'Now or never' for Britney
2008-11-14 07:49
Los Angeles - A year ago, Britney
Spears was taking court-ordered drug and alcohol tests, had
fired her managers, was losing custody of her kids, and some
journalists were preparing her obituary.
This week, she was caring for her children like any mother
would when she rushed two-year-old Jayden James to a hospital
after a bad reaction to something he ate. As for her career,
only one week ago she was on stage performing with Madonna and
on the brink of an extraordinary musical comeback.
Industry watchers wonder whether Spears, 26, can win back
the young, fickle fans now accustomed to watching her fall
apart, or if she can stage a comeback like pop diva Mariah
Carey. She spent several years in a slump before rebounding to
charttopper status with 2005 album The Emancipation of Mimi.
"You can only have so many second chances and this is
definitely one of those now or never moments," said Ellen
Carpenter, a senior editor at Spin magazine.
Ten years after she burst onto the world stage as a perky
17-year-old and scored hit songs including ... Baby One More
Time, Spears seems to have pulled her life and career out of
the toilet with a hit single, a new album due out in December,
a tell-all documentary and talk of her first tour since 2004.
Spears's first single Womaniser, off her December 2 album Circus, was a good omen. It leapt to the top of Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart in October and went to No 1 on iTunes charts in Canada, France, Spain and Sweden.
But in an era of falling record sales, the big money in the
music industry is made through live shows. Spears, who has done
only a handful of live performances since 2005, is expected to
launch a world tour early next year.
Making headlines for all the wrong reasons
"Nothing in this economic environment is a slam dunk," said
Gary Bongiovanni, editor of concert magazine Pollstar.
"When an artist stays off the scene for a couple of years,
it is impossible to tell how much that audience has gravitated
elsewhere until you put tickets on sale," Bongiovanni said.
Spears made headlines for all the wrong reasons in 2007 and
early 2008 - shaving her head, partying without panties, two
hospitalisations for psychiatric checks, losing custody of her
sons and giving a laughable performance at an MTV Awards show.
As the sexy young pop star who sold more than 60 million
records in her heyday gave way to an erratic, dishevelled
divorcee, her musical and personal obituary was being written.
"Last year, it didn't seem like she would ever come out of
it. Her falling apart was bigger than anybody, even Michael
Jackson. I don't know if anyone in pop music has fallen that
low and come back," Carpenter said.
But since February, when Spears's father Jamie took over her
business and personal affairs, the singer has reunited with the
manager who made her a star, won three MTV Video Music Awards,
recorded her sixth studio album and relaunched her website.
She will mark the release of Circus with a November 30 TV
documentary about her darkest days and an appearance, on her
27th birthday, on US TV chat show Good Morning America.
Still, Bongiovanni said it may be hard for fans to separate
Spears the pop star from Spears the pop problem. "Are they
coming to see you because they think a train wreck is about to
happen, or because they really like your music?" he said.