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Britney Spears Biography
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Britney Jean Spears was born
Dec. 2, 1981 in the small Southern town of Kentwood, Louisiana where she
has lived most of her life. She started performing at a very young age,
first in local stage productions and church choirs, later in national
commercials and off-Broadway plays, and finally starting at age 11 in two
seasons of The Mickey Mouse Club TV show alongside future 'N Sync members
Joshua "JC" Chasez and Justin Timberlake. After leaving MMC in
'94, she auditioned for an all-girl singing group but instead wound up
with a solo recording deal with Jive Records, home to similarly-minded
teen-pop sensations the Backstreet Boys.
Jive savvily and aggressively marketed Britney to the Backstreet crowd, by
including her songs on a Backstreet Boys CD sampler, offering free
previews of her video (which features the pop starlet doing her best
Lolita impression in a very short plaid Catholic schoolgirl skirt and
skintight baby tee) to anyone who requested the Backstreet Boys'
"I'll Never Break Your Heart" video on cable music channel the
Box, getting her a slot alongside the Boys on the Sabrina The Teenage
Witch soundtrack, and landing her generous coverage in teenybopper mags
like Superteen, Bop, Teen Machine and Teen People--all this before her
debut album, the somewhat suggestively titled ...Baby One More Time, even
came out! (Rumors of Britney's romances with 'N Sync's Timberlake and
Backstreet's Nick Carter--which Britney has denied, though she admits that
Justin gave her her first kiss back in the MMC days--probably helped
generate interest as well.) The boy-band connections didn't end there,
either; Britney toured with 'N Sync, and also enlisted the management team
of Johnny and Donna Wright, the Backstreet Boys' former managers and the
current managers of--you guessed it--'N Sync.
All this cross-marketing
obviously paid off, as ...Baby One More Time's first single (the title
track) went to No. 1, and the album also debuted in the top spot on the
Billboard charts, making Britney the youngest female artist in Billboard
history to have her first single and first album go to No. 1 in the same
week.
With cutesy song titles like "Soda Pop," "Email My
Heart" and "Born To Make You Happy"--not to mention
appearances in McDonald's commercials and Tommy Hilfiger print ads--it was
easy to dismiss Britney Spears as a pretty puppet whose sole purpose in
the mega-marketing food chain was to push products of any kind, be they
record albums, Big Macs, or various pieces of merchandise bearing her
perky blonde likeness.
But Britney proved her initial success was no fluke with Oops!…I Did It
Again. Spurred on by the hit title track, the album entered the album
chart at No. 1, setting a new record for single-week sales by a female
artist in the process. A string of hit singles followed, including
"Lucky," "Stronger" and "Don't Let Me Be The Last
To Know," pushing the album to sales of an incredible 9 million
copies.
Adding to Britney's star
appeal was the admission that she was dating fellow former Mouseketeer and
*NSYNC member Justin Timberlake.
With the release of 2001's Britney, Spears attempted to grow out of her
teen-dream image, admitting as much in one of the album's singles,
"I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman." Like her previous two albums,
Britney also entered on top of the chart, but her star was beginning to
dim slightly, as parents of her young fans likely steered their children
away from the now-naughty Britney. While the album's first single, the
Janet Jackson-like "I'm A Slave 4 U" reached No. 8, the
subsequent singles from the album failed to crack the top 10.
Making matters worse was her big-screen debut Crossroads, which flopped
miserably. Britney redeemed herself slightly was an amusing turn as a
fembot in Austin Powers: Goldmember and managed to stay in the gossip
columns with news of her breakup with Timberlake and subsequent dating and
nightclubbing episodes.
Prior to the release of her
fourth album in the fall of 2003, Britney again made headlines when she
played tongue tag with Madonna during an opening tribute to the Material
Mom at the 2003 MTV Music Video Awards. Madonna returned the favor by
appearing on the recording and in the video of "Me Against The
Music," the first single from Spears's In The Zone.
Britney Spears Links
Britney
Spears Website |
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