We’ve already shown you a clip from the upcoming VH1 Roc Docs special The TRL Decade in which Carson Daly talks about the time a teenage Lady Gaga tried to visit him in the TRL studio. In yet another teaser from the documentary, airing Sunday night, January 29 at 9:30pm ET/PT, we bring you one more great moment from behind the scenes at the show. In it, Method Man talks about the time he complimented Britney Spears on her posterior. Brit’s reaction is classic.
Get More: Britney Spears, Top 20 Countdown
It’s love on the run for Britney Spears in her new video for “Criminal,” in which real-life boyfriend Jason Trawick plays a bad-boy biker, on break from working the kitchen at a fancy party, when he witnesses Britney’s character being attacked by her controlling British escort (not that kind), comes to the rescue, and…you get the idea. Less Bonnie and Clyde than Thelma and Louise—or maybe even Aerosmith’s “Crazy”—the video follows the newly minted lovers and partners in crime as they rob at least one bank before getting cornered by the world’s most trigger-happy S.W.A.T. team. The two characters actually are way more committed to having sex than committing crimes (and we can respect that) but when Britney “borrows” her guy’s gun and pulls it on a convenience store cashier, they make the news fast.
Part of the reason the video works so well is director Chris Marrs Piliero. He and Britney share a comic sensibility that not only drove the madcap “I Wanna Go” video (their first collaboration) but also provides levity in this action-oriented video. The groin kick Britney gives her abusive date, Trawick’s mouthed “Oh s—” when he sees Britney pull the gun, and Britney’s wordless expression of more or less the same sentiment in the TV news still all point to one of Spears’s greatest talents: giving the impression that although she takes her career extremely seriously, she nevertheless doesn’t take it too seriously. The song might not quite be “Toxic” caliber, but its video is at least as entertaining a bad-girl adventure story, and her role here is essentially that of a (wait for it) femme fatale.
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At the beginning of the summer, many (including us) wondered how well Britney Spears would pull off a tour of the magnitude and length she’d scheduled. Really well, it turns out; the Femme Fatale Tour may not have been the show of the summer, but it was at least successful enough to reaffirms her role as a pop icon. Today, EPIX has announced that on November 12 at 8PM ET, they’ll be airing “Britney Spears: Femme Fatale Tour,” a concert special they filmed during Spears’s two-night stand last month in Toronto. The network has shared a sneak peek (though without mention of the 3D version that they supposedly filmed).
Top 40 has always been a notoriously fickle radio format, but ever since the teen-pop explosion of the late nineties, the average age of its artists has seemed to skew ever younger. Career longevity has come to mean ultimately appealing to listeners outside the Top 40 market. The exception that proves this rule is Britney Spears, whose “I Wanna Go” tops Billboard‘s Pop Songs chart this week, thus setting a record of 12 years, seven months and four days between first and last #1 appearances on the Top 40 airplay chart. (Her first appearance was “…Baby One More Time” the week of Feb. 20, 1999.)
The Pop Songs chart only launched the week of October 3, 1992, though. Would another artist hold the longevity record were the chart to have existed earlier? Not Madonna: her first #1 single was “Like a Virgin” in late 1983, and her last Pop Songs #1 was “Take A Bow” on March 25, 1995. (Like we said: Top 40 is fickle!) The Beatles‘ run of “She Loves You” to “The Long and Winding Road” only lasted seven years. Even Michael Jackson couldn’t beat Britney’s record, unless we’re sorely mistaken about the top 40 airplay “Ben” got.
The only artist who could challenge Britney is the one who previously held the record: Mariah Carey. 11 years, nine months, and 21 days elapsed between her first and most recent Pop Songs #1s (“Hero” and “Shake It Off,” respectively). However, presuming that her breakout smash “Vision of Love” would have topped the Pop Songs chart, her record would have been in the range of 15 years and two or three months. Britney would need a hit in May 2014 to top that notional peak—but that hardly seems outside the realm of possibility. Britney Spears may still be under thirty, but her Video Vanguard Award at this year’s VMAs was hardly a premature recognition.
The VMAs helped Adele set a chart record, too—her Hot 100-topping “Someone Like You” made the biggest-ever jump to #1 (up from #27) that wasn’t assisted by the market release of a single. Granted, any song available for digital download is a potential single, but any sales boost for the song was due not to sudden availability but to her vocal performance at the awards ceremony, accompanied only by a piano. That in itself is a Hot 100 first: Gary Trust at Billboard checked the archives and found that no piano-and-vocal-only song had topped the charts in the over 53-year history of the Hot 100.
Get More: Britney Spears, Pop Up Video, Till The World Ends (Pop Up Video), Free Music Videos
VH1′s long dormant but universally loved program Pop Up Video is set to make its highly anticipated return to the small screen on October 3. Yes, that’s less than a month away, but we’ve seen the first batch of new Pop Ups and we couldn’t wait that long to share them with you!
Above, check out the very first of the new Pop Up Video treatments, which are brought to you by Starbucks, for “Till The World Ends” by the one and only Britney Spears. Pretty soon, you’ll be able to create your very own Pop Up Video, too, from a library of videos that includes everything from Jay-Z‘s rousing anthem “Empire State Of Mind” to the
Each Friday here on the VH1 Blog, our VH1 Top 20 Video Countdown host Jim Shearer (@jimshearer on Twitter) will be sharing his Shearer’s Spotlight with us. Be sure to tune into the Top 20 Countdown tomorrow morning when it airs on VH1 at 9 a.m. ET/PT.
Next Wednesday, Sept. 14, the Big 4 Festival will descend upon Yankee Stadium in New York City. The participants will include the “big four” bands (i.e., pillars, staples, torch bearers, etc.) of thrash metal music: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax. Here are some other acts that could pull off a Big 4 Festival of their own:
1) Big 4 of Millennial Pop: Britney Spears, *NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, Backstreet Boys
This past summer, the Backstreet Boys created some buzz when they toured with their boy-band predecessors, New Kids On The Block, as NKOTBSB; but could you imagine the pandemonium they could create by teaming up with late ‘90s peer/rival, *NSYNC? The reunions alone would sell tickets on this tour: Justin and *NSYNC, Justin and Britney, Britney and Christina, and three old Mouseketeers back together again.
For the last 14 weeks, we’ve been tracking the race to see which track would become this year’s Song Of The Summer. Since people consume music in so many different ways these days, our goal was to put together a democratic formula that compared how a group of over 70 songs performed across five of the primary channels that people frequently use to listen to their favorite jams: the Billboard Hot 100 (radio play & sales), the iTunes charts (pure sales), Last.fm scrobbles (listening on computer and mobile devices), the YouTube music charts (streams) and, of course, our VH1 Top 20 Video Countdown. Each week, we tracked how our group of competitors fared in each of these different platforms, and then added up the results.
So, without any further ado, we are psyched to announce that Katy Perry has taken home the first place prize in VH1′s first annual Song Of The Summer competition! When the summer began, it looked like Adele‘s “Rolling In The Deep” was going to be an unstoppable force, but as soon as Katy dropped her 80s-tastic “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” video during the week of June 27th, she dominated the countdown from there on out. Katy was gracious enough to film an quick speech for us while she accepted our totally awesome Song Of The Summer trophy, which we’ve got for you above.
For you completists, here is our final Song Of The Summer countdown chart (that is, until Memorial Day 2012 rolls around!). And you’re on Spotify, you can subscribe to our VH1 Song Of The Summer 2011 playlist and re-live the summer whenever you want.
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Sad to say, but the impending arrival of Labor Day weekend means it’s time to put another summer in the books. All summer long, we’ve been keeping a close eye on the race to determine this year’s Song Of The Summer, following how songs have performed in terms of the Billboard Hot 100, iTunes sales, Last.fm scrobbles, YouTube streams and, of course, our VH1 Top 20 Video Countdown.
We’re going to announce this summer’s winner here on the VH1 Blog on Tuesday, but before we do that, we’d love to find out what YOU, the VH1 audience, felt was this year’s Song Of The Summer. What song did you jam the most on the beach? Which track was blasting when you put your ragtop down so your hair can blow? What jam got you and your friends pumped up for a night out on the town? Vote as many times as you like in our poll below. (Oh, and congrats to You Oughta Know artist Foster The People for being only the third song all summer long to hold the top spot in our countdown with their zeitgeisty smash, “Pumped Up Kicks”!)
At this time last year, hopes for Maroon 5‘s third studio album, Hands All Over, were high. The lead single, “Misery,” had hit #1 on Billboard‘s Adult Pop chart, and since the band had convinced famed superproducer Robert “Mutt” Lange to come out of semi-retirement to produce their album, everyone looked for the band to take the leap from a well-liked, fairly popular M.O.R. band to the next level and a spot among the world’s most commercially successful bands. However, once the album finally hit streets in October 2010, the masses shrugged their shoulders and largely ignored the album. The record was certified gold by the RIAA for shipping over 500,000 copies, but worldwide sales stalled out at just 529,000 total units.
Perceived failures like this have sunk many a band in the past, but thanks to charismatic frontman Adam Levine and ten weeks of national TV exposure courtesy of NBC/Universal’s The Voice (corporate synergy at its finest!), the band has totally reversed their fortunes in less than a year. Their new track, “Moves Like Jagger,” hit #1 on the iTunes chart this week, and Levine’s featured hook on Gym Class Heroes‘ “Stereo Hearts” propelled the song to a Top 20 finish in this week’s Song Of The Summer countdown. No wonder artists like Mariah Carey (The X-Factor), Sara Bareilles (The Sing Off) and more are looking to land prime positions as judges on televised singing competition shows; it’s exactly the kind of exposure to Middle America that the flagging music business is no longer in a position to give these artists using “traditional” music channels. As Maroon 5 has proved, it’s great work if you can get it!
As for the rest of our Song Of The Summer chart —only two more weeks until we crown a champion!— kudos to Katy Perry for her ninth consecutive week in the #1 spot.
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The down home diva Kelly Clarkson announced a release date (October 25) and a title (Stronger) for her fifth LP yesterday. Clarkson’s fans have been foaming at the mouth for months wondering when this album would officially come out, especially since a few songs (including “Dark Side” and “Let Me Down”) leaked last month and were well-received by her acolytes.
That said, when we first heard that she’d be titling her record Stronger, we couldn’t help but feel like, well, it had been done before. After all, it was only March of this year when country artist Sara Evans released an album bearing the same name. A little bit more research revealed that a handful of other well-known musicians have recorded tracks called “Stronger” in recent years, artists running the gamut from Kanye West to Britney Spears to Mary J. Blige to Faith Hill (the latter two of whom are, like Clarkson, former VH1 Divas). While it is still unclear if Clarkson’s new LP will have a title track of the same name, here’s a look at Kelly’s competition for becoming the strongest of the “Stronger” pack.
Artist: Mary J. Blige, “Stronger” (Listen to the song)
Album: More Than A Game (2009)
Refrain: “I’m stronger, stronger, stronger / I’m stronger, stronger, stronger”
Analysis: This song has very impressive DNA; it was written by Esther Dean, produced by Polow da Don, and sung by one of the best singers in the biz. However, it suffers retroactively because it’s so closely tied to the disappointing career arc of Miami Heat supervillain/choke artist LeBron James. The song first appeared on the soundtrack to the documentary about James’ high school years, More Than A Game, and feels overwhelmingly melodramatic and stripped of its potential anthemic power because of that association.
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