What it must be for Michael Jackson to live within the haunted walls of Neverland. Give it ten years and Britney Spears might start getting the picture, considering the pop punchbag she's become in recent years.
Sure, the bona fide Princess of Pop – Madonna is the Queen, everyone knows that – is unlikely to be asked to defend herself against child sex allegations anytime soon in front of a court baying for her blood. But she's already well aware what it is to have your youth dispatched to grinning, toothy photos, every minute tugged at like a menstruating cash cow.
Having been wholeheartedly battered across the music chess board lately – imagine if your ex slayed the world and then started dating Cameron Diaz - she responded in the New Year by marrying a random hulk in a tawdry Vegas ceremony. All told, Britney's surely on the ropes.
Well, judging by this evening's glitzy, flame-fuelled Wembley extravaganza, she's certainly clutching at that crucial transition to adulthood in a rather crass, unconvincing, arduously sexual fashion. But she is still standing. And, as crucially, the massed teens gathered at Wembley seem more than happy to be dragged along for the ride.
Inevitably, the music means almost nothing. But has it ever in the world of Britney, where she's inexplicably not even expected to sing live? (Oh, those vigorous dance moves). Two of her biggest hits, "Baby, One More Time" and "Oops, I Did It Again", are tonight tossed-off in an aberration of smoky faux-jazz, surfing effortlessly over 'The Kids' heads. Elsewhere 'floating Britney', 'swearing Britney' and 'buxom Britney' fail to disguise the fact that the 'Onyx Hotel' has cardboard walls and plastic food. In fairness, opener "Toxic" rocks, although Britney's underwhelming arrival, wheeled-out atop a ramped-up ice-cream van, is hardly enter the dragon.
It's all about the show. Seemingly bidding to replicate the lavish theatrical decadence of "Moulin Rouge", the concert is conducted by a rather grisly, make-up splattered compere, who immediately promises: "Your body will be privy to many a titillation". Of course, sex sells and Spears is as terrifyingly reliant on that fact as Jordan.
There is no position on Earth she is not prepared to imitate before 12,000 people, or an outfit too risqué in which to simulate it. However, the effect of seeing Britney being fellated on the side of a bed whilst trussed-up in a lingerie firecracker, or writhing in a body stocking inside a glass bath is really not arousing, more desperate in how far she'll put out.
It's entertaining, for a while, big, dramatic, bursting with colour and gets a decent reaction, though hardly fanatical. Moreover, as an antidote to a drooping career, in the face of far more dynamic propositions – see Beyonce, Justin, Christina even and Robbie certainly – this was, sadly, no resurrection.
Our advice? Buy a deserted island, fill it with psychos and things might start getting interesting.
