Britney Jean Spears

Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an iconic American pop singer, songwriter
and dancer. Her
career encompasses chart-topping records, high-profile advertising,
and forays into acting
and reality television. She remains very popular
throughout the world despite some controversy
surrounding the perceived sexual nature of her music and image.


Biography

Childhood and discovery




Born to Jamie Spears, a building contractor,
and Lynne Bridges, a grade school teacher, in McComb, Mississippi,
USA and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana,
Spears performed in local dance revues and church choirs as a young
girl, and was auditioning for the Disney
Channel's New Mickey Mouse Club by the time she was
eight. Although she was too young to join the series at that time, a producer
on the show introduced her to a New York agent; she subsequently spent three summers at
the Professional Performing Arts School Center and also appeared in a number of
off-Broadway
productions, including 1991's
pop hit Ruthless! along with actress Natalie
Portman. In 1992,
she landed a spot on Star Search and altthough she won the first round,
she was beaten by another contestant in the second.


Spears then returned to the Disney
Channel for a spot on the New Mickey Mouse Club and was accepted.
She was featured for two years between the ages of eleven and thirteen during
the 1993 and 1994 seasons. Her
castmates on the show included Justin
Timberlake and Joshua Chasez (who later became members of the pop
group *NSYNC),
Keri
Russell (star of the TV show Felicity),
fellow pop singer Christina Aguilera, and actor Ryan
Gosling.


Before long, Spears had recorded a demo tape, which
eventually landed in the hands of a Jive
Records executive. She was quickly signed to their label and began touring
American venues for a series of concerts sponsored by U.S. teen
magazines before joining *NSYNC and becoming their opening act. It was at this
time that Spears became romantically involved with Timberlake.




1998-2001: Early commercial success










...Baby One More Time is Spears' most
commercially successful album both in the U.S. and internationally.


By late 1998, Spears' debut single
"...Baby One More Time" was
beginning to impact radio stations and MTV. Led by a music video
that featured the 5'4" brown-eyed bottle blonde dressed as a racy
schoolgirl, among other belly-baring outfits that would soon become her
trademark, the song became an international success, earning Platinum
sales and going to number one in the U.S., as well as the United
Kingdom, Canada
and Australia,
among many other countries.


Her debut album of the same name, ...Baby One More Time, topped the LP charts in Canada and the U.S. for six non-consecutive weeks.
Within a year of the record's release, the album had become the best-selling LP
by a teenager in history, spawned two U.S. top ten hits (in "...Baby"
and "(You Drive Me) Crazy") and shipped over
ten million copies in the U.S. alone; it would go on to ship another four
million copies on top of this.


In April of 1999,
she was featured on the cover of Rolling
Stone magazine. The sexually suggestive Lolita-themed photo spread began a whirlwind
of rumors that the still-seventeen-year-old had gotten breast
implants. These claims were denied by Spears' camp, and seemed to have
little impact on the young starlet's rising popularity.


That summer, she kicked off her first headlining tour, titled the ...Baby One More Time Tour. By late
1999, Britney Spears had become one of the year's biggest stars, a claim
backed-up in the amount of award nominations she received that season. In
December, she took home four Billboard Music Awards, including Female
Artist of the Year, and the next month won for Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist at
the American Music Awards.


At the Grammys held in February
2000, Spears received two nominations, including one for Best
New Artist. She performed her signature
song "...Baby One More Time" and her then-current single, the top
twenty hit "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart"
at the show, but went home empty-handed, losing the aforementioned award to
fellow ex-mouseketeer Christina Aguilera.


After the short-lived Crazy
2K Tour and just two months after her debut began to die down in steam,
Spears was ready to release the lead single off her sophomore effort. "Oops!... I Did It Again" broke
a record for most radio station adds in a single day ^[1]
and quickly became a U.S.
top ten hit and number one single in other countries, including the U.K. and Australia.








Oops!... I Did It Again became a massive
commercial success upon its 2000 release.


Released in May
2000, Oops!... I Did It Again also debuted at
number one in the U.S. and Canada, and was
a similarly huge hit like her debut. It sold over 1.3 million units during its
first week in the U.S.,
making it the fastest-selling album by a female artist in history. Within a
year of release, it had shipped over nine million copies in the U.S. alone (and
would go on to ship another million on top of that).


That summer was another busy one for Spears, as she kicked off her first
world tour (titled the Oops!... I Did It Again World Tour) and also
became an author
after co-writing the novel
Britney Spears' Heart-to-Heart
with her mother Lynne. At the annual MTV Video Music Awards, she gave a lip-synched
performance of "Oops!... I Did It Again" and The Rolling Stones' classic hit, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction."
During her performance, she ripped off a black suit to reveal a provocative
nude-colored and crystal-adorned stage costume that caused quite a bit of
controversy, seeing as the singer was only eighteen at the time.


Through the year, the top thirty "Lucky"
and top twenty "Stronger" kept Britney on the charts. In late 2000, she
won two Billboard Music Awards (one of which honored her for breaking the
record for one week album sales by a female artist). Then, in early 2001,
she hosted the American Music Awards, performed "Stronger" at the
ceremony and was also nominated twice. At the Grammys, one of her two
nominations was for Oops!... I Did It Again in the category of Best Pop Vocal Album. Again, however, she did
not win.

2001-2004: Artistic
development




In early 2001, she struck a $7-8 million USD promotional deal with
the soft drink giant Pepsi;
her first commercial for them premiered during the 2001 Academy
Awards. She then released the follow-up novel to Britney Spears'
Heart-to-Heart, with this one being entitled A
Mother's Gift.








Britney was viewed as a developmental
milestone in Spears' music.


In September 2001, Britney again performed at the MTV
Video Music Awards. This time around, she was dressed in one of her usual
revealing outfits, drenched in 'sweat' and on a jungle stage environment. She
lip-synched her new single "I'm
a Slave 4 U" and danced around the stage with an albino snake. Along
with another blitz of media attention, she was also criticized by the PETA organization for
her use of animals (both the snake and four cheetahs) as a part of her
performance.


In November 2001, she released her third album, Britney. It
debuted at number one on both the U.S.
and Canadian charts, selling over 745,000 units during its first week in the U.S. This made
her the only female artist in SoundScan history to have her first three albums
debut at number one. Over four million copies of the record have been sold in
the U.S.
alone ^[2],
and while this is by no means low, these figures can not compare to the sales
of her first two albums. Britney also failed to spawn any U.S. top ten
hits; in fact, the only successful single released from the album was "I'm
a Slave 4 U," which became a top thirty hit. This album is also notable
for being the first of which Spears really began to take some creative control;
she co-wrote five of the album's tracks. At the same time the album was released,
Spears set off on her next world tour: the Dream Within a Dream Tour.


In 2002, Spears
starred in a movie, Crossroads, which reached number two in
its first week at the box-office charts, but quickly dropped from sight. Songs
from the album Britney appeared in the film. Spears' performance was
very badly received by critics, and she netted herself a Razzie Award for Worst Actress, tied
with Madonna. One of the tracks from Britney,
"I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman," also won the Worst Original Song
award, and in 2005
Spears was again 'honored' by the Golden Raspberry judges when she was
proclaimed Worst Supporting Actress for her cameo role in the documentary Fahrenheit
9/11, which showed her response to a CNN interview question by
Tucker
Carlson, regarding her political views during the then-impending 2003 invasion of Iraq.


On another sour note, Spears' five-year relationship with Justin
Timberlake ended at this time. The break-up became a very publicized event
on the news and in the tabloids, with Britney rumored to have been unfaithful.


In June
2002, Spears branched out as a restaurateur with the opening of a New York City eatery,
NYLA; but the venture was not a success, and the restaurant closed in 2003. A couple of
months later, she took a break from the spotlight, and in 2003 many music
industry critics speculated her career was in decline. That same year, Spears
was nominated for two Grammys yet again, including Best Pop Vocal Album for Britney.


It would not be until August 2003 that Britney truly resurfaced on the music
scene. That month, she appeared in perhaps her most controversial performance
to date with her idol Madonna, pop contemporary Christina Aguilera and rapper Missy
Elliott. Spears and Aguilera performed Madonna's classic hit "Like a Virgin," danced suggestively and
then each locked lips with the pop
icon. In particuliar, the kiss between Madonna and Britney launched a huge
media coverage that would last for months.








In the Zone is generally perceived
as Spears' most overtly sexual album to-date.


In November 2003, In the Zone
was released. Jettisoning the Max Martin-produced synth-pop of her earlier releases,
the album took in lesser-known producers such as RedZone, as well as such big
names as Moby and R. Kelly.
Spears co-wrote eight of the album's thirteen songs and also helped with
producing for the first time. Zone rose straight to the top of the U.S. charts in
its debut week, making Spears the only female in music history to have her
first four albums debut at number one. The record has sold close to three
million copies in the U.S. ^[3]
and spawned the international number one and U.S. top ten hit "Toxic."
The single struck gold not only commercially, but also critically as it helped
Spears win her first Grammy in the category of Best Dance Recording.


On January
3, 2004, Spears married her
childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander at The Little White Wedding Chapel on
the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. An annulment was
promptly arranged and was granted on January 5,
ending their fifty-five hour marriage.


In March, Spears embarked on her fourth world tour, The Onyx Hotel Tour, which grossed over $34
million USD and was seen by over 600,000 fans in North America and Europe. In June, she cancelled the remaining dates of her
tour after reportedly injuring her knee during the filming of the video for her
single "Outrageous." That same month, Spears, 22, announced
her engagement to dancer Kevin Federline, 26. Federline was formerly in a
relationship with actress Shar Jackson, with whom he has two children.


On the night of September 18, 2004, Spears married Federline before
twenty-seven guests in a private, non-denominational ceremony at a residence in
Studio City, California. Spears wore a
strapless, white silk gown by Monique Lhuillier and Federline wore a black tux
by Jeff Fox at Scott Hill. The wedding party famously donned sweatsuits after
the ceremony and ventured out to an L.A. nightclub for an afterparty of drinking, dancing and
full-on partying until after 2 a.m.
The legitimacy of the marriage was initially questioned, but on November 18,
2004 a
representative of the Los Angeles
County registrar's office
confirmed Spears and Federline had successfully filed their marriage license
with the county within ten days of their ceremony and were therefore legally
married.