Britney Spears Is An Icon, But Has Made Some Huge Career Mistakes

Britney Spears is one of the biggest pop icons ever. Due to great marketing and catchy hits, she has set a template for many recent pop stars. However, like other pop icons, she has made her share of mistakes. The most recent one is her video for “Make Me,” which received mediocre reviews.

The Huffington Post is just one of the sources that are disappointed with the “Make Me” video.

“Spears has done it again (not in the good way) with a new music video for the lead single off her highly anticipated ninth studio album Glory… and it’s underwhelming. Look, we aren’t expecting Brit to deliver masterfully constructed ‘Usual Suspects’-style plotting, but ‘Make Me’ leads us to believe that… what?”

Perhaps Spears’ first big career mistake was the movie Crossroads, which was released in 2002.

“I went to Crossroads expecting a glitzy bimbofest and got the bimbos but not the fest. Britney Spears’ feature debut is curiously low-key and even sad,” claimed Roger Ebert in his Chicago Sun Times review.

“Watching Britney Spears act in Crossroads can seem like the ultimate in excitement. That is, if you’re twelve years old, a girl and you don’t get out much,” joked Peter Travers from Rolling Stone.

However, the movie is now considered a pop culture cult classic. The same can’t be said about Britney’s duet with Madonna, “Me Against the Music.”

Though 2003’s “Me Against The Music” made Madonna look far worse than Britney Spears, the song was still considered hazardous for Britney Spears since it was the first single from her album In The Zone. Madonna was suffering a career decline in 2003 due to the controversy and low sales of her American Life album, so she likely thought that latching onto a new Spears single would help her.

However, “Me Against The Music” didn’t end up hurting either of their careers. Spears rebounded with “Toxic,” and Madonna rebounded with the Re-invention Tour in 2004.

However, Britney would soon fall to a point so low that people actually mocked her for having a nervous breakdown and being suicidal. The year 2007 is one that Britney Spears certainly doesn’t want to remember. It all came to a climax when Spears performed “Gimme More” at the MTV VMAs in 2007.

Not only did Spears look out-of-shape, but her choreography was shaky and her lip-syncing was completely off. Still, the album Blackout, which was released shortly after the performance, is — in retrospect — considered one of her best yet.

Britney was able to rebound and had some more huge hits, including “Circus” and “Hold It Against Me.” However, she was never able to rebound to her pre-2007 superstar status. In 2013, she tried.

“Work Bi***” was the first single off of Spears’ new album Britney Jean, released in December of 2013. Not only did “Work Bi***” fail to become a hit, but Britney Jean became the biggest flop of Spears’ career. According to Idolator, the album only sold 108,461 copies during its first week. The numbers would have been fine for anyone else, but Spears was used to debuting with sales of over 200,000 a week with previous releases.

Then, there is Spears’ 2015 single and video for “Pretty Girls” with Iggy Azalea.

Both the single and video flopped hard. Perhaps it was a bad idea to latch onto Iggy Azalea, who was suffering a huge career backlash at the time. According to Billboard, Iggy blamed Britney for a lack of promotion.

Despite all the setbacks, Britney Spears is still shining. Her new album, Glory, will be released on August 26. Do you agree with this list of Britney Spears setbacks? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

[Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images]