Missoula News

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

Britney, Meet the Bellamy Brothers. Bellamy Brothers, Britney.

By Bob Wire, 1-18-11

"That's the last time I wash my hair with toilet cleaner."

I don’t blame Britney. She has a lot of mouths to feed. We all saw what happened when she took charge of her own career. She split from rap, uh, legend K-Fed in late 2007, started flashing her lady bits to paparazzi, then checked into Eric Clapton’s rehab center in Antigua, only to check out 24 hours later. From there it was on to a hair salon in Tarzana, California, where she shaved her head bald. Then it was straight to a tattoo parlor in Sherman Oaks for some new ink.

Then things got weird.

Up to that point, we’d been enjoying watching one of music’s more original train wrecks. Britney moved from one disaster to the next so fast, we wondered if she’d gotten hold of one of those Willie Wonka sideways elevators. She was the continual butt of late night TV jokes, an object of public fascination and revulsion. She was like a spectacular car crash that had lost custody of its own children. We could not look away. Things got darker and crazier, and a suicide or death-by-misadventure seemed imminent. Celebrity magazines had her obituary written and formatted for publication at a moment’s notice. Then she hitched her wagon to Paris Hilton’s star, a poor career move for anybody, even Paris Hilton. Psychotic breakdowns. Rehab stints. Tabloid bombshells. Thanks to Britney, kids could no longer safely google “beaver” on the internet.

But now this, this takes the cake. After working so hard to dry out and clean up and become a reasonable, productive artist again, she’s just released the first single from her upcoming CD and it’s an eye-roller. I heard the song, “Hold It Against Me,” on the radio yesterday and I thought, you know, I liked it better when it was done by the Bellamy Brothers and had the full title of “If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me” BACK IN 1979!

When the original was released, thirty years ago, Spears was still a future Mouseketeer rattling around in her dad’s nutsack. The song was a mildly clever county hit for the Bellamy Brothers, their first to top the Billboard Hot Country charts. With lyrics like “If I said you were an angel would you treat me like the devil tonight,” these guys weren’t going to have Bob Dylan fearing for his job, although they might get him tapping his toe. But compared with the words to Britney’s new hit, they’re positively Shakespearean: “Gimme something good / Don’t wanna wait I want it now (na-na-now) / Pop it like a hood / And show me how you work it out.” Pop it like a hood? Gag me with a spoon.

The girl’s just trying to make a living, yes, but I resent her trying to put this song across as an original idea. I’m sure her handlers figured Britney Inc. could get away with it because anyone old enough to remember the Bellamy Brothers hit is too old to give a shit. Well, they’re wrong.

Of course, people don’t write pop songs anymore. They make beats. Modern pop is created by some of the most talented button-pushers in the business. Producers have become more celebrated than songwriters. Musicians? Feh. More like programmers. Pop songwriting has never been that deep, but after a few minutes of listening to any Top 40 station, I have to say it’s just getting lazier and lazier, and the new Britney single is the worst offender yet.

I need more from music than a beat. Pop songs don’t say anything. They’re all about what small variation they can make on the 130-beats-per-minute “boom-clap” dance rhythm. (Why 130? Because that’s the heart rate of adolescent girls when they see a photo of Justin Bieber.) The songs are virtually indistinguishable, except to the most hardcore devotees, the kids who buy the downloads.

“Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry sounds exactly like “We R Who We R” by Ke$ha, whose “Tik Tok” sounds exactly like “California Gurls” by, um, Katy Perry. (“Dude. If we spell “girls” with a U, nobody will remember the Beach Boys.”) Sure, I remember my old man saying the same things about “Taking Care of Business” and “Fly Like An Eagle” when I was a teenager. But, really, are those two songs as similar as the majority of pop/dance hits flooding the iTunes charts these days? No. Not even close. So, your Honor, I hereby move to disallow the “cranky old curmudgeon” approach of the prosecution.

Pop music has become a snake that’s swallowing its own tail. I never thought I’d say this but it’s even worse than modern country. I think pop music is reaching its creative nadir, with each hit song a more shameless rip-off of the last hit song. Has there been a great, original new band since the White Stripes? Help me out here. Please. I’m all ears.

[Bob Wire’s column appears each week at NewWest.net. Subscribe to the rss feed or bookmark it. Either way, you won’t be sorry. Or maybe you will.]

Bob’s Maximum Honky Tonk Website
Join the Bob Wire Appreciation Society

Stumble It!

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.