitch" intro. Oh no!
4:24 p.m Houseguest: "This is still the same version, right?" Me: "Yeah." And all around the world, thousands of Britney Spears fans started crying and ":("ing into their keyboards.
4:25 p.m. Still don't get the K-Fed lookalike's existence.
4:25 p.m. What does it say about this video that the grainy quality of YouTube actually helps the clip's overall feel compared to its being on TV?
4:26 p.m. It looks like most of the topless shots were cut. If only she'd told people to superman her more!
4:27 p.m. Crowd reaction: Decidedly mixed. Oh well, time for the Paramore video!
Comments
True story...
Around the turn of the century, I used to "write up" summaries of what happened every day on TRL and email them -- "blogs" as we know them today were non-existent back then -- out to a whole BCC list of friends, work colleagues, and the like. The typical recipient was late-20's / early-30's and typically had no clue about any of the music "the kids" were listening to back then [Britney, Destiny's Child, Backstreet Boys, etc.]. This was at the very peak of TRL's influence as a music-biz taste-maker, when you could not turn on MTV without seeing Carson Daly. [I even remember the now-infamous show on which Mariah Carey had her "meltdown" back in August 2001 -- yeah, I saw that one -- and also the show where millions of American kids probably first heard the word "rehab" when BSB A.J. McLean announced he was going in, around the same time as the Carey incident IIRC.] MTV even decided to extend the whole coutdown brand, introducing a Ray Munns-hosted half-hour show ahead of TRL that featured, as part of some challenge of some kind, the 11th through 15th most popular videos. And I covered that show too.
My report style was pretty-much modern-day-blog-snark, with a whole bunch of WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!'s thrown in for fun. I also dutifully noted all of the TRL chart statistics [rank, days on countdown, date entered countdown, peak position, previous position] and could rattle that stuff off like I was a fantasy baseball nerd. It was lots of fun -- and it kept me and my contemporaries up on popular music -- and I felt like I was "letting down" my "readers" when I finally decided to give it up.
Anyway, do they actually still feature a "countdown" anymore? And what are the top 10 "most requested" videos on MTV these days?
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