Welcome to '99 Rewind, our 25th anniversary celebration of the movies, television, and music of 1999. Today, we look back at Britney Spears' whirlwind debut…Baby one more time.
Few pop stars have experienced the cultural changes that Britney Spears has endured. She became a star almost instantly with her debut in 1999. …Drink one more time, While young fans turned her into an idol, while adults with pearls lamented her provocative image. Then the media, the culture at large, and her abusive guardianship all contributed to her public exhaustion, and so the story goes.
With the grace of time, we can recognize the trauma inflicted on Spears for so many years: by her audience, by the media, by her management, by her peers, by her own family. But in doing so, it's easy to overlook the joy and spirit that made Spears shine in the first place. By her own account, Spears was determined to have as much fun as possible with her first LP, and …Drink one more time is perhaps the only album he made when he was really happy.
There is an ecstatic joy running through the entire album. It's in the undeniable craftsmanship of its title track, which Spears described as “one of those songs you want to hear over and over again.” It's in Spears' vocal confidence, which ranges from a throaty growl to a bright, joyful soprano. It is even in her ballads, an important characteristic of …Drink one more time – which are sung with more maturity than most 18-year-olds can muster. And it's definitely on “Soda Pop,” a ska-leaning song that sounds like it was co-written by Baha Men.
Given Spears' upbringing as a child entertainer and Mouseketeer, it's a common inference that she never had agency to begin with. But Spears' recent memoir The woman in me asks to disagree. She describes the making of her debut album as “the time in my life when I was most passionate about music,” characterized by extremely late nights in the studio: “If you knew me then, you wouldn't hear from me for days. . I would stay in the studio as long as I could. If someone wanted to leave, they would say, 'I wasn't perfect.'”
Her determination was matched by Max Martin, whom Spears described as “magical.” Martin's skill in writing and producing pop songs is so meticulous that he seems almost designed in a laboratory; His melodies are puzzle pieces designed to fit together exactly as planned. Such a strong emphasis on details can result in demanding sessions, and considering Spears' young age, it would have been easy for Martin and her fellow Swedes to master the process. Still, Spears remembers the Cherion Studios experience positively as an important turning point in her art. “Max heard me,” Spears writes in her memoir. “When I said I wanted more R&B in my voice, less straight pop, he knew what I meant and made it happen.”
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