Updated Opinions as of 5/14/02...I LOOOOOOVE the Overprotected video. I seriously think it's her best video yet, sexy and stylish, and the song is great too. Love the part where she gets down in the limo/truck thingie. LOOOOOOOVE it.

And I especially loved the part where they redid the choreography!! Lol despite whatever other opinions I may have of Wade, I do like his choreography, really. However, having seen the HBO Britney concert, I will say that his rendition of Overprotected is easily his worst work yet:p. I'm so glad that they changed it up for this video to give it a sexy, free feel.

And yeah, I'll be the first to admit that Britney's recent "I'm not a girl, dangit! Stop overprotecting me! Did you ever think it'd be okay for me to step into the club??" spiels are getting a bit too redundant, but after I saw this it was just like...so what? The song is tight and the video is tight, who's complaining;)?

I haven't seen I Love Rock and Roll yet though. I hope to.

I think it's a shame, however, that Britney smokes. As I think it's a shame that most people smoke.
This girl has so much going for her...her sex appeal, her natural appeal, her generally pleasant personality, and stable family and personal life. Why does she have to go and rank it all up with smoking? And I would say this for anyone who smokes, her sexiness towards me just plummeted, like, 40% when I found out that she did(I actually knew that she did a while ago, but this was the big huge slap in the face, really). Being healthy and free-willed is sexy to me. Smoking represents neither of those.

However, I must contradict myself again and say that I do feel people are making too big of a deal over this, as I feel they do over almost every aspect of Britney's life. I mean, Could we have been any more ridiculously extravagant or materialistic about all this? It took a considerable amount of effort on my part to not slam my head onto the keyboard when I found out that this Britney smoking story actually made it on the Yahoo.com news pages. I mean it really shows how sad of a culture we are! I've gotten sick and tired of the everytime-Britney-farts-it-appears-on-national-headlines phenomena a long time ago. I think smoking is horrid and there's no excuse for it, but the media needs to get over Britney already.

That said, I really do still admire and love Britney. Yes, I think she will ruin herself by smoking. If I were Justin I would not date her if she smoked(Given the fact that Justin has spoken out vehemently against smoking before, I would actually not be surprised in the least if, and this is if they actually did break up, he broke up with her because of this. I'm not saying that he did, in fact I'm not even giving that a possible conjecture, I'm just say that if he did it wouldn't surprise me). But I still do like her and her work and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon:D.

I love her new album. I'm totally feeling her new image and style. Okay...I don't love it all, no. I think it's like she found a sound that works for her so then decided to make like 12 songs that incorporate that sound lol. My favorite songs off the new album are "Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman," "What it's Like to Be Me," and "Lonely," more or less in that order. I didn't like "I'm a Slave 4 You" at first, but like all things must, it grew on me;). I did not like "Boys" when I first heard it and still do not like it.

Ooh, but I don't like her backup singers though...can I say that?...I never liked them before and I like them less now. I used to call them Britney's Robots 'cause they never had any character, now I just think they're in pain! I mean why do their facial expressions and vocal techniques always seem to be somewhere between "skinned alive" and "gutted with a knife"? I mean when you're listening to Britney do some sultry soul-thing on "Not a Girl," just basically living the song...is it absolutely necessary, in trying to achieve the full effect of the song, to see two women next to her looking as if they're giving birth to cannibalistic aliens? No, I didn't think so;).

And I still think that the media and everyone in general gangs up on her way too much. I used to think that she should be more responsible as a role model, but lately I think others should take some responsibility as well. People act as if Britney's this source of evil that must be eliminated. I heard one person say almost outright that Britney is responsible for girls getting raped in this day and age. That is taking it so far, not focusing on the real problem, taking to the point that they're trying to blame her for evil. Britney Spears is not the largest abomination to appear in our world, not by a long shot, and the fact that the parents or other such adults can't even or don't even try to protect their children from that "abomination," instead hurling blame and insults as if that could solve the problem, says a lot to me. There are far more dangerous things in the world to young people than Britney Spears, really there are. We live in crappy times, with school shootings, hatred, children are experiencing friggin' war first-hand...and the fact that the responsible adults of our time, the leaders of our generation, the people who are supposed to take care of us...the fact that they're at a loss and panicking and clueless as to how to deal with someone like Britney...I mean, that says a lot. Really that does.

I'm not saying that I don't understand why she shouldn't be a role model in her position, that'd just be denial. I'm just sick of people pinning the world's troubles on her and using her supposed role model position as an excuse to do that, that's not a healthy solution to anything. Everyone spends hours and weeks and years blaming Britney for everything they think she should be held accountable for and no one thinks about stepping up and doing something about the problems or even finding the root of it, instead pinning everything on this one liberal girl who isn't about to go changing her ways just so every parent in the world can feel a little less guilty about not keeping their own children in check.

There's still so much gender bias associated with her. People got all irritated and huffy with her concerning that "orgy" scenes in I'm a Slave 4 U, but why don't y'all do something for me for a sec. Picture JC's hallway sequences in the Pop video. Got it? Skintight(arguably see-through)shirt, walking through a narrow hallway with skantily-clad party girls groping at him from all angles? Now imagine that same exact scene, except gender-reversed...JC as a woman, those ladies as guys. Anyone beginning to get my gist?

One more thing...I hate her lipsynching. I love her voice, she does her ballads so well, but I hate it when she lipsynchs. Sad.

I still look at Brit as a sweet, beautiful girl who's made it and just wants to do what she loves and is getting the chance to, just maybe getting a tad over her head in some aspects along the way. I like her attitude...a lot of people say she comes off as fake, but really I think she's just being herself.

Ooh, and she looks hot in a trenchcoat;).

That's it I guess:p.



Anything below this line are opinions from before that may or may not still apply;).

Her music's not bad. It's the kind of pop I can get into if I try. I mean, when you hear it as often as I do(Don't ask), at some point you're gonna start humming along. But I love her style, it's something about her that is absolutely unique and can't be copied off of. I have her first album(I think...I bought it in Taiwan 'cause it was about 800% cheaper there and don't know if it's the same as the US version)but not the second one, so I can't really compare the sounds. I do have to note that I like her a lot more now than when she first came out; I didn't like her innocent schoolgirl routine, it made her feel like a tease. I like her better now when she's trying to be daring and more aesthetic.

The dressing...Most of the times it's just fine by me:). As for the raunch, like her "Rolling Stone" cover...When I saw it, I remember being surprised, but not overly concerned. I mean, I honestly just thought, whoa, she's sexay! and moved on with it. It wasn't until it became a big deal that I started to think about it, and I do admit it must have confused a lot of people as to her intentions. Plus, at the time I didn't know she was seventeen:x.

As for her performances, the only one I have any real serious dangit-what-were-you-thinking qualms with was her Kid's Choice Awards '99 performance, and I don't even think she meant for that to be offensive. But it was just...dang her nipples were making dents onto the front of her tight little t-shirt, shouldn't someone have warned her that this was a televised show for children! That is the closest I can say that Britney has ever been obscene. She's been daring and racy many times, but definitely not obscene.

For the record, though, I do think Britney's right when she says that people do take things way out of proportion when they look at the way she dresses. It's like, gee, Britney Spears dresses sexy! It's a sign of the downfall of American youths! Beware the Apocalypse! You know? Most of the things she wears walking down the street aren't too raunchy, it's mostly the image that sets people off. But I think she does underestimate the dangers of said image a bit; Let's face it, it's dangerous. Young people are modeling after her, she's the teen female sex symbol, and whether or not it is her job to parent America, it is her job to deal with that image responsibly. So far no distress, but in the future I wonder if she's gonna get in way over her head.

And her breasts. Being a male, I don't know if I have the accurate information or right to talk about this, and for all I know she probably just stuffs her bra...but anyway, my conlusion is this: Big tabloid blop. In most of her images, she don't really look that big. In her video for "Oops...", when she was talking to that spacedude...she was small! Did anyone catch that, or was I the only one staring at them the whole...nevermind. But on some of her concert performances(Ahem ahem, Kid's Choice Awards), I'm starting to wonder how "they" don't interfere with her choreography. When she appeared on TV Guide for her Hawaiian special, and also in her video for "Lucky," I'd say they were about normal sized. So unless she has special powers in which to enlarge or shrink her breasts at will, I'm pretty sure it's all just an illusion. Aren't they usually?:)

Still, when I think of *NSYNC I just think of the ultimate, perfect role models for guys. When I think of Britney, such comparisons are a much more hesitant. Could she be a role model for girls? Most people, even people who like her, tend to think not. I don't know; Her artistic style, definitely not a great thing to follow, but her values are stable and noteworthy. I guess it depends on which aspect of her you wanna model after.

To comment on the lipsynching...it's happened. You can't deny that, really you can't. I had thought that the 2000 VMAs were an exception, but oops, she did it again at the 2001 AMAs. Oh yeah, I know it was just a(loud)backup track, she was singing along, but come on. You can't make excuses like that anymore. *NSYNC uses a backup track too, and frankly that pisses my off about them sometimes, but you can hear their voices for pete's sake. She's a certified top artist of America, of the world, and it's embarrassing to try to defend her in this. If you can't sing at all while dancing so much, then don't dance so much, it's that simple. And it annoys me that in her concerts she obviously sings live, why not for award shows? I want to hear her voice, because it's a good voice, I know she is an entertainer and boy am I entertained, but first and foremost she is a singer. And to a singer, flat out lipsynching is dishonest. I don't wanna have to stare at the TV screen trying to figure out if her lips are moving in synch with the lyrics, that's embarrassing for me and for her.

But I also can't stand much of the criticism towards her. Much of it is unjustified. There is somewhat of a gender bias here. People rag on her for being sexy, but these are the same people who would be freakin' orgasming all over themselves if JC so much as scratched his head. What's wrong with guys finding her sexy? What's wrong with her wanting to feel sexy? I honestly do not know if there has ever been anyone hurt by her being sexy. We can go on and on about the young fans thing, but how do you know that her dressing sexy makes her fans into skanks? You can't make a statement like that.

So, my final thoughts on Britney Spears: She's very appealing, and as of now, I don't dislike her at all, in fact I'm this close to jumping onto the Britney fan wagon, but I can never have total, absolute, unconditional respect for her until there is an acceptable solution to the idea that she does have very young fans cannot understand that her sexuality is only part of her image and not her reality. Just by seeing her in interviews and specials and such, she really does seem like a great girl who has big dreams and doesn't want to hurt anyone, and she definitely does not deserve the crap a lot of people deal to her. My thoughts of her are basically wavering...anything she does as of this moment could tip the scale in her favor or against. But you know, if you're gonna try and convince me to not like her, try and come up with a better reason than "But she's totally fake!" or "She's a slut!" or my own personal favorite, "She's dating my Justin! We have to kill her!"