Britney Spears’ video for “Womanizer” is currently on VH1′s Jumpstart. What I’m wondering is how a song like this, void of any artistic merit or intelligence, can receive praise and credit for being “pop music” and Kanye West’s recent 808s & Heartbreak is put down for being “too processed”, often times by the same circles. Kanye is criticized for his use of vocoder on the record, but Britney’s entire career has been built around ghostwriters, Auto-Tune, vocoders, and the like and people still find her to be entertaining?
People need to figure their shit out.
“Britney’s entire career has been built around ghostwriters, Auto-Tune, vocoders, and the like…” That’s why. She’s not changing the process, just the outcome.
What I’m trying to get at here is: why is one record received as praise-worthy and a “comeback” when another is damned for being different and unwanted for what essentially are similar production values, the differences lying in the artistic merit of one and the emptiness of the other?
I guess you could argue that one group of fans is trained to like one sound and the other wanted something completely different. But that’s no excuse for liking terrible music. One artist is clearly devoted to his art, or as you put it, his outcome. The other has no control and no say in hers.
The redefining of “art” has become a sad, sad trainwreck.