You Want to Be Like Me!!!

You know what bores people?

When celebrities sing songs about how hard their lives are.

Take any writing class or ask any editor or literary agent what they think the most important thing is in a main character, and they will almost always tell you the character needs to be "relatable." Some will toss out the horrid work "sympathetic," which is completely bogus. Jack Nicholson made an entire career out of playing unsympathetic characters. But all his characters are relatable.

How is an ordinary person supposed to relate to how difficult the media spotlight and having millions of dollars is?

Look, I hate getting my picture taken too. But seriously, if that's the worst thing that happens to you today, it's still about a thousand times better than the shit the rest of us have to deal with. I know, I know . . . it's so hard being so awesome. It must be a tremendous burden being the greatest thing ever in the world ever. But can't you just go back to writing innocuous love songs?

Of course, there's the other old saw that says "write what you know." And, for a second, I'm going to allow that some pop tarts actually write a bit of their music. And this is their reality, so that's what they can relate to. They think it's some kind of deep personal statement.

But there's a line where it becomes so self-absorbed and self-pitying that the rest of us just lose interest.

Motley Crue. Often credited with the first power ballad. And what is "Home Sweet Home" about? Well, on the surface it's about being in a band and growing weary from touring. Not really something most of us can relate to, you might think. But the real essence of the song is about missing someone or something. It's that idea of "you can't go home again." It's about longing. That's something we can all definitely connect with.

And maybe I'm giving the Crue a bit too much credit, but they were the metal equivalent of Britney Spears. Being in a band was eating away at Nikki Sixx, but the song isn't about just him complaining. He's tapping into a collective feeling.

Britney's new song follows in the tradition of MJ's "Leave Me Alone." That being the whiny celeb who's seeking out pity because it's just oh so hard being rich and famous and woe is you that you can't get any privacy. That's because you live in California! You want to live like a normal person, move to Montana and volunteer as a rescue pilot like Harrison Ford does.

Now I'm not saying the average pop music consumer is giving this much conscious thought to what they're buying. I mean, we're mostly talking about teenage girls here, who, traditionally, have the absolute worst, most vacuous taste in music imaginable. But go look at the discographies of some of these pop stars and compare the chart positions of songs like "Hit Me Baby One More Time" and any of her songs about the hard-scrabble life of a celebrity. I think the message is clear:

Shut up! We're here to dance, not listen to you bitch about your problems!