Potpot writes "Contributed by Potpot:
I'm going straight to the point. If you are intellectual enough, you might understand what I am saying. Yes, Britney Spears is talented. If you are intellectual enough, you would agree that the main problem in trying to evaluate whether Britney Spears indeed has the gifts of an artist is the conventional definition of musical talent which states that an artist is talented if he/she can write a song, do something innovative, or sing without studio aid. Most opinions are firmly rooted in such a vague definition of musical ingenuity.
But talent is not a predefined, preexisting quality that floats around, waiting to be bestowed. Talent is a slippery continuum of meaning, and Britney Spears' talent is not of the same ilk as Christina Aguilera's voice, Justin Timberlake's white soul, or even Madonna's knack for shock and constant reinvention, but rather, Spears excels most in reiterating the spectacle of Middle America, repackaging the stuff that everybody likes, be it randy schoolgirls or snake-danceable, hip-hop infused pop.
The fact remains that it is safest to say that Britney Spears is publicly trashed but privately wallowed in. Everybody disses her on the streets and everybody hymns her tune in his/her room. Everybody says they don't like her and everybody waits for hours just to see her VMA performance. People never stop talking about her, and never will. She can't sing any song sung by Christina Aguilera and she will never reach the public stature Madonna has reached. But she is forever interesting. She lip synchs, she dances her booty off, she maintains that sweet Southern sweet smile, she dresses classy and trashy at the same time, she does oh-so-ordinary things like burping or peeing yet she makes headlines for doing so.
This unprecedented degree of interest will never be reached by any talentless, stripping girl in Las Vegas. People secretly keep in their hearts that this girl cannot hit the high notes, but can sing songs that at the end of the day, will stick in your head, push you to sing to it, even dance to it, oftentimes, and later on trash it for being a Britney Spears song. She may not be the best singer around, but Britney Spears is a great performer, one of the most interesting personas in musical history, your typical Southern girl, and ultimately, a blessed, gifted and talented girl. And as I said, it would take a courageous intellectual, somebody with a heart, to digest what I said, and ultimately, accept it as true, at the very least."
