Britney Spears And Iggy Azalea Get Slight Boost With ‘Pretty Girls’ Video Release

The past week hasn’t looked good for Britney Spears and Iggy Azalea. After their much-hyped “Pretty Girls” instantly fell out of the top 40 on iTunes, there is some slightly good news. Since the release of the “Pretty Girls” video on Wednesday, the song has climbed back up to No. 32 on iTunes (as of Thursday morning) and is shaded in green, meaning that it continues to gain in sales.

On Wednesday, Billboard reported that Britney Spears‘ new single debuted at No. 29 on the Hot 100 chart.

“As for the week’s highly-anticipated top debut, Spears and Azalea launch at No. 29 with ‘Pretty Girls.’ Sales lead the way (accounting for 77 percent of the song’s chart points), as it debuts on Digital Songs at No. 6 with 96,000 first-week downloads sold.”

Billboard quotes Charese Fruge, a program director at KKHH in Houston, as saying that the song is an “event record.” His station has played it 39 times since its release on May 4. However, the song hasn’t been as successful on other stations. Many commenters on Billboard’s previous articles on Britney Spears have noted that the song’s debut isn’t that great considering Britney Spears and Iggy Azalea usually chart much higher with debut singles and that the song will fall down next week since sales massively decreased (before Thursday).

Meanwhile, the “Pretty Girls” video has received mixed reviews. The worst comes from August Brown of the Los Angeles Times, who says the 80’s-style video would make John Waters cringe.

“But this video is so aggressive in its attempted self-awareness that it actually has the opposite effect of affirming the worst of its ditsy-blond stereotypes. Britney, now a full-time Las Vegas professional working mother currently fighting through a workplace accident, deserves a more noble setting than this.”

Brown goes on to call the song “vapid” and says that Britney and Iggy went so far off the deep end that their actually back in the shallow. Ouch! Speaking of pain, Britney Spears has widely been accused of faking an ankle injury to get out of performing several shows. TMZ recently noted that despite cancelling shows due to the injury, Britney was seen playing beach football on Sunday and having a great time moving around.

Britney Spears and Iggy Azalea will perform “Pretty Girls” at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards this Sunday. If the performance is well received, it could give the ailing single another boost. However, if the performance of the song gets the same response as the video, Britney Spears and Iggy Azalea will likely never duet again.

[Photo Credit: Lainey Gossip]