Britney, How Can We Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?
There’s a lot of talk about how Britney Spears’ upcoming album, Circus, is going to mark the former pop wreck’s rebound from a near-fatal career death spiral. Comeback? Doesn’t the second part of that word imply that you, like, went away for a while? (And we don’t mean those couple of short trips to the hospital.)
To be sure, Spears is coming back from something. Her recent appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards represented her reintroduction to an audience who probably best remembers her for stumbling through a notoriously shambolic “performance” at last year’s VMAs that nearly derailed her pop gravy train for good, not to mention several years of tabloid tawdriness that collectively feels like a Girls Gone Zany greatest hits DVD with too many hours of bonus outtakes.
See, if you’re constantly in the news and are proactively calling the paparazzi to chronicle your barefoot bathroom exploits, it doesn’t count as “going away” just because you’re not actually doing the job we thought we cared about you doing, i.e., singing and dancing and lip synching at concerts.
Really going away means either sequestering yourself in your suburban Detroit mansion for several years and rarely being seen in public (Eminem), totally changing up your game in the fourth quarter and polishing an already blinding image (Johnny Cash), not performing together for a decade (but still putting out terrible solo albums) and then triumphantly returning for a sold-out world tour (Spice Girls, Pixies), or walking away mad and waiting more than 23 years to play one last tour (The Police), or waiting 30 years and sounding just as tight as ever (The Stooges).
See, we missed them because they actually went away. Come … back. As in, please, we want you to come back from being away.
To be sure, Britney is not the only guilty party on this career staycation trend.
Let me state this up front: I was a huge Pumpkins fan. I watched them come up through the ranks in Chicago and have seen them more times than any other band except the Flaming Lips. I was at their final show in Chicago in December of 2000, where singer Billy Corgan swore to me that he’d never play the band’s songs again. And I stuck with him through his tepid solo album, the ill-fated Zwan period, and then I sighed when he announced he was getting the quartet (well half of it) back together in 2006. Too soon, Billy, too soon.
Where do we start with this one? Like Britney, Michael has never really gone away — he’s just become famous (well, infamous) for showing up in public wearing silly wigs, sillier outfits, horrible makeup, funny hats, and, more often than should be legal, his pajamas. Aside from his trips abroad and successfully defending himself against child sexual abuse allegations, MJ, who recently turned 50, has been working on his sequel to 2001’s ironically titled Invincible with Wil.i.am., Akon, and Chris Brown for several years. I say give it another five, at least. Maybe 10.
Some might say Abdul has waited long enough to release a new album. She hasn’t had a CD out since 1995’s flop Head Over Heels. But between the American Idol gig; her reality show, Hey, Paula; the Corey Clark scandal; and that bizarre appearance at last year’s Super Bowl to promote fellow AI judge Randy Jackson’s solo album, we’re gonna suggest she let her musical mojo simmer a bit longer before releasing her in-the-works new CD. Like, maybe just forever … our girl.
Whitney, oh Whitney. With more comebacks than a punch-drunk prizefighter, this former R&B diva seems to have run out of Get Out of Musical Jail Free cards. Take your pick: the ugly divorce from Bobby Brown; a string of disheartening public appearances and trips to rehab; a way, way TMI reality show; drug- and alcohol-related arrests; and her infamous “crack is wack” interview with Diane Sawyer. Whit, you’ve hardly given us a chance to forget why we loved you to begin with.
This is a tricky one. See, after singer Freddy Mercury’s death in 1991, Queen did, for the most part, go away, except for the occasional charity gig with a fill-in singer. Then in 2005 they had the potentially horrible idea of hooking up with leather-lunged former Bad Company singer Paul Rodgers for some live shows. Their new album due out next month, The Cosmos Rocks, features the single — ugh — “C-lebrity.” The lyrics say it all: “Ain’t got no hope/Got no idea/What to do or why I’m here/Want to get my face on your TV/I wanna be heard, I want to be seen/Ain’t got nothin’ to show.” Don’t go away mad, guys, just go away.
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But she sells magazines somehow??
How can she "go away" when, we the public, still demand her?
They say that the media can "make you or break you". i guess britney is the only artist immune to this. even at her lowest, and while getting bashed, she still moves magazines and records.
something to think about. It's fabulous that Britney is "coming back!" ;)