"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
– Johnny Rotten, San Francisco Winterland, 1978
Since going on sale exclusively at the iTunes Music Store last store — the only place so far where you could watch it — the Britney Spears magnum opus "Gimme More" has shot to #1, the same sales rankings that has befallen the single itself. Her presence on a magazine cover or a mere mention on a Web site guarantees an avalanche of rubberneckers — see this NY Times article about Ms. Spears as Old Faithful — thereby ensuring coverage of her every move regardless of how worthy they are of any attention at all. Although the actual content of this video is totally irrelevant, here's the quick synopsis. Good Girl Blonde Britney shows up at a strip club with her gal pals to watch her Bad Girl Brunette doppelganger wriggle around a pole and lip-sync the vocals. I don't have the energy to list every shortcoming, but let's just say that nobody is going to call this a well conceived or executed video. The director here is newcomer Jake Sarfaty who — best as I can determine — is not a director at all by trade, but a gaffer and grip who happened to fall into the pop starlet's orbit. Sources tell me that reshoots were planned with prominent production companies and big time directors, but never happened — which is understandable, considering all the drama and chaos that 's enveloping every aspect of her life.
The only way I can comprehend Spearsgate and the hysteria surrounding this video is that it's all just a situationist prank. It has to be an elaborate hoax to make us realize how defenseless we are to celebrity. I keep hoping to see Malcolm McLaren (or, shit, even Ashton Kutcher) pop up and yell, "Got ya!" But the truth is this: The song is a hit on the charts. The video will be hunted down by way more people online and get more mainstream media attention than anything else this year. But, the real bullshit is how we tell each other how awful we think it is and how Britney's situation is so sad and then keep clicking through to see what happens next. Gimme more, indeed. --> watch "Gimme More"
Britney Spears "Gimme More" (Jive/ZLG)
Jake Safarty, director
