Britney Spears' Comeback -- It's The Real Deal

The following italicized article is from www.insidebayarea.com:

There have been points over the last five years when the chances of Britney Spears mounting a successful comeback seemed about as likely as George W. Bush being elected mayor of Berkeley.

At other moments, the odds looked even worse.

The former teen dream had spent the last five years becoming the ultimate tabloid queen. Her sad tale unfolded before us at the supermarket checkout lanes, as headlines screamed out the latest misadventures of the former "Mickey Mouse Club" sweetheart; with each paparazzi payday it seemed like Spears was taking another step toward the point of no return.

Connecting with the public

Yet a funny thing happened on the way to the land of pop culture has-beens: Spears somehow managed to turn things around, at least professionally. Her new album, "Circus" debuted at No. 1. Her concert tour is doing strong business. She's turning out to be one of 2009's most convincing comebacks.

How did this happen when things, not so long ago, seemed so bleak? Some point to the surprisingly good quality of her 2007 album "Blackout," which, ironically, was a commercial failure. But an even larger element seems to be that she was able to turn all her messy trials and tribulations into a legitimate connection with the public. We really wanted her to turn things around

As fans prepare for Spears' three Northern California concerts — Saturday at Arco Arena in Sacramento, April 12 at HP Pavilion in San Jose and April 22 at Oracle Arena in Oakland — it seems apropos to look back at Spears' recent rollercoaster ride of a career and hopefully shed some light on why Britney has succeeded in an area where so many others have failed.

'Til death do us part'

During the first half of her career, Spears seemingly could do no wrong. She rose to stardom with the 1998 single —...Baby One more Time" and released hit album after hit album, becoming the first female performer to have four consecutive discs debut atop the charts. She did all this while managing to maintain a highly marketable public image that, for the most part, successfully married teen idol and sex kitten. She also had a storybook romance with another emerging Mouse Club alum, Justin Timberlake. It seemed the young princess of pop would someday marry her equally attractive prince in a wedding that would be the grandest since Prince Charles wed Diana.

Instead, they broke up. And if one had to nail down a date for when it all began to unravel for Spears, one might point to Jan. 3, 2004, the day she surprised the world by marrying childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander at a Las Vegas chapel. The fact that the marriage only lasted 55 hours before being annulled gave the impression that the starlet didn't have a firm grasp on her personal life.

From there, things began to snowball. She married a second time, to little-known dancer Kevin Federline, who abandoned his girlfriend and their two out-of-wedlock children to take up with Britney. Spears had two children with K-Fed, did things that made mothers-at-large cringe, then divorced her second husband and fought for custody of their children.

Living la vida loco

Spears become a constant fixture on the celeb night life scene, and revealing photos of her (such as that infamous panty-less shot), once considered the Holy Grail for Web-browsing peeping Toms, became as ubiquitous on the Internet as ads to refinance your home.

She shaved her head, for no apparent reason, and was hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation, for very apparent reasons. There was talk of drug use, and her career was stalling: Her fifth disc, 2007's "Blackout," became her first not to top the Billboard album charts.

As late as February 2008, Rolling Stone magazine ran a cover story titled "The Tragedy of Britney Spears," which summed up the public perception of the fallen star. The whole thing was like some grandiose Greek tragedy, starring a former Mouseketeer from Mississippi, and oddly enough people couldn't get enough of it. Or, perhaps, the appeal wasn't so weird after all.

What Spears had succeeded in doing, with all her personal failures, was to create a celebrity image that felt far more "real" than nearly anything the public had ever seen (with a downfall that rivaled Lindsay Lohan's for media access). It's hard for regular folks to truly identify with a megastar who's on top of the world and selling millions of albums, but it's not hard to connect with one going through breakups, child custody battles and financial woes. Spears was unable to do something that she was never able to do before 2004: She made us feel like she was one of us.

Now, seemingly every celebrity is attempting to accomplish something similar. Countless pop culture icons, who once nurtured the image of being different from the public at-large, are going out of their way to come across like Average Joes and Janes. They use their blogs and Twitter to keep fans up to date on everything from what they had for breakfast to how their relationships are going. Think John Mayer and Pete Wentz. None of them, however, have consistently given us more of interest, without seemingly trying, than Britney.

The public might be fascinated with a "crash and burn." But people love a comeback. Spears certainly qualified for the former, and she showed enough resilience to give watchers hope that she might also make it to the latter.

'Circus' comes to town

By Britney standards, "Blackout" was a commercial disappointment, though many critics (including this one) thought it was her best record to date. And it plays a big role in Britney's comeback. It propelled Spears to a big night at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 7, 2008. The CD's key single, "Piece of Me," would garner trophies for Best Female Video, Best Pop Video and Video of the Year. Suddenly, Britney was getting good press.

Spears' record label, Jive, capitalized by quickly releasing the first single from her forthcoming sixth CD to radio. The track, a contagious dance ditty called "Womanizer," shot to the top of the charts by mid-October and — surprise, surprise — Britney found herself with one of the biggest hits of her career.

When the album "Circus" was released at the end of November, it debuted at No. 1. It's one thing to persuade a fan to drop $15 on a CD (or download), but it's quite another to get people to spend hundreds of dollars on concert tickets. Spears proved up to that challenge as well.

The singer's road show is turning out to be one of the year's top tickets. That's definitely the story in Northern California, where the tour — the singer's first major outing in five years —is expected to see nothing but full houses during its three stops.

"Anytime an artist is away from the scene for awhile, you have to wonder if their audience will still be around," says Gary Bongiovanni, editor-in-chief of the concert industry trade publication Pollstar. "Obviously, Britney has a legitimate fan base that still wants to see her perform live."

That fan base is also willing to pay top dollar for the opportunity. Tickets for her local concerts run as high as $750. That's a lot of dough to drop in these tough economic times, especially for an artist who has seemingly given her fans every reason in the world to stop caring.

Yet, if anything, they seem to care even more than ever.

"I want my kids to see her succeed," says Castro Valley resident Arlene Chaves, who is spending some $2,000 to take her family to the Oakland concert. "I'm excited, personally, to see the show, because I really feel bad for her. I feel bad for what she's been through, and it makes me feel good to see her come back."

Source: Inside Bay Erea