Videography: Britney Spears (Part VIII - Femme Fatale)

Nowadays, Britney is doing good. Femme Fatale, her seventh and latest studio album, was released earlier this year in March. The lead single, "Hold It Against Me" went Number 1 (her fourth single to do so). Even as Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, Katy Perry and country crossover princess Taylor Swift bring new life to mainstream pop music, Britney still manages to hold her own. 

Order: 33

Title: "Hold it Against Me"

Album: Femme Fatale (2011)

Song Premise: A woman, through double entendres, suggests she and guy hook up at the club.

Video Premise: The video begins with a meteorite heading towards Earth. Inside it, Britney sings in front of a circle of cameras, lights, and TV's playing her older music videos. Then, dressed in a white dress, Britney sprays paint through her fingers at the TV's and fights herself.

Comments: After a year without a new Britney video, I was eagerly awaiting this one. Plus, it was directed by long time Lady Gaga collaborator Jonas Åkerland. I hoped it wouldn't be a direct Gaga rip-off and it wasn't, but it just didn't feel Britney if you ask me. It's simply too "out there".

Order: 34

Title: "Till the World Ends"

Album: Femme Fatale (2011)

Song Premise: A pro dance song.

Video Premise: On September 21, 2012, Britney and her friends go underground and dance as the apocalypse happens above. Come the morning, Britney sticks her head out of the manhole and realizes they have survived.

Comments: I liked this one because it was literal translation of the song. It's reminiscent of "I'm a Slave 4 U" what with all the sweaty youth in a cramped quarters, but whatever.

Order: 35

Title: "I Wanna Go"

Album: Femme Fatale (2011)

Song Premise: This girl just wants to have fun.

Video Premise: The video begins with Britney at a press conference being asked ridiculous questions. Fed up, she leaves and runs amok in the city streets by flashing several people. She is frisked by a policeman, fights robotic paparazzi and escapes in a convertible.

Comments: This is Britney's most comic video yet. Well, it's more amusing than "funny". Still likable, though.

Order: 36

Title: "Criminal"

Album: Femme Fatale (2011)

Song Premise: Britney loves a bad boy...but it's okay :-)

Video Premise: Britney is at a fancy party with her douchebag, philandering British boyfriend. He beats her up after she gives him attitude, but she is rescued by a dashing criminal. She takes off with him on the back of his motorcycle. After having some sexy sex, the pair go on a crime spree ala Bonnie & Clyde. Later the police shootout their house while the couple makes out and they escape. Sequel?

Comments: This is a great video. In fact, maybe one of her best. I, naturally, am a huge fan of these movie-esque videos as of late. They even have titles and credits now! Boy oh, boy! The video fits the song and does it in a sort of classy, romantic way showing the good side (and only the good side) of loving a bad boy. Also, that kissing scene during the shootout? Win.

Videography: Britney Spears (Part V - Greatest Hits: My Prerogative and Chaotic)

After being America's pop idol but before she shaved her head, Britney was somewhere in between. In 2004, Britney started to go off the rails. It was that year she met American "dancer" and all around bag o' douche Kevin Federline. The relationship was highly publicized but Britney, fighting agains the establishment for most her life, wanted to do nothing that was expected of her and so she married him.

Four albums was enough to merit the release of Greatest Hits: My Prerogative in late 2004, shortly after her marriage to K-Fed. The two had a reality show which you probably don't remember called Britney & Kevin: Chaotic. (The show lasted five episodes. The DVD included a 3 track EP with one single discussed here.) The two year Britney K-Fed union wrought two children. And so it was, the pop princess had finally grown up...or so she thought.

Order: 22

Title: "My Prerogative"

Album: Greatest Hits: My Prerogative (2004)

Song Premise: Britney can do what she wants to do because it's her prerogative.

Video Premise: The video starts with Britney drives a car into a pool. She enters a mansion where K-Fed is watching a movie of Britney writhing around in bed. Later Britney and Kevin have a secret wedding ceremony in the woods.

Comments: It's a big "Fuck You" (capital F, capital Y) to the media. Next.

Order: 23

Title: "Do Somethin'"

Album: Greatest Hits: My Prerogative (2004)

Song Premise: A woman wants to dance but the dude is too chicken to ask her.

Video Premise: Britney rides through the air in pink flying Hummer with her friends. Britney and posse then go to a club where they dance around.

Comments: I hated this video. It might very well be my least favorite. Nothing important happens. This is like a filmed drunken bachelorette party with sort of good cinematography and lighting. Next!

Order: 24

Title: "Someday (I Will Understand)"

Album: Chaotic (2005)

Song Premise: Britney hopes her child will make her and her baby daddy understand God's plan.

Video Premise: Britney wakes up and walks around singing to her unborn child.

Comments: This one is certainly different, I'll give it that. So far we have seen Britney as an innocent teen girl or a sex pot who likes to have sexy sex. Britney's life was changing and as the public, we were going to have to prepare ourselves for Britney as a mama.

Videography: Britney Spears (Part III - Britney)

After Britney had assured us that she was "stronger than yesterday" she began asserting her independence. And how did she do that? By getting naked, sweaty, and overtly sexual. Through the videos of her next album, Britney (2001) she showed us she was a full blown woman and "not that innocent". These videos contain some of her most exhausting but impressive dance moves.

Order: 12

Title: "I'm a Slave 4 U"

Album: Britney (2001)

Song Premise: A woman expresses her independence while being a slave to dance.

Video Premise: In the middle of a heat wave, Britney dances in a sauna with other sexy, sweaty youths until it starts to rain.

Comments: If you thought the "Baby One More Time" video was sexual, you were wrong. In three years Britney went from a school girl tease to a ...uh, rain dance tease, I guess. The song is sexual it deserves a sexual video. P.S. Who knew sweaty, stringy hair could also look sexy?

Order: 13

Title: "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman"

Album: Britney (2001)

Song Premise: Britney is somewhere between childhood and adulthood. (Doy).

Video Premise: Dressed in pristine, virgin white, Britney switches from peering at a guy through one of those telescope thingies you have to pay a quarter to look through and dancing on the boardwalk with others dressed in white.

Comments: I get what they're doing here. Since she received so much criticism for her "sexy" image in "...Baby One More Time", they decided to show Britney as a sweet and innocent teenage girl who is terrified of relationships and therefore, will remain intact. I'm really surprised they didn't show her with a halo or a habit for that matter.

Order: 14

Title: "Overprotected"

Album: Britney (2001)

Song Premise: A girl feels she’s been overprotected and therefore wants to be her own person.

Video Premise: During the intro from the little known album track "Bombastic Love", Britney exits a hotel, ignores her the paparazzi and drives her car to an abandoned building. She dances with her friends and then alone in a room surrounded by pictures.

Comments: Back in 2001, I totally missed this song. I don't think I heard it until two years ago. The video is nothing special, so maybe that's why. Also, there's a gratuitous Michael Jackson crotch grab to signify what? she has something to grab? Okay...

Order: 15

Title: "Overprotected" [Darkchild Remix]

Album: Britney (2001)

Song Premise: A girl feels she’s been overprotected and therefore wants to be her own person.

Video Premise: Britney is watching the news with her girlfriends when a negative news report comes on. She and her friends sneak past her body guard and have a dance party in the rain.

Comments: All right, this is almost an equally useless video as its predecessor. Almost. The dancing is definitely less cheer-tarded. And who doesn't love a good dancing in the rain scene? P.S. I like her top.

Order: 16

Title: "I Love Rock n' Roll"

Album: Britney (2001)

Song Premise: Britney loves rock n' roll.

Video Premise: Britney sings in front of a band and then writhes on a motorcycle.

Comments: Oh boy. It's just not very good and nothing about it rocks or rolls...except maybe Joan Jett's eyes.

Order: 17

Title: "Boys" [Co-Ed Remix]

Album: Britney (2001)

Song Premise: Boys: You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em.

Video Premise: DJ Qualls (a minor celebrity in 2001) tries to get into a party where Britney is. She gets ready for the party then flirts with a dude. Pharrell (who sings the male side of this duet) flirts with some chick. There are random cameos by Jason Priestley, Taye Diggs, and Mike Myers as Austin Powers.

Comments: Ugh. This video is really, really lame especially with its desperate B list celebrity droppings. Not a big fan of the song either.