To be perfectly fair and balanced and all that, as much as we want to like this chick, the song loses a little something when you strip it down. Her VMAs performance was much more satisfying by comparison:

She’s got a nice little voice box, and we’ll be keeping our eyes on her.

But look, it’s a holiday weekend, which means all of you are home from work, masturbating salubriously. And holy fucking shit, in this new video, Britney Spears is hotter and nakeder than I’ve ever seen her. So here’s a relatively high-quality rip of the uncensored director’s cut, and I think you’ll agree that it’s for damn sure more of a comeback than those three souvenir moon men that even Britney admits weren’t earned.

Britney Spears was opening. But not performing. But maybe she was? There was a video floating around on the ‘net, of Britney practicing her dance moves. For a tour? No dates scheduled… Ooh, for the VMAS!? Yeah, of course! Top secret surprise performance from Britney! Perfect! Let’s not tell anyone!

Right. Super top secret. Until a video appeared online. No, it didn’t just appear- it was LEAKED!! Damn those leakers, spoiling all the big surprises!! Which one of you dirty dirty internet pirates leaked this one?

Fucking MSN. One of the VMA sponsors.

Hi there folks, it’s Viacom. Just wanted to clear something up, because I know this shit can get confusing: Only we and our corporate sponsors can glorify the leakage of top secret music and videos that you aren’t ‘allowed’ to hear or see just yet. I know we do it all the time to build hype. But If you do it, we’re going to fucking press charges.

Part of the reason I tuned in, I shit you not, was the idea that we’d get to see Britney’s comeback. Everyone was alluding to it. It was all set up. And I kinda wanted to see it.

But she didn’t perform. She stumbled through three or four sentences announcing the show was beginning, and then accepted three awards. Granted, Piece Of Me is one of the better pop songs / videos to come out in the past year, and she wasn’t up against anyone too threatening, but the whole Britney thing stunk to high heaven of a gigantic, patronizing, cardboard apology for exploiting her so shamelessly last year.

The next morning, everyone was talking about how great Britney looked, how she wasn’t attacking anyone with umbrellas, how triumphant her comeback was. They gut punch her in front of a crowd for ratings in 2007, but when they’re even more hard-up in 2008, they make her the star, for standing up straight. It made me uneasy.

A particularly curmudgeonly Bob Lefsetz fired off one of his famous letters before I was even halfway through. It hit a couple nails right on their heads:

“This show couldn’t be more whored out. Is Verizon V-Cast a band? God, I didn’t know you could suck a cell phone company’s dick, but MTV is doing its best. To think we used to revere bands, not brands.

What, do they think it’s 1950? That kids revere the rock, the one in the Paramount logo?  Viacom owns both, MTV and the movie studio… Even little kids know this. But I think the real reason they didn’t have this in a real venue is they’re afraid they wouldn’t be able to sell it out, or in the alternative, the audience would be uncontrollable, wouldn’t exclaim on cue.

…Voting for Video of the Year is not playing, it’s ripping the audience off for the texting fee.”

Meanwhile, our own Johnny Firecloud provided a very… Firecloudian commentary, for CraveOnline:

“Did they really call this unforgettable? Who’s going to remember a SINGLE song performed or even featured on the awards show, except maybe Kid Rock’s All Summer Long? The channel that was supposed to bring music to television instead turned it into a flashy commodity for visual titillation- not for the ears, not for the heart, and certainly not for the soul. It’s eye candy now. All of it. Their product is barren of spirit, void of substance and a sickening mockery of the ocean of unrecognized quality these folks so gleefully ignored to celebrate their quick-shot bursts of marketability.”

He’s right. Rihanna sucked, and so did Pink. I only remember them because their tits almost came out. Even master show-stopper Kanye West’s closing performance was underwhelming, and Kid Rock, who blew the fucking roof off the 1999 VMAs with Run DMC and Aerosmith, was indeed only maybe memorable. And that’s largely thanks to Lil’ Wayne. He’s great, but mainly because he’s compared to the other mainstream acts.

Do you remember the 1999 VMAs? I sure as shit do. I can’t believe it was nine years ago already. But I remember it like it was last week because it was truly unforgettable. Last night? Nigga Please. You can’t manufacture it. Nothing last night was anywhere close to this good, despite Joe-C and Bawitdaba:

But with all that out of my system, I think what’s driving me to write this more than anything else, is how the tiny bit of sparkling magic that was to be found at the 2008 VMAs was squandered or ignored. The most interesting act there, DJ AM & Travis Barker, was shown only in glimpses before and after the breaks. You get a fifteen second tease of them performing in front of plastic extras that don’t really give a shit, and then it’s right to your regularly scheduled commercials.

We’ll have to forgive them for backing Katy Perry, who first butchered Like A Virgin for the night’s worst performance, and then did I Kissed A Girl for the second worst. That aside, the night’s best performance, in my opinion, was when Lupe Fiasco got on the mic in front of them with Matthew Santos and they sang Superstar. It was flawless! And then right there, in the middle of the song, they began the lead-out to commercials. The camera panned away from the band, over to a screen displaying corporate logos for Verizon, Microsoft, and Rhapsody. The music continued in the background- and it sounded great- but it was buried under a voiceover that seemed to go on forever, hawking inferior products from Viacom’s pals. It was the most blasphemous offense I’ve witnessed since Avril Lavigne covered Metallica on their VH1 tribute.

The music industry is not being murdered by internet pirates. Cancers brought on by a lifetime of bad habits are catching up as the hourglass runs out of sand. It no longer has the energy or will to live. It’s being starved by the very same hands that used to feed it, because all they care about now is whatever inheritance there is left. MTV was once the revolution. Now it’s just part of the corporation, making money through monopolizing and branding products they don’t care about anymore, completely out of touch with us out here in the audience. We have no sympathy. Viacom chooses to insult our intelligence, and call bullshit like the VMAs “unforgettable” like we’re fucking dumb. They have to know by now that we can get by just fine without them. I wonder how long it will be before they realize they’re fucked without us?