Welcome To Britney's Circus!
For a while it seemed like Britney Spears' best days were behind her. Now, back with her best-known look and a new hit album, she's a pop queen once again...
ACT 1
LOS ANGELES, 2008
The way it could have been: an improbable made-up meeting with Britney Spears
"Go on, tell me another one. These are hilarious,” laughs Britney Spears. We're somewhere remote in Los Angeles — actually her back patio, complete with the inviting lap pool mere feet away — and she's enjoying the basket of supposed Britney news that has been brought to her, fresh from…the internet.
I'm jetlagged, and there seems to be a slight buzzing overhead, but more on that in a bit. Britney looks like — the way everyone wants Britney to look. Not the shaved, crazed Britney that had the world worried, but rather, the shoulder-length blonde hair with the big, big brown eyes Britney. The Britney who is dipping her tanned dancer's legs into the pool Britney. She sounds Britney-esque too. The word "hilarious” actually comes out as "Hil-AIR-eeee-us", with a faint, but pronounced Southern U.S. twang.
“Okay,” I say, trying to focus. “You want to stop biting your nails. It says here that you worry too much about your two recent songs and you would like to stop that habit, because if you don't, you can't get long shiny ones."
"Where did you read that from?”Britney drawls.
"Doesn't say."
"Well that's kind of true,” she responds. “I do bite my nails and I do worry about Sean Preston and Jayden James,” Britney says in a serious manner. "Go on. Read more. Would you believe, this is actually kind of an exciting day for me."
And, as a journalist, I've got to admit that it's an exciting day for me too. Usually, it's pretty easy to remain passive about some celebs, but even in a jetlagged state the mind keeps saying "THIS IS BRITNEY!” And there she is, resting her head on her knees, looking at me. "Go on,” she says sweetly but with a definite insistence.
“Okay. You are going to do the dance of love when you visit India with the Indian choreographer who will train you for your world tour,” I say with a flourish.
Britney doesn't so much as laugh, but cackles at length. "The dance of love. What even is that, as the young kids would say?” she asks.
I fumble for a bit before finding my place amidst the messy stack of printouts I'm holding. "The rhumba,” I try to say seductively, but fail miserably. Britney laughs so hard it seems like she's snorting. The buzzing continues overhead.
"The rhumba,” she says in between giggles. “If there's anything I've gotta learn, it's that, man."
A Short Interlude
“All eyes on me in the center of the ring. Just like a circus.
When I crack that whip, everybody gon’ trip, just like a circus. Don't stand there watching me follow me. Show me what you can do."
Britney Spears hails from the small town of Kentwood, Louisiana and hit the big time, as most people know by now, with her debut single "Baby…One More Time”. She was just 17, and with the schoolgirl outfit she sported in the video, Britney captured the attention of both the young boys and girls…and the older boys. And, most likely, a few of the older girls too. Since then, quite a bit of Britney's personal and public life has become known as well. There was the teenage relationship with budding fellow pop star (and fellow former Mickey Mouse Club member) Justin Timberlake. She starred in the movie "Crossroads”, which did okay, and opened a restaurant in New York, which didn't. There was the infamous kiss with Madonna at the 2003 MTV Music Awards, and a wedding to a childhood friend which lasted 55 hours. There were a few more hit albums and then she met budding rap singer Kevin Federline. Three months later, she was engaged. A little over a year later, she was pregnant. There was a reality show and a second child. And all the while, more and more paparazzi were watching her every move. When the two divorced late in 2006, Britney Spears began to be treated like a real-life version of "The Truman Show".
ACT 1.5
The Way It Really Is:
In The Recording Studio With Britney Spears
She's never really alone. We're in a Los Angeles studio while Spears is recording a track for "Circus". The studio itself is huge, with a glass wall separating Britney from the production team. A few candles are dotted around to create the kind of ambiance needed, but with the lights on full blast, it's not going to make much difference. A blue swirling backdrop is a sound barrier behind the microphone and Spears looks at her music stand intently which contains the lyrics to the song she's recording. She's wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Her hair is pulled back.
In the main production room, Dr. Luke (who has worked with, among others, Avril Lavigne and Katy Perry), is listening to the uptempo beats he has put together. There are security guards and management people hovering about. The scene is creative with a purpose: make an album of hits: create a "comeback” and return Britney to the top where she belongs.
“It's so much fun because you never really know what you're going to get when you're in the studio,” says Spears later.
“It's like a scientific experiment and sometimes when you feel like you'll get bored, the song's done and you start something with someone else and it adds a cool flavor to the music. It's like all different flavors of ice cream.” When she says this, there is a glint in her eye like she really is imagining going to the ice cream parlor to get a nice big fat cone of something delicious — like chocolate coffee chunk or sea salt caramel. If only.
At the moment, following all the trauma and escapades that Spears has been through after her divorce (shaving her head and attacking a car with an umbrella being just two of them), her father and lawyer have complete legal control over Britney. “If I wasn't under the restraints I'm under now with all the doctors and the lawyers and the people analyzing me every day and all that kind of stuff,” I'd feel so liberated and feel like myself,” she told MTV in the documentary "Britney: For The Record".
But the only liberating being done in the studio on this day is Spears letting loose with her vocals. There are definitely stronger voices out there, yet there's no doubt she has a style all her own. Several uptempo songs that can bang in the clubs, a couple meaningful ballads, a few definite chart toppers, and presto, there's your "Circus". The title track alone is sure to be a big danceable hit. “Immediately, when I heard "Circus” I had a story behind it and it made it so different and eccentric and they're the best songs for an artist to do,” Spears exclaims. “"Circus” put everything together for me. When my kids come to the show I want them to be like ‘Oh my God, Mommy's a superhero!’ And that's so exciting for me."
ACT 2
Los Angeles
The Way It's Supposed To Be: Another Episode In A Continuing Series
of Highly Improbable Adventures With Britney Spears
I could say that we talked about topical stuff, like "The Dark Knight” and how she felt the exact moment she shaved her head and how much fun she was having when she showed her hoo- ha to the world, but the truth is that we just cracked jokes, and discussed food a lot, along with an occasional reveal about how the new album was coming along. That is, when we weren't catching glimpses of cameramen with their lengthy lenses trying to hide off in the distance of her property.
“It's a bit like lions, and tigers and bears here,” I say.
“Oh my!” Britney shrieks in mock horror. “It's like…like…like a circus! Well, get used to it buddy." Then she laughs, with a sound that's endearing, honest, and human. She dips those dancer's legs in the pool, the ones that will get a regular workout when she goes on a world tour sometime next year.
She's quiet for a moment, contemplating. The Britney the world sees doesn't seem to be who she really is. She looks around her property, at helicopters hovering in the sky, at the paparazzi who are trying to hide while still angling for some kind of exclusive shot, and shyly smiles.
"Do you know what I want to do right now?"
"What?” I ask in my suddenly hyper-alert state. "Make up some internet stories?"
"Noooooo,” she says with a bit more of her drawl coming out.
"Go inside your house?” I ask a little too excitedly.
"No!”she says fiercely. “I want to GET OUT of this house. I want to leave this house right now…and get some ice cream."
"But we'll have to sneak past the paparazzi, and you'll be all over YouTube tomorrow."
"Well,”she declares. “I'll give you one of my umbrellas, and a mask, and we'll just have to make a run for it!"
"Like bank robbers on a getaway?"
"Better than that,” Britney cackles. We were out of there before the paparazzi even knew what hit them.
A Short Interlude
“I don't want to dream about all the things that never were. Baby, I couldn't live without. Out From Under. And I don't want to feel the pain. What good would it do me now?"
ACT 3
Los Angeles
The Way It Really Is: In The Dance Studio With Britney Spears
Another day, another studio. This time the managers, security folks, record company execs, publicists, and several dancers are in a large oversized LA rehearsal room as Britney Spears is learning some new dance moves to accompany the videos for "Circus".
She's a quick learner, incorporating intricate twists and turns in the blink of an eye.
"Dancing is my life,” she'll say later when she's resting. “I'm dead if I don't dance. I can get really depressed and the only thing to get me out of it or get me out of my head is when I get with people and I dance and I'm okay. It's like a spiritual thing for me."
During the eventual videos, Spears already knows she will be salacious enough to make people stop and stare. For example, in the video "Womanizer", Spears toys with men in the same way that she implies they've toyed with her in real life. She'll even appear nude for a brief, tantalizing bit. The video quickly reached 53 million views on YouTube (more than a decade later, it has 372 million views).
She practices her dance moves for the videos she'll make for the songs that everyone else hopes and knows will be hits. And right now, she's sort of okay with it. “It just comes with the job and what I do,” she says in that already well-
documented MTV documentary. “It's who I am now. It never stopped being fun for me. I get to perform in front of millions and millions of people. It's never not been fun."
Spears says this last sentence with conviction. This is her true "Circus”— and as we move on in this new century, Britney Spears is the ringleader.
(NOTE: This is a slight update of a story first printed in 2009. I may write a sequel soon detailing some of the story's background, and how it relates to the state of journalism today).