Overrated/Underrated: Do we still need Britney Spears?

UNDERRATED

The Tragically Hip: If you’ve heard of this band, chances are it was from a Canadian friend who asked — probably rather politely — that you give one of their albums a listen. On the heels of leader Gord Downie’s terminal brain cancer diagnosis, the Tragically Hip embarked on one last tour of Canada that last weekend culminated with a Kingston, Ontario concert/national catharsis of grief and support whose magnitude helped partially explain what the U.S. has been missing all these years. Whatever album you decide to try (and it’s worth it — the dark, R.E.M.-adjacent “Day for Night” is a strong choice), the band deserves a new front half to its name: Triumphant.

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‘Slow TV’: Leave it to Norway — scenic, quality-of-life-survey-topping Norway — to find the transfixing beauty in the everyday. Inspiring a ratings phenomenon in Europe, Norwegian TV turned cameras on for hours upon hours of real time broadcasts of exquisite coastal cruises, rail trips and fishing excursions to discover something that in moderated doses acts as an oddly soothing mental vacation. Now edited down for American audiences, the shows may not fire up the same buzz offered by the binge-worthy “House of Cards” or “Stranger Things,” but they deliver a vital reminder to sometimes take it easy, even in our entertainment.

OVERRATED

Our unmoderated selves: Back in the early, chuck wagon days of the Internet, interactivity was king, and everything that could be created or said deserved — nay, demanded -- our immediate feedback. Years later, we’ve learned that most open forums and message boards (see YouTube, or any given news story about immigration) inevitably wind up providing platforms for trolling hate speech and the worst that anonymous humanity has to offer. Recently NPR spurred a mini-backlash as it joined a mini-trend of rolling back reader comments, and as much as it feels like a surrender it also speaks to how sadly difficult it is for us to have nice things.

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The next Britney Spears comeback: When we last saw Britney Spears, she was tidily ensconced in a Las Vegas residency and delivering the hits while living under a court-ordered conservatorship after a public meltdown in the late ’00s. With a new album on the way along with an appearance at this weekend’s VMAs, Spears and her camp are clearly targeting a return to the well of pop stardom one more time. While it’s promising to hear Spears is doing much better in her personal life, it’s hard to decide which is more troubling: that she still needs more fame or that we still need her? With apologies to an old profanity-filled meme, why can’t we leave Britney alone?

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