The Infinite Dial

Having entertained in public last week's widespread consumer press suggestion that Britney Spears' MTV VMA performance would be a career killer, it seemed only fair to revisit the story again a week later.

So far, anyway, Spears' "Gimme More," the best received of her kickoff singles in many years, is maintaining its rapid growth. According to Mediabase, the song was showing a 1023 spin increase over its previous (partial) week on Sept. 9. A week after the VMAs, the song is +934 spins (vs. a full previous week of airplay) and still the song with the greatest increase in spins.

Interesting also to note that the prominently placed quote ad on Spears' behalf in this week's R&R in which the theme of several of the quotes was that listener interest in "Gimme More" had not declined post-VMAs.

That all said, a ot can happen between No. 20--Spears' current posting--and No. 1. A record with this much publicity will probably be going in to callout research at some stations right about now. Spears has hit a callout buzzsaw before with songs like "Me Against the Music" and "My Prerogative" that also received decent initial airplay. But as "Toxic," which still researches well for some people, has shown, audiences aren't unwilling to admit liking the right song.