Is Britney Spears Really Melting Down?

Recently, a bunch of former Britney Spears' friends and coworkers formed a website urging people to boycott Britney's new album, Blackout. Their reasoning behind the boycott is apparently to send a message to Britney Spears: get your life under control or suffer the consequences of lost album sales.

Apparently there are a lot of people out there who think that Britney Spears is a train wreck waiting to happen. True, her personal tribulations have been flaunted all over the Internet and every tabloid magazine. It would appear that Britney Spears is going through some kind of personal meltdown. There was the shotgun wedding followed quickly by the birth of her first child, followed by the birth of her second child, rumors of post-partum depression, then the shotgun divorce, followed by drunken parties at nightclubs, a head-shaving and tattooing incident, more drug and alcohol binges, a couple stints in rehab, and now a nasty custody battle. Not to mention all the events she has blown off for various reasons known only to her.

Now, on top of all that, her so-called former friends are rallying for a boycott of her album. "The music industry is using her," they claim. "They don't care what happens to her, as long as they keep making money off her." Hence, the boycott to not buy her album until she cleans up her life.

But what do we really know about Britney Spears? She of all people should be intimate with the music industry. She's been working for it for years. She's a seasoned pro. Perhaps she could use the claim her former friends are making, that she's crying out for help against the big, bad, mean music industry who only wants to eat her up and spit her out. But isn't that the deal she made long ago? Does anyone ever sell their soul to the devil and not expect a fight to get it back? The music industry is nothing more than a contract between two people to mutually use each other. An artist uses the money put up by the music label to gain fame and fortune. In order for music label to make back the money they used to front the artist, they generally require the artist to make a specified number of albums over a specified number of years, of which during that time, the label has full ownership rights. Contracts may also specify whether the artist goes on tour, how often and for how long.

Of course, fame and fortune are not guaranteed. It's a gamble that an artist takes. You sign your life away for a specified period of time for the chance of becoming known. If your first album flops, the music label you signed with usually dumps you and then requires you to pay back the money they used to front you. In Britney Spears' case, despite the shambles her life is in, she is actually one of the lucky ones. Her gamble paid off.

But it didn't pay off without a personal price, which is what the world is currently witnessing. Britney Spears is paying the price for having made a deal with the devil. Her life is not her own, she is hounded by paparazzi, and she cannot do anything without people taking notice. It's hard enough to grow up without all the added pressures of constantly being in the limelight. The choices she made in her teens, which seemed right at the time, are not fitting the person she is growing up into. Yet she is contractually bound to keep making albums for who knows how long, to keep touring, personal life be damned. The contract she signed does not take into account her personal life, nor does it make room for it. It was a business deal and that is one of the reasons why the music industry has the bad rap that it does - it cares only for its own interests.

But is that really any different than most companies out there? Oh yeah, there is one big difference. When your life changes, you can quit your job and move on to something better suited to your lifestyle. You cannot breach contract with a music agency. You are legally obligated to fulfill your requirements to them, or face massive penalties and lawsuits. If you broke contract, you would wreck everything you worked so hard for.

So how does one go about quitting the music label without losing everything? Simple. You make them quit you. You make yourself a liability, a waste of their money. How would one go about making themselves a liability? Oh, I don't know, maybe get married, have a couple of kids back to back (that would throw a wrench into the touring plans), develop a drug and alcohol habit, become renown for being a hard partier, get thrown into jail or rehab, maybe shave your head, get a couple of tattoos (some contracts require you to maintain a certain image, which means no hair style changes and no permanent body marks without prior written consent), behaving in such a deplorable way that nobody wants you as their child's role model anymore, and generally acting like an ass to anyone within a twenty foot radius of you.

Huh. It sounds like I just described what Britney Spears has been doing for the last couple of years.

So, is Britney Spears actually melting down or is this public display a brilliant chess move made by a seasoned artist to get herself off the hook with her music label? My bet is that if and when her label dumps her, Britney Spears' life will auto magically get back under control. Her supposed meltdown will be nothing more than yesterday's tabloid headline.