How was I supposed to know that something wasn't right here?

Continuing my trip back through the 1999 album charts.

11/07/99 : ...Baby One More Time - Britney Spears

I've got a bit of a soft spot for Britney but, with the exception of the title track, I'm somewhat at a loss as to how much of this album I'm going to know, so I'm not expecting it to be a classic.  And no, we never owned it - 10/25.

And, well let's just start with that title track, shall we?  I won't hear a word against it as a slice of teen/bubblegum/whatever-you-want-to-call-it pop - although one of the remixes on the album version does a very good job of ruining it.  It was written for Britney by Max Martin, who took me down a very pleasing Wikipedia rabbit hole - he's the third most successful songwriter in terms of US #1 singles (after the little known pair of Lennon & McCartney) with other tracks he's created including Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way", Katy Perry's "I KIssed A Girl" & "Roar",Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" & "Blank Space" and The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights".  None of which may be your cup of tea, but you can't deny they do what they're supposed to.  And "...Baby One More Time" is up there with his best work imho.

Anyways - back to the rest of Britney's album.  Does the rest of it soar over the same high quality bar?  Well - what do you think?  Go on - guess...

Does it fuck.  Some of it isn't dreadful - "Born To Make You Happy" and "(You Drive Me) Crazy" were two other singles from the album that I didn't remember but they were bearable.  But a lot of it is very average, with "Soda Pop" in particular deserving a mention for being absolutely appalling.  I found "The Beat Goes On" annoying because I knew it was a cover but I would never have remembered it was All Seeing I's version I was thinking of - if you think they sound somewhat similar, it's possibly because All Seeing I produced Britney's version.  I was somewhat surprised to hear the original version was from all the way back in 1967 by Sonny & Cher - it's certainly, err, something.

We're all the way down at #10 in the charts this week on her 18th week of an 85 week run, with it peaking at #2 in her 47th week (obviously) - it's actually spent 103 weeks on the charts in total with it last being seen in '05.  The top five this week were Boyzone, Shania, The Chemical Brothers, Jamiroquai and Whitney (which is a slightly more varied chart than we've often seen this year) and the highest new entry was Jennifer Lopez (#14).

Wikipedia (unsurprisingly) has a massive amount on the album (476 milliPeppers) - to be absolutely honest I just couldn't be bothered with it all, so let's just go with the fact that the album "garnered mixed reviews from music critics, with many praising its commercial appeal but deeming it silly and premature".  It's fair to say that the critics opinion was not in the slightest bit important - it sold over 14 million copies in the US and 25 million copies globally.  Wow - just wow.

"Customers also listened to" Spice Girls, Christina Aguilera, *NSync and Backstreet Boys - Xtina wins out of that lot for me.  Certainly when compared with this Britney album, but I can't say I've really been put off the lass - this is just one of those things she had to do (OK - she was forced to do) which was never going to appeal to me.  And, if you've got any sense, it won't appeal to you either.  I've also been a bit unfair in showing you the US album cover - it's so much more horrible than the international version that I just felt I had to include it.

11/07/99 - Fine, I guess
18/07/99 - Some very fine tracks indeed