Reinvention

A few things I really hate with the media's obsession about Madonna's "reinventions..."

>it's created this idea among other pop stars that they all have to go out of their way to change their hair color for every other album.

>the media then goes ga-ga over it like it's a big deal when these other stars make some sort of hair or fashion change

I was looking at one of the Spears pages I linked to (here) in the Spears thread, and there's this photo of her from her new single.

Below it was a caption about how she's "transmformed" herself. They were making a big deal out of the fact she has black hair now rather than blonde.

Anyway. I think she looks more like Ashlee Simpson here than herself.

(What's really sad about this is that I hardly keep up with pop singers anymore, so for me to make a connection like this doesn't speak well of Spears's "transformation")




direct link

Here's a photo of Ashlee Simpson:

direct

As for the page's photo caption:

Britney Spears has transformed herself yet again - revealing a sexy new look in her latest video.

-uh, isn't just about every Spears video "sexy" or she's "sexy looking" in them?

I haven't seen every video the woman has ever made, but out of the ones I have seen, in most of them (except for the one where she had a baby), she dances around half nude giving come hither glances at the camera.

Britney is not the best example for what you mentioned in this thread (I think out of her vast catalogue of "sexy" videos she has only changed hair color in 3 of them).
But Christina Aguilera is !

Each time she releases an album, she feels obliged to sport a new look even if it has nothing to do with the record she has made (or, more likely, that producer have made for her). For example, I've never understood why she felt the need to dress like a tramp when she released "Stripped" in 2002.
I mean I listened to this album and except for 2 songs, raunchiness is far from being the focal point of it.
I think I'm beginning to understand why she does that : simply because she's, above all, a commercial popstar trying to get attention in order to sell her products.











This post has been edited by M' D"ho"lla on Oct 12 2008, 03:42 PM

~ edit below ~

I wasn't saying Britney Spears was the "best" example or the only example.

I mentioned that this is a phenomenon among almost all celebrities (with phrases such as "other pop stars").

And I'd like to clarify it's not just pop stars who do this; other entertainers, including movie actors and actresses, get sucked into this, too.

Dennis Rodman, a basketball player, used to change fashion style and hair styles every other week.

Spears simply happened to trigger this thought in my head, as I had just visited some web pages about her where the journalists were slobbering all over themselves about how she had "transformed" herself.

In other words, I was merely using Spears as a jumping off stage to make my point about how tired, stupid, and ridiculous this "reinvention" crap is and how prevelant it is.

Other celebrities were doing the reinvention shtick before Madonna was (e.g, David Bowie, Joan Crawford, Cher, Elton John), but the media almost always focus on Madonna when they bring this subject up, which is yet another annoying aspect of it.

EDIT. / P.S.

Something I find irritating about the photos that M' D"ho"lla posted of Aguilera:

For some of the images, you can just tell that Aguilera had a stylist choose those looks for her. They scream "I hired a stylist."

Especially the last photo, of Aguilera in the high sport socks, lavendar colored short-shorts, and boom-box:
that was a 1970s / early 1980s look that you know that Aguilera would most likely know nothing about, seeing as how she's in her twenties.

I think it's also safe to say she never heard of the Andrew Sisters -whom she was ripping off for one music video (and I believe the photo of her in the naval hat is probably a screen capture from that video)- and someone age 30+ had to clue her in on who they were.

I could see someone her age knowing about the 1920s/30s/40s Jean Harlow (or flapper) look, or the 1950s Marilyn Monroe look, since both those looks still turn up quite a bit in pop culture in many ways and among other celebrities (who hasn't ripped off Marilyn Monroe?).

I just think if you're going to hire someone to choose your clothing/ hair style/accessories for you it shouldn't be so blatantly obvious.

You should have them dress you in something that looks like maybe you could've possibly picked it out on your own.

This is just a pet peeve of mine.

I came across a photo series of Ashlee Simpson that also screamed, "I hired a stylist to dress me for this."

It was a series of photos of her in a black outfit, wearing a rosary, bearing her bellybutton, and wearing red suspenders.
Click here to view the "red suspenders" Ashlee Simpson photo -or-
View it here:
click to view larger version

direct link

I think we live in a world obsessed by changes and evolution.

That's one of the reason why the media are always going crazy when, for example an actor /actress changes his look for a film or an A-list popstar plays with wigs in her "comeback" video.

I've read a lot of person on Britney's IMDB page that reproached her to not reinvent herself enough. It's kind of contradictory when they always accused her to copy Mandonna (which is untrue IMO).
Since "Baby One More Time", Britney's music has (fortunately for my ears) completely changed and it has morphed into a brilliant mashup between French-Electronica, Euro-Dance and 80's New Wave.

The musical changes are not enough for people, they also want to visualize it now.

This post has been edited by M' D"ho"lla on Oct 17 2008, 03:12 PM