The romantic pairing of certified Teen Idols Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake was a media dream made flesh, so to speak. How sweet, how fitting that these magnetic fresh faces on the cusp of adulthood would cling to one another for shelter and understanding against the gale force winds of celebrity, pop royalty sharing the fairytale magic of Love’s First Kiss (or something, um, similar). Only the dwarfs were missing.

BEST OF ALL, the relationship was real, uncontrived, even the Disney angle genuine: Britney and Justin originally met in the early-’90s as preteen cast members of “The New Mickey Mouse Club,” fellow laborers in a juvenile showbiz factory that also employed Christina Aguilera, Felicity’s Keri Russell and Justin’s future ‘N Sync-mate JC Chasez.

Britney Spears has a new single, "Me Against the Music," featuring her MTV Video Music Awards lip-lock partner Madonna, out in advance of her fourth album, "In the Zone," due November 18.

But there was to be no happily ever after: they broke up after four years in the spring of 2002, fleeing the dream castle on separate but parallel paths. Justin and Britney — their first names are usually enough — are no longer together but they aren’t far apart either: they still share the Jive record label, a similar urban-pop musical style, many of the same rabid fans, and neither is getting any uglier. Both are also seemingly all over the place, leapfrogging each other in the media spotlight.

Timberlake, 22, rocked large arenas all over North America this summer on tour with Aguilera on the strength of his smash 2002 solo album, “Justified,” which has sold seven million copies worldwide and yielded hits “Like I Love You,” “Rock Your Body” and “Cry Me a River.” Continuing his sabbatical from ‘N Sync, Justin is now gearing up for a fall European tour by playing five intimate club and theater shows in the U.S., and he has his own television special airing on NBC on November 25.

Spears, 21, has a new single, “Me Against the Music,” featuring her MTV Video Music Awards lip-lock partner Madonna, out in advance of her fourth album, “In the Zone,” due November 18. Britney was the steaming topless October 2 cover model for Rolling Stone, and oops, she did it again as the November cover for both Esquire (more steam) and Cosmo Girl (clothed and girlish) magazines.

“JUSTIN & BRITNEY” OR VICE VERSA
While the former lovers both seem ubiquitous, things aren’t as equal as they may appear to the casual observer. Based upon the verdict handed down by the popular culture judges at “Saturday Night Live,” Justin is now on top: he hosted and performed as musical guest two weeks ago, proving himself a confident and likeable performer, a talented mimic, a fine comedic actor, and a genuine musical talent. Of course, Britney had already proved most of these things with two dual hosting/musical guesting performances on the show in 2000 and 2002, but last week poor Britney was musical guest only for the episode Halle Berry will host. Oh the indignity!

Justin Timberlake rocked large arenas all over North America this summer on tour with Christina Aguilera on the strength of his smash 2002 solo album, "Justified," which has sold seven million copies worldwide.

Yes, the perception is that Timberlake is on top of the world, a star ascendant, while Spears, a superstar for five years who has already sold more than 50 million albums, teeters precariously on spiked heels, her pierced navel and demure pelvic tattoo on display, as she and her team wait nervously for response to the album that could make or break her career.

Britney, the former virginity-until-marriage advocate, was recently vilified for her newly sexualized image in a speech by Kendal Ehrlich, the wife of the governor of Maryland, who playfully added she’d “like to shoot” the neo-strumpet for leading impressionable teens down the road to crotch-grabbing, Madonna-kissing perdition, before she recanted and apologized. I would guess the governor’s wife has never been exposed to the Secretary of Skank, Aguilera.

At least Britney is wildly successful, not a single mother and in control of her own destiny; and the fact that she was very reluctant to admit a physical relationship with Justin, with whom she was “in love,” would seem to indicate where her natural values lie. I fear that this attack on the relatively tame Spears means that she is no longer a girl, not yet a woman, but rather a symbol, and that is very sad for her.

DOUBLE STANDARD?
I also see the old familiar double standard at work here: Spears is berated regularly for dressing in a sexy manner, she was ridiculed for “trying to look grown up” when she strode onto a Milan runway last October in a $23,000 rainbow-spangled gown by Donatella Versace. Yet Timberlake is applauded for forsaking his boyish squeaky clean, color-coordinated ‘N Sync image in favor of an earthier, stripped-down, young adult, bachelor-on-the-prowl vibe by the very same press that rebukes Spears for updating her image.

Mary Huhn feted the lad earlier this week in the New York Post, crowing, “he exploited an already-publicized break-up with Britney Spears by talking about their sex life on Hot 97 (the top hip-hop station in the New York market), then released a scathing video for ‘Cry Me a River’ in which he all but outed Spears as a cheater who ruined the relationship.” Gee, what a gentleman, but this is meant as praise. Huhn then added that Timberlake “traded up” from Britney to Janet Jackson (who appeared on his album), Alyssa Milano and Cameron Diaz — maybe she meant “traded up in age.” Forty years of feminism has wrought this kind of thinking?

Ultimately, though, the diverging perceptions of Justin and Britney come down to the legitimate matter of music. With similar young lifetimes of performance experience, vocal training and the pick of crack arrangers, producers and songwriters, natural talent and taste are the only real variables left, and for now at least, Justin appears to possess the stronger musical hand.

There might even be something approaching a “Justin Timberlake” sound emerging from the haze. His best songs are built upon organic funky grooves, from which Timberlake and collaborators like the Neptunes, Timbaland, and Brian McKnight then construct songs — a firm musical foundation not dissimilar to that of one of Timberlake’s idols, Michael Jackson, whose falsetto Timberlake’s resembles.

NFL’s kickoff concert leaves us with (lip) syncing feeling
By Tom Shales

American bad taste is the most powerful bad taste in the world. That seems to be what was really being celebrated on the Mall last night at an excruciating 55-minute rock concert ostensibly convened to herald the new pro football season and televised live on the struggling ABC network.

       THE EVENT WAS deemed so auspicious that George W. Bush took yet more time off from fighting the war on terrorism to appear, via videotape, at the end of the concert and just before the game, in the manner of a TV huckster. He tried to make some connection between football and “the spirit that guides the brave men and women” of the military, much as the concert had done.
       He also said pro football “celebrates the values that make our country so strong.” Like what, violence and greed?

       Then, in intense close-up, the leader of the Free World asked the trademarked rhetorical question, “Are you ready for some football?”
       Some bureaucrat whose thinking cap had blown off authorized lending the once-solemn, or at least dignified, Mall to this very raucous and very commercial event. The show was a collaboration between the NFL, apparently trying to lure younger viewers to football, and, as the announcer said, “New Pepsi Vanilla and Diet Pepsi Vanilla, the Not-So-Vanilla Vanilla.”
       The not-so-musical music included a performance by bouncy sex bunny Britney Spears, whose vocalizing was clearly prerecorded and badly lip-synced — but then who knew what the heck she was singing about anyway? Spears depended heavily on elaborate pyrotechnics and on manic aerobic-erotic choreography during her two numbers; dancers hurled themselves, cartwheeled, tumbled and even crawled across the stage.
       At one point, she gamboled about amid, literally, great balls of fire — apparently forgetting that Michael Jackson’s hair was once set ablaze while he was filming a Pepsi commercial.
       There was also, as part of the alleged dancing, what’s commonly referred to as “some girl-on-girl action” (Spears and Madonna kissed on the lips on a recent MTV special), as well as writhing onstage costume changes. When they weren’t being groped or fondled by her, dancers helped Spears strip her pants off, revealing a bikini-like black bottom for the second number. They even helped straighten out the little pixie’s shorty shorts so that they didn’t reveal too much. Or maybe so that they did.

       Spears just kept singing, singing, singing. Or rather syncing, syncing, syncing. But the feeling some of us at home were having would be better described as sinking, sinking, sinking.
       Also appearing was a Waldorf-born rock band called Good Charlotte, rock veterans Aerosmith — who did so many numbers they turned it into an Aerosmith concert — and popular supershrieker Mary J. Blige, who apparently prefers a strange squatting position when she wails and screams.
       The only really respectable musical performance, also clearly recorded in advance, was the majestic Aretha Franklin’s overblown yet effective rendition of the national anthem. Of course on the line “rockets’ red glare,” red fireworks were set off at the back of the stage. The show, directed and co-produced by Joel Gallen, was a never-let-well-enough-alone production.
       A closing credit, “Paid for by the NFL,” suggested the football league bought the time outright from ABC and then sold the commercial minutes. Many of the ads were, of course, for new Pepsi Vanilla and Diet Pepsi Vanilla, the Not-So-Vanilla Vanilla (when will they come out with not-so-chocolate chocolate?), but there was also a super-kinetic blitz of a commercial for Reebok Vector shoes, scored to the opening chorus from Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana,” one of the most frequently appropriated pieces of 20th-century classical music.
       When Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini included a bit of “Carmina Burana” in his borderline-obscene film “Salo,” he explained he did so because he considered it “fascist music.” We just note that in passing.
       Each musical act was introduced by a former NFL star — Joe Theismann and Joe Namath opened the show together — teamed with a member of the armed forces. Theismann said of the concert, “It’s a national moment of remembrance,” which really seems preposterous in light of what followed. A woman representing the Coast Guard said, “I’m proud to be an American” before introducing Aerosmith.

       During a brief cutaway to FedEx Field in Landover, game announcers John Madden and Al Michaels argued briefly over which player seemed more “juiced” for the Redskins-Jets game that was soon — they promised — to follow. Then back to the Mall for more eardrum-shattering rock.
       While the sun still shone, the beautiful U.S. Capitol provided an unlikely and, it seemed, reluctant backdrop for the acts. When night came, and the dome was lit up, it appeared to recede a bit into the distance, as if in shame.
       Perhaps the Mall will be available now to every American for weddings, birthday parties and bar mitzvahs. No, probably not. You’ll have to be a giant corporation to take over this precious public space and, in effect, spill a ton of garbage all over it.
       

Former teen pop queen Britney Spears may have more than just a kiss in common with Madonna—like declining record sales. Spears’s fourth album, tentatively due in stores in mid-November, will likely be one of the holiday season’s biggest sellers. But early handicappers say expectations are much lower than for both 2000’s “Oops! I Did It Again,” which sold 9.1 million copies, and even for her 2001 follow-up, “Britney,” which sold less than half that.

INDUSTRY WATCHERS PREDICT that this year’s album, which Spears has described as “very moody,” could fare far worse. “Maybe her newness has worn out,” says Greg Mize, spokesman for Handleman Co., which distributes music to more than 2,700 Wal-Mart and Kmart stores. “I suppose it depends on how you measure success. There’s still excitement around her.”

There’s still excitement around Madonna, too, but that didn’t help her most recent album, “American Life,” which debuted at No. 1, then plummeted. (The album has sold only 578,000 copies to date, and a ho-hum Gap ad hasn’t helped matters.) It’s too soon to be sure how Britney’s new album will do, but in the meantime she’s staying busy weaving Madonna-esque mystique. In a recent interview on CNN, she spoke fondly of her girl-on-girl smooch before declaring her unwavering trust in George W. Bush and his war efforts. Sounds like somebody who isn’t quite sure who her audience is.

As I understand it, British Elle is a fashion magazine. I can’t really be sure, because my favorite newsstand in Piccadilly Circus is always out. Then again, maybe I’m looking in the wrong section.

IT SEEMS BRITNEY Spears is set to appear in the September issue of British Elle wearing little beyond a belly button bauble and a swatch of denim. Perhaps from now on I should look for British Elle in the same area where British Swank and British Juggs are displayed.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t bat an eye when a pop star of Britney’s stature decides that a career jolt is needed and the best way to achieve that is a foray into soft porn. It almost comes with the territory these days. It is almost inevitable that young females intent on standing out in an intensely competitive entertainment field will push the envelope in an increasingly permissive society. It used to be that if you were a budding young seductress and you dressed up in pasties and a thong and slid up and down a silver pole, your act was reserved for places like the Bada Bing. Now you can sing the national anthem at major sporting events.

But this latest Britney development is a little jarring. One day your fresh-faced daughter leaves for school hopping and skipping in saddle shoes and pigtails, the next she comes home pierced and tattoed and dragging along a boyfriend named Two Gun. Same effect here. It appears Britney is intent on leaving her girlish ways behind, along with any semblance of a career.

Generally speaking, pop stars are not built for the long haul. That’s why a show like “American Idol” is so popular. It showcases eager contestants who can sing a little and who have a certain something, lets them shimmy and warble a bit, watches as they flame out, and then moves on to the next batch. That’s plenty. Audiences don’t need much more than that. Studies have shown that if you subject the public to an overdose of any one pop star, it can cause increases in road rage.

So Britney apparently wants to branch out. By baring all, or almost all, for British Elle, she has fired the first salvo at her competition. Each airbrushed shot of boob will say, “I’m a survivor.” Each elegantly lit glimpse of derriere will exclaim, “Not bad, eh?” And don’t get me started on the angel tattoo on her lower back. I can see the caption now: “The Next Hepburn?”

What Britney really longs to be is the next Madonna. If so, she’s off to a rocky start.

So Britney apparently wants to branch out. By baring all, or almost all, for British Elle, she has fired the first salvo at her competition. Each airbrushed shot of boob will say, “I’m a survivor.” Each elegantly lit glimpse of derriere will exclaim, “Not bad, eh?” And don’t get me started on the angel tattoo on her lower back. I can see the caption now: “The Next Hepburn?”

Madonna began her career with some decent music. Not great, but decent. It played well on the radio and appealed to an audience that went beyond 12-year-old girls. Then Madonna worked it. She was one shrewd cookie. She understood the image she projected and slowly, gradually, built a sexy and exciting persona into an edgy and controversial one.

Madonna received kudos for her work in a quirky 1985 indie called “Desperately Seeking Susan” and for a role on Broadway in David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow” in 1988.

Britney? She made “Crossroads,” a road picture that quickly landed in a ditch. And if you stopped somebody on the street and asked them to name a Britney Spears song, you would probably get a blank look unless the street in question ran past a playground.

The British Elle pictorial is the first admission that the Madonna thing isn’t happening for Britney, and in fact is unlikely to occur at all, so it’s time to move to Plan B. This strategy isn’t just restricted to photos. There is some reading to complement the cheesecake. In an accompanying article, Britney supposedly lashes out at Justin Timberlake, her former paramour, for the lack of chivalry he showed in publicly discussing their breakup and for putting a Spears lookalike in one of his music videos.

Here’s another mistake. Two pop stars should not have been dating in the first place. The pressure of knowing that all the fame and success could come to a screeching halt tomorrow, and probably even sooner than that, is too much to bear. There’s an old Hollywood saying: Two flashes in one pan just leaves more ashes.

There was a benefit concert in Toronto recently to rehabilitate tourism after the SARS scare. The event was headlined by the Rolling Stones. Somehow Timberlake got on the bill. Fans reacted to his set by pelting him with vegetables. If I were Britney, and I was tempted to reveal my heartbreak to a major magazine over a former pop star boyfriend who just got pelted with vegetables at a benefit concert, I see the big picture and resist the urge.

The magazine spread is apparently only one aspect of a multi-pronged publicity push by Britney. She is also reportedly vying to play a character named Daisy Duke in a big-screen version of “The Dukes of Hazzard” opposite Ashton Kutcher. When you’re talking about reclaiming your credibility while honing your acting chops, I can’t think of a better vehicle than a movie based on an old TV show about two rednecks in a souped-up muscle car.

It was only a year ago that “Crossroads” was released, but this is the real crossroads for poor Britney. By baring all, she is serving notice that she has nothing left. And by clinging to the topic of Justin, she is pining for the halcyon days when both were on top and the future seemed bereft of mundane concepts like real talent and staying power. For Pete’s sake, Britney, if you and Justin want to be Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, go lock yourself in a room with a bottle of scotch and Edward Albee.

Commenting on Justin’s lack of discretion, Britney recently told Access Hollywood: “Is nothing sacred anymore?”

I’ll let her know after I pick up my copy of British Elle.