How big was Britney really without MTV or Cable?

[River 116,996]

Let's say that if we compare the peak of the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys to Britney, I think the bands had more craziness than her, but you simply can't compare young artists hysteria to the Britney one, it was just something that you can't describe in words, you had to live it to understand it..

But I think only The Beatles had a real over the top hysteria, we will never ever live something like that, kinda wish I did.

 

@Heracross and you’re problem is?

[AlexanderMagno 10,746]

24 minutes ago, Dulo Peep said:

No i do get it! I love Toxic but how you describe Britney's peak sounds a lot like Justin (a few years ago) Taylor and Billie now! So to say that no newer popstars were as big as her sounds a little questionable. 

 

Taylor and Billie's peak are nowhere near as big as Britney Spears's peak, and I'm not even a fan. Believe us, Billie's popularity is only an incredibly small fraction of what Britney Spears's hysteria was. To think that Billie's impact and popularity is at the same level as Britney's peak is an incredibly high illusion. Really, an artist's peak today has nothing on an artist's peak back then. And specially Britney's peak. It is true that newer popstars have been less than half as big as Britney's peak, or lots of other artists back then. It really is something that you won't feel if you haven't lived those eras, unless you study about it and are able to understand it.

[Jirachi 90]

During Britney's peak, Her level of cultural impact was comparable to The Beatles, Elvis, MJ, Queen and Madonna.

Britney had contemporaries like Christina and P!nk but no comparison or competition like modern pop girls.

She was the ultimate popstar.

[Nino 12]

If you don’t watch tv, read news, or listen to pop radio, no pop artist was famous before the social media age. These mental gymnastics 

[Stephen 30,423]

4 minutes ago, Nino said:

If you don’t watch tv, read news, or listen to pop radio, no pop artist was famous before the social media age. These mental gymnastics 

mte

Like ok? 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, mzncb said:

read tabloid magazines or listen to pop radio, how big was Britney really in a pre-2010s internet world?

As someone who experienced it, her posters were on all of my friends' walls, we had casettes playin of her concerts during birthday parties. On TV her music videos were playing all the time, Crossroads was well advertisement and an event for me as a fan. Her CDs, cassettes were in every store, there were Britney lip glosses, Britney phone cases, Britney tshirts etc etc 

[Runway 27,876]

Who cares.  the next thread will be about the jurassic era

[ode 1,530]

2 hours ago, mzncb said:

Yes, she did "big" commercials, but so did other "celebrities".  If you didn't watch Access Hollywood, Extra or Entertainment Tonight, read tabloid magazines or listen to pop radio, how big was Britney really in a pre-2010s internet world?

 

That's kind of the point: there was no such person, because culture was a lot more limited, in so far as 90 channels, max, had a monopoly on what was played on TV --- and out of those, most ppl just had MTV, vh1, and eventually for a min. MTV2

It didn't matter if you liked her or her genre at all, you still knew her music and image. It's hard to oversell how big of a deal Britney was in the 90s. She was huge. 

[migamiga 12,102]

The things is everyone watched hose channels back in the day. Everything was mainstream and it’s not like today where niche audiences have their own channels and platforms they tune into. Britney was absolutely everywhere or at least talked about everywhere. She was literally the face of pop for over a decade and the whole music industry was constantly trying to recreate the next version of her. As mentioned before on here, she was one of the last huge superstars/icons in music

[Guest]

shes always been skinny

[KeepItCool 140]

18 minutes ago, monster said:

shes always been skinny

She’s too big now she’s too thin.

[Guest]

Just now, KeepItCool said:

She’s too big now she’s too thin.

what

make it make sense

[vyniildisk 12,689]

2 hours ago, KNJ said:

Ok lemme timeout on this direction right now. You cannot just say the impact of one generations icon was more than another. You will.he going around in circles bc neither one of You experienced it the same. You have to explain the landscape at said time and exemplify it the terms like the OP was asking about....

 

Are you saying this to me? Or to @Gimme More ? Because i am not the one saying, one's impact is more than the others. Lol i am so confused.

[KNJ 4,170]

4 hours ago, mzncb said:

Yes, she did "big" commercials, but so did other "celebrities".  If you didn't watch Access Hollywood, Extra or Entertainment Tonight, read tabloid magazines or listen to pop radio, how big was Britney really in a pre-2010s internet world?

And this goes for her peers too: (Justin, Christina, Beyonce, P!nk etc...) I'm not saying that you wouldn't have heard of her or her peers, but in a pre-Youtube era where a performance would only air once on network tv, how big were they really if you didn't have MTV or cable and didn't listen to those genres?

I have to imagine you never could have been overexposed to them.

Go backwards: If there was no twitter, fb, ig, youtube, no smartphones, no social media of any kind, no streaming service of any kind, and you had max 90 min of internet a day (to likely talk on forums like this), music would be promoted to you basically how it was  to 90s/00s teens ?

You could definitely be overexposed! It takes more effort now because the internet has democratized who determines who and what is "popular" but before this, the gate keepers reigned. You were basically told what to like because there wasn't oxygen for much else in widespread media.

1) You cannot take MTV out of the equation! Everyone had MTV in the same way that everyone has or has access to Netflix. These were it's last great years but it was arguably still "King". Year after year they catered more and more to just pop as pop princesses and boy bands dominated. TRL started as soon as school ended and was your source for everything. You had top ten revealed, you had call-in request, big interviews, call-in questions, big video premieres,big live performances, music news,the spectacle of Times Square takeovers, the screaming...so.much. Screaming. There were no online services or outlets to give this content. There was nowhere else to crown or see reigning pop royalty. Britney et al. held down TRL like it was a second home.

2) Like you said, performances only aired once. It's called event television. "Can't miss TV" was how it's advertised. You'd clear the calender for award shows. My family knew to be off the tv at t-minus 5 minutes to showtime so I could set up the VCR to record. Don't speak to me until commercial break, pass in front of the tv you die.  These are where cultural resets were born. If you missed these, you'd be out of the conversation for weeks if not years. 

3)Payola and Top 40 radio would make your fave a god. Just like today, their song could play 2-3 times an hour all day. Britney and them followed you ALL day: in the stores, in the delis, in the cabs, pouring out of headphones, in waiting rooms, bumping from cars. 

4) Branding. Shameless branding made sure that Britney and them we're plastered on every object and product your little bedroom could hold. I don't know how it is today; seems like it's ridiculously easy to just custom make, and even sell, the fanware you want, no matter your age or wallet. But to go into a store and be bombarded with their faces reproduced on everything from paper plates to shoelaces to school supplies to cheap questionably tasting candy, and then have your children scream and beg for it, is another way to secure your popularity into ppls minds.

5) There were many more magazines then today. Each a little billboard. To me it seemed like the promo back then was more aggressive.Like someone would be on 5 covers at the same time or back to back months.

...I could go on but you shouldn't think that  just because there were less diverse avenues of getting mainstream content in the past, that that equates to less people must've been exposed, that Britney wasnt that popular. No. If there are only so many outlets and there is one person constantly present in those outlets, that is high exposure. Britney and them (Christina, Nsync, Backstreet etc) very high exposure, they were inescapable and were overexposed to those who did not care to be bombarded with all the above.I

EDit: hope this makes sense. I'm tired

[SevenWonder 4,371]

Britney was never my thing, but she was HUGE. As big as it gets after Madonna. I'd say even bigger than Gaga. I put Gaga third (and yes I stan Gaga).