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An astonishing fact: it has been only five years since Britney Spears released her debut album, ...BABY THANKS TO ALL MY FANS AROUND THE WORLD! ONE MORE TIME. Sixty months. Less than 2,000 days. That‘s it. Fifty-five million albums later (that’s about 30,000 records a day, if you want to get technical about it), it’s hard to imagine what the landscape of pop culture would Also available from Britney Spears on Jive: look like without her. What would have happened if this one Southern belle had decided to be a doctor or lawyer or schoolteacher instead of becoming the biggest pop star of her generation? When a then-sixteen year-old Spears debuted on MTV dressed in a naughtied-up schoolgirl uniform, no one could have guessed that she would make such an immediate and lasting impact. You want proof that this dame ain’t no flash in the pan? There is perhaps no greater testament to Spears’ cultural significance — no better symbolic flipping-of-the-bird to naysayers — than the sheer existence of this album. From her coy, bubblegum beginnings with “…Baby One More Time” to the sophisticated, techno groove of her recent #1 single “Toxic,” this collection of songs demonstrates exactly how Britney has grown up and grown into her larger-than- 01241-41651-2/4 01241-41704-2/4 01241-41776-2/4 82876-53748-2/4 life persona with the eyes of the world studying and analyzing her every move. All in just five years. Ponder this: how would you have occupied your time without her? Just think how much more work you could have gotten done if you weren’t spending so many hours obsessing about the question that seems to arise every single time Spears steps foot in public: “What has she gone and done now?” As a journalist who has interviewed and written about Britney Spears on numerous occasions, I’ve lost track of how many times some tabloid TV program has asked me to come on and talk about whether our dear pop princess has “taken it too far this time.” No matter what it was — whether it was a scandalously revealing outfit she had worn in a video or who she was dating (or not dating) or some finger she stuck up at the paparazzi who constantly hound her; the question was the same: “Has Britney gone too far?” The question itself totally misses the 01241-41651-3/9 01241-41704-3/9 01241-41784-3/9 01241-41785-3/9 82876-59387-3/9 82876-66393-9 point. The job of any major pop star — any of the ones whose legacies loom large, from the Beatles to Madonna, A&R: Steve Lunt • Mastered by Tom Coyne at Sterling Sound, NYC Elvis to Michael Jackson — is not only to be entertaining, but also to be provocative. The more interesting question Management: Larry Rudolph for ReignDeer Entertainment • Management Representatives: Dan Dymtrow and Jennifer Webster to be asking is, “What is it about Britney that holds such fascination? How did this young woman from Kentwood, Louisiana become the object of such desire, speculation and adoration?” Art Direction: Jackie Murphy & Courtney Walter • Design: Courtney Walter It all started in 1998, when Spears’ video for “…Baby One More Time” caused an immediate Cover Photography: Matthew Rolston • Hair: Chris McMillan • Make-up: Fran Cooper • Wardrobe: Lori Goldstein sensation and heralded the beginning of a nascent teen-pop movement. On the cover of the …BABY ONE MORE Contributing Photography: Larry Busacca, Patrick Demarchelier, Ranjit Grewal, Kathryn Indiek, Steven Klein, Markus Klinko TIME album — released in early 1999 — Spears knelt in front of a pink backdrop, with all the sweetness and & Indrani, Yuki Kuroyanagi, Nigel Parry, Lisa Peardon, Jon Ragel, Herb Ritts, Albert Sanchez, Mark Seliger, Arnold Turner, innocence of an adolescent who had no idea what lie ahead. But this was a distinctly different image from the Timothy White • Collage Photography: Daniel Hastings • Video Directors: Chris Applebaum, Nigel Dick, Paul Hunter, confident young woman in the video who came up with the idea on her own to knot her school uniform’s shirt above Wayne Isham, Joseph Kahn, Francis Lawrence, Dave Meyers, Jake Nava, Herb Ritts her navel. Never has a bellybutton caused such uproar. Nowadays, whenever a teenage girl shows her midriff, red-faced, conservative pundits would have you believe Spears is to blame. As Britney herself might say, it’s not AN ORIGINAL SOUND RECORDING MADE BY ZOMBA RECORDING LLC that deep. Yet, along with the uproar came an even more overwhelming show of support: “…Baby One More Time” 82876-65630-2 www.jiverecords.com www.britneyspears.com www.britney.com went to #1, the album of the same name sold over a million copies within its first six weeks out, and the This Compilation ൿ & Ꭿ 2004 Zomba Recording LLC. Manufactured and Distributed by Zomba Recording LLC, 137-139 West 25th Street, New York, N.Y. 10001. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws. follow-up singles, “Sometimes” and “(You Drive Me) Crazy,” kept Spears’ debut album on the charts for 103 weeks. Before her first album had even cooled, Britney hit us with the follow-up, 2000’s OOPS!...I DID IT AGAIN. With a nod and a wink to her previous disc’s ubiquitous first single, the Max Martin-produced title track opened with a familiar vamp that echoed “…Baby One More Time.” The message was clear as soon as she curled her lip and sang, “I think I did it again.” Indeed she had done it again. But this wasn’t a simple repetition of what she had done before. Rather than the pleading tone of “…Baby One More Time,” this #1 hit was devilish and flirtatious and empowering. “Oops!...You think I‘m in love / That I’m sent from above / I‘m not that innocent,” she sang. If her debut album hinted that there was more to Britney Spears than met the eye, “Oops!” made that point crystal clear. Midway through the “Oops!” video, the poor sap who fell for Britney shows her a giant sapphire pendant like the one tossed overboard in Titanic. “I thought the old lady dropped it into the ocean in the end?” Britney asks her love slave teasingly. “Well baby, I went down and got it for you,” he says. In her red latex bodysuit, Britney was no damsel in need of rescuing — she was beginning to take control and assert her womanhood unapologetically. Similarly, “Lucky” was a song ostensibly about Spears’ alter ego: a young superstar who is miserable in spite of her massive success. And yet the pressure to follow up the blockbuster success of her debut album was immense. “The world is spinning and she keeps on winning,” Spears sang in “Lucky.” “But tell me what happens when it stops?” It never felt like she was singing about herself, but rather that she was singing about who she might be if she let all the negative energy directed at her actually sink in. And, in “Stronger,” she proclaimed that sentiment even more brazenly. Referring back to a lyric in “…Baby One More Time,” she announced, “My loneliness ain’t killing me no more. I’m stronger than yesterday.” Spears had been letting other writers give her feelings voice up until her third album, BRITNEY. She had co-written one song from OOPS!…I DID IT AGAIN — the confessional ballad “Dear Diary” — but her tastes in music were getting edgier and her sense of her own voice was strengthening. She had learned to play a little bit of guitar, and she had been jotting down lyrics in her spare time. Sometimes in the bath, she said, an idea would bubble up among the soapsuds. Nonetheless, the two songs on the record that best described where Spears’ head was at were “Overprotected” and “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman.” She was nearly twenty, and in the midst of a difficult transition into adulthood. “I need to make mistakes just to learn who I am,” she sang defiantly. “And I don‘t wanna be so damn protected.” The same fall the album was released, Spears also made her big-screen debut in CROSSROADS, the story about three childhood girlfriends who go on a cross-country road trip and learn some dark truths about themselves along the way. Its plot was not entirely removed from what was going on in Spears’ head at the time: Here she was, on the verge of releasing her third album and about to leave her teen years behind, but feeling like she had so much more to experience before she could really figure out who she was. Part of that process involved experimenting with her sound, moving away from the straight-up I'M NOT A GIRL, NOT YET A WOMAN bubblegum pop and into darker, dancier grooves. “I’m A Slave 4 U” was the most un-Britney-sounding song (M. Martin/Rami/Dido) Zomba Enterprises Inc./Maratone/Warner Chappell Music Ltd. (PRS) (adm. by WB MusicCorp.) (ASCAP) Produced by she’d done yet, but its vaguely Middle Eastern flavor and pulsating rhythm have exerted tremendous influence Max Martin and Rami • Recorded at Maratone Studios, Stockholm, Sweden • Lead Vocals Recorded by Michael Tucker at Battery Studios, NYC on her subsequent singles. Produced by The Neptunes’ Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams, “I’m A Slave 4 U” Assistant Engineer at Battery Studios: Charles McCrorey • Mixed by Max Martin and Rami at Maratone Studios, Stockholm, Sweden • Pro Tools was twitchy and languid at the same time, like an off-kilter bellydance.