I know that my articles are usually about cars and car related topics but bear with me. This is important.

My father-in-law buys the Sunday Herald-Sun every week. I’m serious. With no explanation whatsoever he plonks it down in the lounge room every Sunday after he comes back home from drinking coffee at one of those cafes and disappears back to his room to watch Sunday TV shows; all this while I’m either asleep or trying to keep track of The Simpsons plotlines on Fox 8, usually +2. Because of this I am normally guilty of flicking through said paper whilst wondering aloud why the thickest paper of the week takes the least time to read.

Now I don’t usually give too much credence to articles that are published in the Sunday Herald-Sun as most of them are just fluff pieces written by idiots. This week however, there was an article which genuinely caught my eye. Three things, Robyn Riley, Britney Spears and the Sunday Herald-Sun. Under normal circumstances if I noticed any one of these things on their own I wouldn’t bat an eyelid but all three together and I was drawn like a fly to shit.

For those that have been under a rock the past week or so, Spears, has openly announced that she ‘lip synchs’ at all her concerts. This has caused a certain amount of uproar. Robyn Riley has come and out said that because people attended the concert knowing that she ‘lip synchs’ all her songs than everything is fine, that we should get off the back of Spears and world keeps on spinnin’.

I have always had suspicions that Spears is a mimer but never have had it confirmed until last week. If I were so inclined to spend $1500 on a love seat to watch Britney without this knowledge I would have been PISSED! Reading today’s heartbeat of the state, 50/50 in Herald-Sun, which is normally filled with such gems as “What’s the brown thing on my neighbour’s lawn?” it appears that others are also preaching from the same hymn book as Riley.

To the Britney fans I’ll have to concede, that no, it probably doesn’t matter to the people who paid for tickets. However, noting the tsunami of fans walking out of the Perth concert I could be wrong on that. The thing is to me at least, Riley and others of her ilk are missing the way bigger point. OMG It’s like so massive, it’s like, you know. Right, now that I’ve hooked the Britney fans I will explain why it is wrong that we are so accepting of Britney’s miming.

I see it as being about the Genuine Article, it’s the same as being handed a blank canvas and being told that Monet mimed painting it. My editor and your friend, Justin Shaw once told me that, “Writers write.” If you extrapolate his thinking one can also assume that Singers Sing, Dancers Dance and Performers Perform. If she doesn’t sing and from all reports barely danced then she didn’t perform. So why are people accepting this as the norm and paying big money to go see her live when they can spend $20 and get it on DVD?

Art, and in particular music, has always been about emotion for me. If I don’t feel connected to the music in some way then I’m not interested. I like my music the same way that I like my cars, fast and loud. The ultimate experience for me is going to a live concert and connecting with the performers in an almost spiritual way. I can’t get that from someone who is miming their way through two hours of ‘pop’. Not to mention that Spears is one of the people who turned me off radio forever.

Okay, here’s the rub, record companies are only interested in how people look. Of this much I’m certain. The conversation would no doubt go like this.

“Okay, you look hot.”

“Oh, you can dance as well.”

“You can’t sing. Not to worry we’ll take care of that.”

There are millions of people and bands out there who can do the bottom two extremely well. Unfortunately, they don’t meet the first criterion and are therefore cast out into the wild to fend for themselves. Never mind that they could have been the next Beatles, Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin and given something to the world of art. They aren’t marketable and therefore aren’t worthy of support, not when we have a waiting room full of Britney clones.

Because of the short sighted view of record companies you and I are being deprived of something that could change our lives. I can still remember the first time I played a Metallica cassette, the first hearing I had of Jane’s Addiction’s Ritual de lo Habitual and Tool’s Sober. These are some of the bands that helped to shape who I am. I can’t imagine Metallica even getting a record contract with Kill ‘Em All these days much less becoming a band spanning two to three generations of fans.

This is why Britney’s ‘performances’ should be derided. She should be called out, shamed and frog marched back to her trailer so the people with real talent and not marketability can be trotted out onto the world stage with music that means something.

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