Bonus: “Waiting for Britney Spears” and Jeff Weiss’ Surrealistic Account of Pop Stardom (Allegedly)

A Deeper Listen

Music journalist Jeff Weiss recently wrote a book titled Waiting for Britney Spears, documenting the pop stars rise and fall from the public eye. But the book isn’t a historical account, it’s an “allegedly true” story that blurs fact and fiction, putting Weiss himself in the middle of the action. His writing takes a playful tabloid-style tone — a commentary on the tabloid-style news that moved her story along and his own experience working in that industry.

KEXP’s Martin Douglas talked with Weiss about how Britney Spears not only influenced modern music, but also symbolized a collective loss of innocence among millennials.

“I wanted to tell the story of the death of the millennial American dream,” Weiss says in the interview. “Who more symbolic than Britney Spears? She was such a martyr for our cultural sins in so many respects. All the themes that Britney Spears embodies, we’re still grappling with in the eye of pop culture today."

Photo Credit: Krista Schlueter

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