Britney Spears
More than any other single artist, Britney Spears was the driving force behind the return of teen pop in the late ’90s. The blockbuster success of the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys certainly paved the way for her own commercial breakthrough, but Spears didn’t just become a star - she was a bona fide pop phenomenon. Not only did she sell millions of records, she was a media fixture regardless of what she was or wasn’t doing; among female singers of the era (many of whom followed in her footsteps), her celebrity star power was rivaled only by Jennifer Lopez.
Britney Jean Spears was born December 2, 1982, in the small town of Kentwood, LA, and began performing as a singer and dancer at a young age. She was destined for stardom. “Even as a little baby, Britney was a real darling… she was always being noticed.” Says Lynne Spears, Britney’s mother. With a nationally televised appearance on Star Search already under her belt, Spears auditioned for the Disney Channel’s The New Mickey Mouse Club at age eight. The producers turned her down as too young, but one of them took an interest and introduced her to an agent in New York. Spears spent the next three years studying at the Professional Performing Arts School, and also appeared in several television commercials and off-Broadway plays. At 11, she returned to The New Mickey Mouse Club for a second audition, and this time made the cut. Although her fellow Mouseketeers included an impressive array of future stars - *NSYNC’s Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez, Christina Aguilera, and Felicity actress Keri Russell - the show was canceled after Spears’ second season. She returned to New York at age 15 and set about auditioning for pop bands and recording demo tapes, one of which eventually landed her a deal with Jive Records.
Spears entered the studio with top writer/producers like Eric Foster White (Boyzone, Whitney Houston, Backstreet Boys) and Max Martin (Ace of Base, Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC). In late 1998, Jive released her debut single, the Martin-penned Baby One More Time. Powered by its video, in which Spears and a troupe of dancers were dressed as a school girl, the single shot to the top of the Billboard charts. When Spears’ debut album of the same title was released in early 1999, it entered the charts at number one and stayed there for six weeks. Once the ubiquitous lead single died down, the album kept spinning off hits: the Top Ten (You Drive Me) Crazy, the near-Top 20 ballad Sometimes, and the Top 20 From the Bottom of My Broken Heart. By the end of 1999, ‘… Baby One More Time’ had sold ten million copies, and went on to sell a good three million more on top of that. Its success touched off a wave of young pop divas that included Christina Aguilera, Pink, Jessica Simpson, and Mandy Moore. Spears was a superstar.
By the time ‘…Baby One More Time’ finally started to lose steam on the singles and album charts, Spears was ready to release her follow-up. Oops!…I Did It Again appeared in the spring of 2000, and the title track was an instant smash, racing into the Top Ten. The album entered the charts at number one and sold over a million copies in its first week of release, setting a new record for single-week sales by a female artist. Follow-up singles included Lucky, the gold-selling Stronger, and Don’t Let Me Be the Last to Know, which was co-written by country diva Shania Twain and her producer Mutt Lange. A year after its release, Oops!…I Did It Again had sold over nine million copies.
For her next album, Spears looked ahead to a not-so-distant future when both she and much of her audience would be growing up. Released in late 2001, Britney tried to present the singer as a more mature young woman. It became her third straight album to debut at number one. In early 2002, Spears’ feature-film debut, Crossroads, hit theatres. Spears next made a cameo appearance in Mike Myers’ Austin Powers: Goldmember, and contributed a remix of ‘Boys’ to the soundtrack. Spears then took a break from recording and performing for several months, and began work on a her fourth album In The Zone, in early 2003. Britney’s musical intensity and her evolution from a teen renegade into a provocative young woman are undeniable throughout In The Zone. First and foremost, the project shows her flexing notably strong and mature songwriting muscles. She co-wrote 7 of the project’s 12 sterling new compositions. “Putting this record together was an incredible journey for me,” Britney says. “I had the freedom to explore and experiment with some of the most exciting people in music. In the end, that allowed me to make a record that is a pure reflection of where I am right now.”
