13. Britney SpearsBlackout
I don’t have any big attachment to Britney as a pop star but I can’t deny my history with pop music. Halloween gave me my first freedom to start dressing up like a pop star. The image of me for Volcanic Tongue was me when I was nine, dressed as Madonna. To deny my obsession with pop would be a form of self-flagellation. At any moment in time, I need to have some trashy pop in my life.
We haven’t talked about how much you love dressing up yet.
Well, people don’t want to see fucking stilettos, for the most part, in the underground – you know what I mean? People think if you do dress up that you’re vapid, that’s always driven me a bit crazy that you can’t have both, you know, why does it have to be one or the other?
So why did you choose Blackout
I grew up as an only child, but my mother remarried and I have two siblings. Emma, my sister, loved Britney and she had a little karaoke machine and I would have to sing toxic with her on karaoke. ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ – that is garbage to me. But Blackout was the time of Britney’s break down. She got ebony-coloured hair, no longer blonde. The sweet spot of Blackout is ‘Get Naked (I Got a Plan)’, ‘Freak Show’ and ‘Toy Soldier’ –that pocket right there is where it’s at. I love it’s trashiness, I associate it with strip clubs. I was never a stripper but I had friends that were and I have friends that were bouncers, and it was played a lot.
I saw Britney when she finally played in Glasgow in 2018, and it was amazing. I’m pretty sure she did not sing one note live, but there’s something about the atmosphere of a big pop concert. David and I went to Pussycat Dolls, Ne-Yo, and Lady Gaga one year, too. I remember that concert because I felt like 98% of the audience was mothers with their daughters, and everyone was decked out to the nines. It was such a beautiful atmosphere. I was sitting next to a mother and her daughter, and we had this whole exchange where we’re dancing together, and I remembered the absolute beauty and power of that feeling. Those big pop concerts are a rite of passage that I felt when I was a young girl.
