Britney Spears 'Oops!...I Did It Again'

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It's not enough for Britney Spears to dominate the international teen-queen market - she's now trying her hand at being a best-selling author!... Together with her mother Lynne (who is also Britney'd best friend) she has written her first book Heart To Heart, her life story so far. 

Yes, I sort of said I was going to stop with the albums ending in 6 but in the end this one kind of leapt out at me. Maybe it's the nice bright colours on the cover that look appealing in November and December (the album was originally released in July 2000) but there are plenty of tracks on here that seem memorable.

And we start with one of the big hits of that summer alright. The lead single from the second album by the biggest new star of the day was obviously a big moment for all concerned, and there's a lot of investment and not a lot of risk-taking going on here. As the title hints, the song refines the musical template of ''...Baby One More Time' rather than reinventing her (they even repeat "Oh baby baby.." in the chorus). That should be a bad thing but in practice this is a fun track to hear for the majority of its running time. At the time I preferred to her first hit, partly because it was less overplayed and partly because it lacked that masochistic overtone. Both these things are still true of course, although this one hasn't aged as well musically - the massed backing vocals on the chorus sound very turn-of-the-century somehow - and it still has its greatest flaw, that awful spoken section in the middle that just about works in the video but is bizarre and annoying in sound-only.

It's kind of strange to think now that when she sings "I'm not that innocent" on this song, it's a sign of how innocent she then was.

Also appearing on: Now 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 57, 58, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 78
Available on: Oops! I Did It Again - The Best Of Britney Spears