FEATURE:
Stronger
Britney Spears’ Oops!…I Did It Again at Twenty-Five: Spotlighting a Record-Setting Album
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ON 16th May, 2000…
IN THIS PHOTO: Britney Spears in 2000/PHOTO CREDIT: Imago images/ZUMA Wire
Britney Spears’ second studio album, Oops!... I Did It Again, was released. It’s twenty-fifth anniversary will be celebrated by fans. This is an anniversary vinyl reissue that is well worth investing in. Her second studio album was broadly similar to her 1999 debut, ..Baby One More Time. However, there is this sense of bringing in new genres like R&B and Funk. Tougher and cooler perhaps. A huge chart success and one of the most popular and biggest albums of the early-2000s, it has undoubtable inspired so many artists since. You can look at modern Pop artists like Charli xcx and Dua Lipa and there are definite shades of Britney Spears in their work. I remember when Oops!... I Did It Again came out. Its titular single came out before the album was released and created a storm. That said, the title track of ..Baby One More Time created even more attention! That video makes me feel a bit uneasy, as you get the feeling Spears was being exploited and there was this slightly uneasy aspect. It has not dated that well. However, there was definite growth on Oops!... I Did It Again. Its ballads are largely impressive and its biggest numbers, such as the title track and Stronger, are among the defining Pop songs of their day. Even though Britney Spears has not released new material for a long time – and might never release another album -, I know that she is very proud of what she created in 2000. An amazing artist who I was a big fan of, there is more than one reason why I wanted to spotlight the album. Even though, amazingly, it is twenty-five, it does sound contemporary. So many artists embodying elements of Britney Spears’ second studio album.
Also, Oops!…I Did It Again debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 and quickly became the fastest-selling L.P. by a female solo artist in chart history. Maybe not a surprise but, as Spears was only nineteen when the album came out, it was perhaps a lot of pressure. This expectation on her shoulders. Oops!…I Did It Again soon passed the ten million mark. That made Britney Spears the youngest artist to earn multiple Diamond certification. Think about many of the trailblazing and record-setting female artists today and they owe a debt to Britney Spears. In terms of how she opened doors. An icon and inspiration for them. Even if many are mixed towards Oops!…I Did It Again, you cannot deny the legacy and importance of the album. It is amazing to think of those achievements! I was seventeen when Oops!…I Did It Again came out. I could see how the Pop scene was changing and evolving. There was this exciting wave of talent. Britney Spears was very much at the forefront. I think her second studio album is really strong and deserved all of its commercial success. Critics were perhaps not as consistent and kind. However, there are some positive reviews I want to highlight. I will start out with AllMusic and their four-star take on Oops!…I Did It Again:
“Given the phenomenal success of Britney Spears' debut, ...Baby One More Time, it should come as no surprise that its sequel offers more of the same. After all, she gives away the plot with the ingenious title of her second album, Oops!...I Did It Again, essentially admitting that the record is more of the same. It has the same combination of sweetly sentimental ballads and endearingly gaudy dance-pop that made One More Time. Fortunately, she and her production team not only have a stronger overall set of songs this time, but they also occasionally get carried away with the same bewildering magpie aesthetic that made the first album's "Sodapop" -- a combination of bubblegum, urban soul, and raga -- a gonzo teen pop classic. It doesn't happen all that often -- the clenched-funk revision of the Stones' deathless "Satisfaction" is the most obvious example -- but it helps give the album character apart from the well-crafted dance-pop and ballads that serve as its heart. In the end, it's what makes this an entertaining, satisfying listen”.
I am going to wrap up soon. However, I wanted to bring in an NME review. Perhaps you might feel they would be predisposed to take against an artist like Britney Spears, they do concede how she is a massive artist that many people, whether they like to admit it or not, are fans. I think that her early albums, though a little patchy, are still brilliant. It is good there has been a twenty-fifth anniversary reissue. It will give old and new fans a chance to experience an album that conquered the world and broke records:
“Against cynical opinion, the reason why [a]Britney Spears[/a] has sold 28 million albums across the globe is because she’s modern-day pop perfection realised in a, nearly, human form. Like it or not, the songs penned for Britney by Swedish producer Max Martin, the man behind the even more successful Backstreet Boys, get into your brain like ketamine. An all-encompassing, horrendously realised high – once it’s inside you, there’s little you can do to stop it, you must give in. In its own sick way, Britney is drug music.
Case in point is album opener and comeback single ‘Oops! I Did It Again’. Essentially a harder, carbon copy of ‘Baby One More Time’, it’s easily as good as her breakthrough single. You get your fix in a second of the song opening – the taut ’80s Michael Jackson riffs, the squeals, the killer chorus, the uplifting middle bit, it’s all in there. Did you really think she’d let you down?
There’s the deranged helium synth pop of ‘Stronger’ with the huge ABBA chord change in the chorus that sounds scarier and more robotic than the Backstreet Boys. The 21st-century R&B of Timbaland is bastardised, beaten and strangled to within an inch of its life with ‘Don’t Go Knockin’ On My Door’ while the Mutt Lange-penned ‘Don’t Let Me Be The Last To Know’ takes the riff from Iggy/Bowie‘s ‘China Girl’ and puts it over schmaltzy cocktail-hour bass and love film strings. It’s absolutely frightening.
So, the long-awaited – and ill-advised – cover of the Stones‘ ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ is a letdown, but soon-to-be-single ‘Lucky’ is perhaps Britney‘s finest moment. The ultimate mallrat, bittersweet teenage symphony. It’s Britney‘s ‘Where Did It All Go Wrong?’. A heart-rending tale of life at the top of the teen pop tree, transformed into an anthem for dramatic, moody 12-year-old girls everywhere by Max Martin‘s scary talent for teenybop lyrics. “If there’s nothing missing in my life/Then why do these tears come at night?” sounds pretty fucking heavy when you’ve just been dumped and Britney‘s [I]Mickey Mouse Club[/I]-trained falsetto is reaching its peak.
Sorry, but she’s done it again – the difficult second album proved to be a piece of piss. Whether the fickle world of the Top Ten will let it happen again remains to be seen, but in the absence of anything else (hello, Christina Aguilera) Britney‘s going to walk it.
On the sly, you know you love it”.
Although a lot has been written about Oops!… I Did It Again’s title track, there has not been too much written album the album. How it changed the Pop landscape and how instrumental it was in 2000. At the start of this new century, an artist who broke through at the end of the previous one put out this incredible work. Classic Pop reported on the release of the anniversary reissue of an album that Britney Spears recalls fondly. Even if it was a crazy time where her image was everywhere and she had all this press attention – still being marketed as a sex symbol and there were some questionable motives from her label and management -, it is a massive sucecss that announced her as a modern Pop titan:
“In 1999, Britney reached international superstar status with the massive chart-topping commercial success of her debut album, …Baby One More Time. With all eyes and ears on the evolving young artist, Oops!… I Did It Again proved a musical bridge into the new century, with Britney Spears building on the foundation of her debut.
Oops!… I Did It Again was a massive commercial success worldwide, debuting at No.1 in over 20 countries, except the UK where it was kept from the top spot by Whitney Houston’s Greatest Hits. However, the title track topped the UK singles chart on release in May 2000 and follow-up singles Lucky and Stronger also broke the Top 10.
Exciting Times
On the release of Oops!… I Did It Again (25th Anniversary), Britney said: “Thank you to my fans. This album was recorded at such an exciting time in my life, and I’m so grateful to my incredible fans for keeping the legacy of this album alive!”
Available in digital and 2LP 12″ vinyl formats, the newly-expanded 25th anniversary edition of Britney’s sophomore LP contains the original album in its entirety and offers 10 collectible bonus tracks including rarities and two new remixes Stronger (Adamusic Remix) and Oops!…I Did It Again (Pessto Remix) – created especially for this release”.
A salute to the mighty and phenomenal Oops!… I Did It Again. It is, in my view, one of the most important Pop albums ever. The fact that it became the fastest-selling album by a female solo artist in chart history was not just because of her popularity and hype. Millions of people connecting with the music. All of these years later and you can see and feel how it changed Pop. Following her hugely popular debut album, ...Baby One More Time, with its mega-selling follow-up, Britney Spears proved that brilliance and success…
WAS no fluke.