follow-up

First, I suppose I should note that the genesis of that giant word vomit was an ongoing, approximately four year-long discussion that my friend Todd and I have had about the merits of Mr. Timberlake following a night where Todd's feelings on the subject were clarified while watching an HBO special of his performance. I should also note that this clarity may have been chemically aided. But I digress.

I feel that I should offer a little bit of (still unsolicited) clarification to the imaginary people who are up at arms about my previous post. It’s possible that because I had such an obviously good time deconstructing the myth of JT’s artistic supremacy that my post appears to be primarily about how I hate him. But that’s really not the point – I don’t hate him at all (as many people who have heard me give poor renditions of “Senorita” can attest). It’s more about how enticing it is to buy into established narratives. Somewhere along the line we decided that Justin and Gaga are “artists” whereas Britney is a “product.” Because of that, we view all of their activity through those filters: Gaga imitating Madonna is an homage, and songs like Telephone are satire, whereas Britney performing Like a Virgin is marketing. I just think that with prominent pop culture figures like these particular people, for whom their imposed narrative seems far more dominant than their reality, that its interesting to re-examine their careers.

The other obvious criticism is that JT and Gaga are established musicians – they are both extremely talented singers and musicians, whereas Britney Spears clearly is not. I completely agree (see Gaga’s VMA performance of Paparazzi or JT’s SNL performance of Senorita if you need proof). One might even argue in the case of JT that he has not attempted to consciously manipulate his public image, instead allowing his musical product to speak for him. To that I would say 2 things. First, I think its reasonable – I just think it’s a double standard to view Gaga’s control of her image as clever and Britney’s as fake. And second, JT’s decision to allow his music (whenever he makes it) to speak for him is commendable – it just makes him less relevant. It reminds me of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Both emerged out of Seattle, both were relatively counter-culture (especially compared to Michael Jackson), but unlike Pearl Jam, Kurt Cobain was extremely aware that Nirvana had cultural resonance beyond the simple quality of their music (which is why he wrote “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and agonized over making In Utero sound ugly – Klosterman’s article on this is genius). As a result, Pearl Jam might well have had better musicians, but Nirvana was far more important. And that’s how I feel about JT and Britney.

I will also add that, whatever my feelings about his musical legacy are, there's one thing that can't be doubted about JT, and that's his SNL hosting legacy - he is awesome on that show.