White Magic Woman: A Britney Spears Playlist

I laughed when this past weekend I started noticing excited tweets from attendees of the annual White Party, then underway in Palm Springs, that a certain beloved pop music legend was apparently in attendance. Details were vague, but that's nothing new when you're talking about the White Party. For those blissfully not in the know, the White Party is one of a seemingly endless circuit of weekends involving swarms of generally affluent and attractive gay men (I believe admission requires several hundred dollars a night and notarized proof of visible abdominal muscles and/or Latino ethnicity) who descend upon a helpless semi-tropical city to stand shirtless around swimming pools during daylight posing for photos and at night consuming copious amounts of controlled substances and engaging in marathons of sexual experimentation and then return to civilization denying all of it.

In short, it's more a place you might expect to find Lady Gaga than Britney Spears, but Gaga is busy taking over the world, visiting new hospitals, and preparing to headline Lollapalooza, so Ke$ha was sent in her stead. Spears showed up to support Swedish pop star Agnes (the two share a manager) and apparently enjoyed the night's festivities from a private area constructed entirely for her "appearance." I say good for her; obviously she was out to bring some attention to the newer European import and to enjoy a bit of wholesome fun among her gays, and that she showed at the White Party was a comforting reminder of Spears' career-long history of open-mindedness and support for different sexualities (as well as her canny way of doing to to her own maximum publicity benefit as well without being too noticeable). And as some of us suffered through clips of former reality show "real" housewives doing something that almost resembled singing and dancing, it was also a nice reminder that even if Christina Aguilera's upcoming new album Bionic turns out to be a disappointment, Britney cuts new studio records with twice the speed and frequency as she divorces men.

In honor of our fabulous reader and fellow Britneyphile Kurt on his 22nd birthday, Vertigo Shtick is celebrating Our Lady of the White Party, Spears-style: with 22 of the hottest Britney tracks to rock and roll him into another year, and some of her more iconic photographs in white as well.