How to properly rate Britney Spears?

So Britney Spears has a new album out called Femme Fatale. If I was younger, this probably would have irked me and I would have written out a not at all well thought out rant against it. But this is counter-productive. You can see enough of such "reviews" for the album over on Amazon.

Which leads me to ask, how does one properly rate or review a new Spears album? If you look at the entire swath of reviews on Amazon, you'll see that there is no middle ground for the most part. The fans love, love, love it, proclaiming it to be the album of 2011 and Britney's best yet (undoubtedly something they say every time she puts out a new one), and the people who don't like her write one-star reviews and bitch about how she's phony, the music is all auto-tuned and overly processed and takes no talent, blah, blah, blah. There is truth to some of those accusations, but at the same time the venom is guiding the way and not an objective set of ears.

As I get older, I get tired of seeing the same rants of "Music ain't what it used to be!" Music is cyclical. There will always be wheat and chaff, and radio-friendly pop tunes that you can dance to will always be frowned upon because there is no "artistry" or "talent" that goes behind such work. But if that were truly the case, then the shit wouldn't sell at all, and Britney's fans would have all grown up and forgotten her. But the thing is, Spears gets new fans with every new album. New, young fans. And that's the key. The people working behind her know this, as does Spears herself. Hell, she wants to maintain a career. Not even Federline and going nuts in public could derail her, so why would she suddenly start doing confessional singer-songwriter stuff? Lindasy Lohan tried that on her second album and we all know how well that turned out.

I used to not like Spears as well. I mean, I still don't like her music, period, but I don't dislike her for it. She's made a fortune out of what she's done and she continues to do so, so something's working in her favor and it isn't just luck. No, she can't really sing, but that's beside the point these days. The decade will continue and new old trends will rise and fall again and someday this will all repeat once more.

No more Phil Collins (!)

So, Phil Collins' doctor has advised him to quit playing drums lest he loses all functionality in them. Instead of balking, Collins has decided to quit altogether. Good.

I mean, not good that the poor guy's hands are in such a shape, but Phil is one of those dudes who used to make pretty groovy music and then decided to slide into a pool of sap and remain there for the last couple of decades. Elton John is also guilty of this. Perhaps he'll quit soon as well.

But when was Collins at his peak? In Genesis? Probably. Suffice it to say that the guy has always managed to mix crap with cool in his solo stuff. As a kid, I found his cover of "You Can't Hurry Love" charming. Now it just grates me. But at the same time, his weirdo impersonation of Peter Gabriel on "Thru These Walls" from the same album is pretty damn good.

Then again, there was that whole horrid "Two Hearts" and the Buster movie, "I Can't Dance" with Genesis, and his complete humping of the suck with his Grammy (TM!)-winning Tarzan tune. Oh well, I'll still enjoy "It Don't Matter To Me" from time to time.