Oh, ok then. Hold it against me if you must.

We didn't cover this straight away because... well... truth be told, in all honesty and in the name of full disclosure we have been so busy right now what with um... life and everything (?) that we haven't had time. Here at Shiny & New, we would rather take an age to write something special for you than whack out something impulsive, badly-thought-out and unclever just to look 'on the ball'.

So here we go. First of all, can we just say: what? And also: ok. This is the Jonas Akerlund-directed music video (he of "Ray of Light", "Music", "Telephone", "Paparazzi", "Who's That Chick?" and... er... "Celebration"!!!!) for Britney's current single, "Chat Up Line Against Me". Sorry, music video? We meant advert. We've seen a lot of product placement in our time (hated the lot of it) but nothing this flagrant and unashamed. We mean, really. After the video had finished we tried looking at a blank wall and blinking really fast and the letters SONY were imprinted in neon purple on the back of our eyelids. We went and bought a tv after that because that is the power of advertising and if you did a Venn diagram of Britney Spears' music video watchers and people who purchase expensive touch-screen televisions, there would be, like, so much cross-over, because marketing.

O'er the jump with thee for extended analysis and 'exclusive' (not exclusive) clips etc.

This is supposed to have meaning and subtext, but the thing is: subtext is supposed to be at least a little bit subtle. There is nothing subtle about a wreath of microphones (or in fact anything in this eyesore of an extravaganzaaaaaaa) and even so, there's something even more fundamentally flawed about the whole thang. Jonas Akerlund also directed Madonna's original (sometimes referred to as 'Director's Cut') video for "American Life". That video is one of the greatest music videos of all time and unfortunately will never be appreciated outside of the Shiny & New headquarter offices. You can watch the video here. Seriously, that video is so great. It's probably the best thing Jonas Akerlund's ever done.

That video, of course, is also NOT subtle. In fact it's about as subtle as a spiked black dildo as outer-officewear. But the difference is that Madonna had a very important point to make: that there were better ways to solve international and human conflict than with lies and bombs and a passive bystander attitude. That is a very good point. It's an obvious one, sure. Everyone knows war is bad. But the genius of Madonna's video (and the song and the lyrics and the point she's trying to make) is that there is nothing more frustrating than a point that everyone knows, everyone agrees on and yet STILL no one does anything about. How blood-boiling. If everyone agrees that war is bad, why are we all so complacent and why is it still happening and why is Madonna, the most famous woman alive, essentially powerless and criticised for speaking out? That is a good point.

But in Britney's video, the point seems to be that... what? Media is bad? Leave Britney alone? The ideas thrown, haphazardly and somewhat violently into the clip's aesthetic melting pot also seem to have nothing to do with the song itself (which is enjoyable, sure, but standard horny, stompy, club fare). Why are there men in leather masks and why are there men with prosthetic faces hiding under Britney's vast skirt? Why do her fingers start pissing rainbows? Why does she fight herself during the dance breakdown? Why is there a Rocky Horror-style pair of disembodied red lips? Why does she have a lie down at one point? What is the meteor at the start all about? Why does she randomly decide to browse a dating website (oh yeah, because marketing).

Wait, in fact, the dating website product placement is probably the most relevant part of the video, annoying as it is. This, after all, is a song about wanting a good old-fashioned fuck. It's about seeing someone who turns up your lustdar (a real thing, sure) in a club setting and aggressively seeking sexual release by dancing provocatively before using a tired ol' chat-up line to unlock the secret(s) of their crotch. A dating website sort of makes sense, then, especially seeing as most people seem to use them for casual sex (we've heard). A confusing, half-baked, nonsensical set of visuals relating to mass-media, then, does not.

This sort of imagery might have made, like, hella sense for the "Piece of Me" video, but they are totally besides the point here. So why do they exist? You know what, we just don't know. It's probably Lady GaGa's fault. We hate to bring the over-exposed art-school reject into everything but before she came along, filling a video with unusual imagery was something you did when you had a point to make. Now it's done as a matter of course.

Of course there's a separate layer of oddness to the video. Britney looks distant and unconvinced and does the choreography as if she's marking it/practising in a small space. We're not going to go off on that tangent, though. That has been well enough discussed and is, frankly, none of our business. One more thing: we did go cross-eyed watching this. Make of that what you will. To finish on, here are three leaked clips from songs that'll be on Britney's up-and-coming album. They all sound better than "Drunk Fumble Against Me".