b. Britney Jean Spears, 2 December 1981, Kentwood, Louisiana, USA. One of the biggest teenage pop superstars to emerge at the end of the twentieth century, Britney Spears enjoyed her breakthrough success in 1998. She appeared in local dance revues and church choirs as a young girl, and at the age of eight auditioned for The Mickey Mouse Club. Although she was too young to join the series, a producer on the show gave her an introduction to a New York agent. She subsequently spent three summers at the Professional Performing Arts School Center and appeared in a number of off-Broadway productions as a child actor, including Ruthless (1991). She returned to the Disney Channel for a spot on The Mickey Mouse Club, where she was featured for two years between the ages of 11 and 13.
Spears began to audition for pop bands in the New York area, her demo tapes eventually landing on the desk of Jive Records' Jeff Fenster. "Her vocal ability and commercial appeal caught me right away," he recalls. Spears was expensively groomed by Jive, who put her in the studio with Eric Foster White (producer and writer for Boyzone, Whitney Houston and others). They employed top R&B writer Max Martin (of Backstreet Boys fame) to produce her debut single, "... Baby, One More Time', and an album of the same title. They also set up a promotional free phone number where fans could listen to Spears" music and interviews throughout the summer of 1998. She toured American venues for a series of concerts sponsored by US teen magazines, eventually joining *NSYNC on tour. The careful planning paid off when her debut album and single went on to top the US charts at the start of 1999. The album and single enjoyed similar success in the UK and Europe. The ballad "Sometimes" and the funky "(You Drive Me) Crazy" were also substantial transatlantic hits, and "Born To Make You Happy" topped the UK charts in January 2000.
By now Spears had become a bona fide media sensation, although the discrepancy between her professed sexual innocence and her titillating image (notably dressing as a schoolgirl for the video to "... Baby, One More Time"), was the cause for much debate about her status as a role model for teenage girls. Her success also prompted the emergence of a new wave of teen divas, notably Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson and Pink. The demand for new Spears material was satisfied when her second album, Oops! ... I Did It Again, was released in May 2000. The album contained the expected quota of well-produced, expertly crafted pop songs, including the title track, "Lucky", "Stronger" and "Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know", alongside a risible cover version of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". The singer's relationship with *NSYNC's Justin Timberlake meant she was rarely out of the public eye, although Spears was still rather half-heartedly preaching abstinence until marriage.
Spears' self-titled third album was a laboured attempt to cultivate a more mature approach, with the singer also going a long way towards shedding her puritanical image. Although its initial sales were not as strong as her previous two albums, Britney shot straight to the top of the US album chart on its release in November 2001 for a brief stay. Spears' mainstream film debut, Crossroads, was released the following February to a rousing chorus of critical disapproval. Her fourth album saw the singer moving further away from teen pop, disposing of the services of Max Martin and cultivating a sexually charged adult image at odds with the flirtatious schoolgirl of her earlier albums. In The Zone, released in November 2003, included a collaboration with Madonna on "Me Against The Music" (the two singers had already raised some eyebrows by snogging on stage at the MTV Video Music awards in August). Despite mixed reviews, In The Zone repeated the success of her other albums in debuting at the top of the US charts.
A bizarre sequence of events shot the singer into the headlines at the start of 2004. She married her childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas on 3 January, but the marriage was swiftly annulled two days later and dismissed by her management as "a joke too far". Away from the tabloid gossip Spears notched up her fourth UK number one single when the excellent "Toxic" topped the charts in March. "Everytime" repeated the success three months later.
In September, the singer married Kevin Federline and announced she was taking a hiatus from her career to concentrate on her marriage. Spears subsequently won her first Grammy when "Toxic" picked up the Best Dance Recording award in February 2005. Later in the year she appeared with Federline in the UPN reality television show Britney And Kevin: Chaotic, and on 14 September the couple celebrated the birth of their son Sean. A second son followed in September 2006, but shortly afterwards Spears and Federline announced they were divorcing. The singer was rarely out of the headlines in the following year, behaving in a bizarre fashion (including shaving her hair off), landing a charge for misdemeanour hit-and-run, and losing custody of her children. That she managed to find the time to record a new album was remarkable, with Blackout hitting the shelves at the end of 2007.
