...Baby One More Time

Interesting to hear the first record of an immense global pop star. Like what the hell were Soda Pop and The Beat Goes On? I guess she was finding her footing/personality but the singles carry hard (2.5/5)

Couple of classics but overall album wasn’t for me 5/10

35/100 Based on this scale: 1 star - 0 to 19 2 stars - 20 to 39 3 stars - 40 to 59 4 stars - 60 to 79 5 stars - 80 to 100 This is generic bubble-gum pop, with occasional catchy bits. I'll say this much; this is far from the worst album I heard this week, thanks to this list.

Email my heart is one of the most of it's era songs I could ever imagine. The fact that it is followed up by "beat goes on" is excellent too. Really variable quality here. Some undeniable all timer's , then some absolutely basic dirge. Although I tend to not review an album based on the deluxe version extras (in fact I usually skip them), shout out to the David Ospina Radio mix of ...baby one more time - a real Pro Evolution Soccer 6 menu music banger of a remix.

I mean what can I say about this album other than I was born in 1993.. I heard this album so much growing up and personally I'm a britney fan, at least her early days, I mean how could you not be? Especially being born in the era I was.. That being said this album ISN'T perfect no but it does has so many great pop songs on it.. to name a few I mean lets start with the opening track and one of her most famous songs, '...Baby One More Time', which is like saying the words "Pikachu" everyone knows Pikachu.. A great energy song, then we get 'Crazy' which has big psycho energy (early signs) but its such a catchy song.. then we have probably my favorite song on the album, 'Sometimes' its this like ballet-y kind of 90s song and it just feels good.. I love this track. I hated Soda Pop myself, this is what I meant by this album isn't perfect lol.. but then honestly, the later half of this album just was not it. I mean it definitely front loaded this thing but god like this album just kind of feels like a mess, a bunch of different sounds and not like a collective piece which I guess is fine, its pop music but idk, lets just say the second half has a lot of dollar general shopping music on it.. BUT that being said 'Born To Make You Happy' is my SECOND favorite song on this album, it was ALMOST my favorite but like the more I listened to it I thought, "God it's so fucking corny" lol but idk I just like it. 'From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart' is a great break up/broken up/sad song, its got a bit of uhh.. extra.. vocals on it, but its a decent song.. and then, honestly after that like it just gets bad in my opinion, I don't want to get too into the songs but I definitely think the goods on this thing are in the front/middle. Overall: 2.2/5

Surprisingly bad. 2 good songs and ouch

First things first, not my jam... I had to listen to this in headphones at the dead of night so no one would catch me. Obviously it's the monster debut album from the preeminent pop star of the 21st century, starts off strong with the title track but then dips when the second song "You Drive Me Crazy" comes in as it's not the far superior single version. Song three, "Sometimes", is pleasing enough for a mushy pop ballad but thereafter is far more misses than hits and full of emotionless generic pre-millennium pop beats that could have been lifted from a preset library. She would go into better things as far as her career was concerned, but was this as good as it got? It was definitely the biggest commercial success she'd experience but it just felt so empty out with a few fleeting moments.

Mostly boring pop

Si bien entiendo contextualizado lo que fue este disco, hoy en día es inescuchable. La producción es demasiado. La verdad que los únicos instrumentos que son tocados están puesto de forma que parecen irreales o están muy poco presentes. Entre scratches sin sentido, efectos que aparecen una sola vez y sintetizadores molestos que están muy al frente, hacen que decaiga mucho el disco. Obviamente lo único que unen y generan una línea de continuidad es la voz de Britney y las baterías programadas. Si bien existen buenas canciones, la producción muy de la época destruye todo. Hitazo: baby one more time Canción favorita: crazy Sorpresa: born to make you happy

love Brit but no, not to listen to

First song fine obviously knew that. The rest is just bland so bland

No... No place for this on this list

Genre defining 90s bubblegum pop. Although not something I would ever listen to on my own it seems pretty obvious why it is so popular. Repetitive angsty teenager lyrics that are easy to sing and simple 4/4 beats for dancing. The entire oozes a predictable premanufactured cheesiness.

To bangers, resten høres it som Boyzvoice

Made me want to revisit other albums of this time period. Full of nostalgia and I was surprised how many songs I knew. Still, the lyrics are pretty corny and the vocal style is distracting and doesn’t hold up.

innocuous pop for the most part. the slow ballad songs are forgettable, the big singles are kind of catchy, hard to pinpoint why it caught on so much at the time, 1999 was a weird time in music.

The hits are catchy, the rest isn't for me. Just feels like filler.

Pop music like this is not for me. I had to suffer through my sisters listening to this album over and over growing up. They aren't terrible songs, definitely catchy, but very over-produced.

Very nostalgic. First few (singles) were good. Rest of the album was only ok. Honestly felt like filler songs.

How can the singles be so good and the rest of the album so terrible?

One of the best selling albums of all time. It's pretty wild really. Hard to get thru but I recognize the pop sensation on a couple of these singles. I wonder how many of the nearly 20 MILLION people that purchased this album listened to more than 3 of the songs on it. Glad its over.

Largely forgettable pop album beyond the singles. Which may have been the strategy..

who the fuck knew brocolli spears did a cover of the beat goes on? wild. it's not even an altered version, it's just a direct singalong to the all seeing i version that was released a year earlier. were they trying to make her hip or something? anyway that aside, it's nice to see that churning 16 year olds through the 90s pop machine creates such stable individuals.

Pretty dated, and way too long. I mean, it's not unbearable, but I did not get a lot from this album.

ehhhhhh About 3 songs in, I was ready to write something like "This album is actually good and some people are just not ready for that conversation" Was ready for a good chuckle at the song "Email My Heart", but I have no recollection of hearing it even though I definitely put it on 10 minutes ago. I started to dissociate after track 5 At least "The Beat Goes On" is a pretty good finish HL: "...Baby One More Time", "(You Drive Me) Crazy", "Soda Pop" September 21, 2023

Vapid dance pop. Yes, some of the tunes are catchy but the lyrics are shallow at best. This is teenybopper stuff more concerned with what the video will look like than the actual music.

Ughh..how did this make it on the list. I understand it has cultural relevance for the time but so do bell-bottoms and cholera.

Kivan melodista, tai melodisesti kivaa. Mutta en voi kuluttaa musiikkia, jonka soinnilliseen luonteeseen suhtaudun ärtyneellä huvittuneisuudella.

As a teenager, I hated the singles off this whenever they came on the radio. Now, as an adult, I can acknowledge they are bops, well-constructed pop anthems. Unfortunately, the deep cuts on this album do not live up.

I dont understand why she can't pronounce the word baby correctly, when it is in the title of the album. Her inability to sing leaves me baffled as to why anyone ever liked this album. Not a fan.

A couple of killer tracks and then farts ‘till the end.

Baby One More Time is a great song. A lot of the rest of this album sucks though

A couple of hit singles at the start, which do take me back to when I was a younger fella. But on the whole this is dated, saccharine sweet pop music.

Vacuous tripe.

2.4 this started off with a bang and kinda went meh after the first three tracks fave songs: drive me crazy, baby one more time

Oh baby baby, if I was a 12 Yr old starry eyed girl I'd think this was a good album... doh! This album is the definition of factory manufactured music and artist. Apart from the lead single, which was Britneys trademark song, the album is very boring and factory created.. not for me this one!

Made it through about 5 songs, that was enough. 2 stars.

I was hoping nostalgia would carry this, but it's really just forgettable and kind of cheesy pop, with some really nasally singing.

Such a massive album in terms of influence and wake for my generation. That being said, I just can't honestly say I enjoy it much. Things would get way more interesting later with tracks like "Toxic" which totally kick ass. This just feels a bit dated and even creepy in a certain light.

4/10. Yeah, I didn't really care for this. Felt like she was trying to sound like Tina Turner, but just wasn't great at it. And I'm sure the music sounded revolutionary when this came out or something, but now…

I didn't dislike it

I've been saving this one for a special time, and I can think of no better than my 500th album. I have never heard this album straight through, but this came out during my childhood and I have definitely heard it second hand bleeding through the door of my sister's bedroom. ...Baby One More Time deserves whatever flowers people have given it. This is great pop with all of the period production. As soon as the piano line drops you can't help but hear the whole thing play out in your head. Add also the funky little slap bass line :chefkiss: Ya know a reggae inspired pop song was not at all what I expected... Also not great. Born to Make You Happy is a better return to form. I like the instrumental here with the layering of the piano and wah'd out effects. The back half of the album really slipped by without anything notable (except for Thinkin' About You, which is a fun little R&B-inspired pop song). She certainly has a voice, but the overprocessed bubble gum 90s pop sound doesn't do a whole lot for me. Nothing I out right hated; nothing I loved. For me this is a high 2 verging on a 3.

The album cover is kinda weird. It has a few fun pop bops on it, but it's not a genre designed for a whole 11 track album

Good art is made of good choices and it’s become pretty clear that Brittney wasn’t making a lot of choices. Not a personal slam on Brittney. I think she’s great. I just don’t think this album is.

It’s Britney bitch. Kind of weird to see this making the list but alright. The first couple songs are pretty standard pop hits that covered the early 00s. Everything else on this album was some pretty bad generic pop that seemed made in a lab to get as many listens as possible. The featured and R&B cohesion was a big miss on this album and out of place. This was only worth listening to the beginning and that’s it. 4.6/10

Britney's voice is annoying but there's some good melodic song writing. I might have like it more if Christina Aguilera sang it.

Not for me.

Title track is a stone cold banger. Some other decent singles but largely a load of shite

I thought I liked Britney spears more but did not really enjoy this album that much. The only song u actually like is Crazy, as it's been my favorite Britney song forever. but the rest just weren't my style. since she's an icon, and since crazy is one of my all time favorite pop songs, I'll be kind about my ranking. favorite track: crazy!!

My first instinct was to wonder whether it is legal to look at this album cover. I was, obviously, familiar with the title track (and consider it incredibly catchy), but I never realised it was packaged this way. Anyway, legal musings aside, the music itself is of the repetitive, artificial, boring, an uninspiring nature that modern pop music grew to become over the years (since the early to mid nineties, if you ask me). So, yes, one good song, the rest can remain hidden.

This starts off strong with the title track that everyone knows, and Crazy (which I would expect most people, like me, would know it if they heard it). After that, it's a really uninspiring saccharine tour through various genres (Britney + reggae = total fucking shite!) and painful cliche; it feels really, really dated. And it's an hour long (if you include the two remixes of the single). 2/5.

This 1001 albums project has utterly failed with the inclusion of this album. This is no album - this is a more expensive version of the single ‘…Baby One More Time’. That’s all the consumer needed. The consumer thought they might get more of the same. But nothing else here is as good as that track - indeed, much of the rest is laughably poor, surely rushed, designed to capitalise off the success of the single as fast as possible. Now, the *song ‘…Baby One More Time’ is an outstanding pop record. And if this was 1,001 songs etc it would have to be included. But this project is not that. We did get more of the same eventually - ‘Oops!... I Did It Again‘ Is ostensibly the same song (even down to the ‘…’), before Britney’s immortality was assured with the magnificent ‘Toxic’ probably the greatest song of the 21st century.

I don’t think there is enough substance here to land on 1001.

First 2 songs are timeless jams. Sodapop was fun but not necessarily a good song. Rest of the album I am fully happy with leaving in 1999

The first two songs are very solid. Mostly bubblegum bullshit after that until "The Beat Goes On" which I actually enjoyed. Just really wanted to turn it off besides those 3 songs though.

Aight well, title track is obviously extremely influential in terms of the pop landscape then and even still today. My sister loved it, I hated it... but teenage self still thought she was cute, of course. Rest of the album is pretty meh, for me at least. I'm not the demographic and pop in general is not my thing. I love that there is a track called "E-Mail My Heart", hyphen and all. Peak 90s.

—I think when she says “Oh baby baby” it sounds like she’s saying “Oh bathin’ bathin’” —Soda Pop was more like-able than I imagined a song called Soda Pop would be. -I listened to half the album but I think I got a decent taste lol

Not bad for early pop

Pop culture! Thank you, Britney.

It’s not great, but to deride it fully ignores the appeal it had. A danceable clean album aimed at young girls was clearly an incredible move even if the writing and production is mid and the messages about romantic love are naive to the point of being harmful. The tracks are very bouncy and idealistic and if nothing else they are fun. It isn’t a great listen through for me, but I’m so far removed from the target audience that the fact that it has one track I like at all is impressive (Baby One More Time is obviously a banger). It certainly deserves a place on this list if just to offer a point to examine the grip pop music like this would hold throughout the following decade at least.

I get why it's on the list, but this is pretty bad.

This is not good for 2023, but it's far from the worst thing I've ever listened to and far from the worst thing I got here on the 1001 list.

Horrible album, filled with vapid pop songs. I was the right age for it at the time, but even then I hated it. Me getting older hasn't made it any better. The only reason why I won't give this album one star is because The Beat Goes On is actually a great song and I wish I knew it when I was 14.

The title track is a legendary piece of pop history and still holds up decades later. The rest is pretty formulaic and stale.

OK, but … why? 2/5

If I was a young woman who had her entire life on display, forced to sing songs blatantly written from a male perspective, and constantly objectified, I'd probably shave my head and break out car windows with an umbrella as well. Still doesn't make this album all that palatable.

Its britney bitch

2,5

The title track is still a goddamn earworm, 'Crazy' is catchy. But man, the rest of this is completely forgettable. I wish pop stars would be content with singles and not feel they needed a full length. Beyond that? It really is bizarre to me that people feel emotional connections to songs that just ooze by like sickly sweet treacle. How bout the message of 'born to make you happy' ? Woof.

Music for middle schoolers, but like, it's extremely creepy for 6th graders to be singing some of these lyrics... Everything from the dynamics, to the melodies, to the instrumentation, to the production sounds so manufactured and fake - it's boy band music but made by an overtly sexualized minor.

This is music for kids. The producers did a good job making the best of Britney's vocal but the backing tracks are absolutely mental if you listen hard enough. The guitar solo and the unnecessary record scratching on "(You Drive Me) Crazy" is almost too much. And the reggae one? I'm dead. The Euro-House "Deep In My Heart" probably spawned a million remixes that never made it to the US. The whole thing is super plastic and manufactured. There's nothing I can really fault since this kind of record is a bridge between Kidz Bop and grownup music. [post-script: On "Thinkin' About You" there are a couple of lines where Britney harmonizes with herself. Not sure what the interval is (Beato) but it sounds like the same effect used on more than a few Sublime songs.]

Meh. Very very pop, not my thing at all, and yet, there is something there. The acoustic indie covers of some of the songs are better, but also show the songs are ok without all the production and nonsense. "Email my heart" might be the most 1999 song title I have ever heard though, and most of the album just sounds like filler; especially the terrible remixes that close out the album. However, 1 good and 2 decent songs (3 of the 4 singles) => better than the albums that get 1 ⭐ (but only just - like 1.5000000001/5!)

This is a good example of how a star gets “manufactured”. They find a child celebrity who’s got the look and can more-or-less sing, link her up with Swedish producers and song-writers who put it all together, and more importantly score that multi-platinum hit, which apparently sounds a bit like a hit by Swedish pop-star Robyn. Anyway, I’m not an expert in teen pop, but the title track is great and some of the more up-tempo numbers are bearable. The ballads are putrid.

My reaction upon seeing this album pop up: "*sigh* Okay, here we go..." Knee-jerk reaction aside, I tried to give this a fair shake, but it went about as expected. The album peaked at"(You Drive Me) Crazy," which was track 2 (it's never a good thing when your best two tracks on your album are the first two). It was all downhill from there, with perhaps a small speed bump at "Thinkin' About You." No disrespect to Britney (she's never been a favorite of mine, but she's a decent singer, a better dancer, and seems like a nice person), but this album couldn't overcome the fact that it's a conglomeration of uninspired R&B-inflected pop songs written expressly to appeal to teenage girls. I suspect more of her albums will crop up, and they'll at least be better than this one.

While I've listened to the title track countless times, as well as a couple of the other singles here, this is the first time I've listened to any Britney Spears album in full, and I imagine it will be the last time for this one. I've got love for Britney herself, but less for most of these songs. Besides that tinges of discomfort brought about by lines like "hit me, baby, one more time" and "sometimes I run, sometimes I hide, sometimes I'm scared of you" I have a really hard time taking songs about deep love and intense heartbreak seriously when they're being sung by a teenager who has doubtfully experienced much, or any, of either. But such is the pop machine and, obviously, the formula works. Max Martin's music by numbers and the corporate buyers that snap it up have certainly made a cultural impact. As for the music itself, "Soda Pop" is a horrid attempt at blending bubblegum Britney with contemporary reggae sounds, "Sometimes" suffers from some unsettling lyrics and "I Will Still Love You" is a wee bit vomit-inducing but I was pleasantly surprised by the cover of "The Beat Goes On." "...Baby One More Time" is an absolute belter. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" doesn't reach the same stratosphere but is a perfectly enjoyable pop song. The rest of the album was quite a bit of "whatever."

Trying to give this one the benefit of the doubt, despite the fact that it's really not my taste. For what it is, the album is fine. But if you're looking for substance, you'll need to look elsewhere. Vocally, Spears sounds more natural and less processed than she will in later works. Arrangements are tight and boppy, if a little shallow. Ultimately, most of the songs are forgettable, although the title track is a pretty solid pop song. I can understand why this might be a touchstone for some people of a certain age, but I was 28 when this came out. I don't need to hear it again. Fave Songs: ..Baby One More Time, (You Drive Me) Crazy, Born to Make You Happy

Why on earth is this on the list.

Sometimes an artist’s best album is their greatest hits and that’s absolutely fine.

Wasn't my cup of tea in high school, still isn't my cup of tea today. Title track had a nice funky beat under it. Otherwise, forgettable.

Si. Tiene un single histórico. Pero la lisura, vagueza y falta de todo de este disco es vergonzosa 3/10.

Ugh. Typical pop album. Nothing special here… let’s move on. 2.5/5

Eén goed nummer (de titelsong) maar voor de rest vrij dramatisch. Aan het begin gaat het nog, het eind is echt niks. Had beter een EP kunnen zijn, onbegrijpelijk dat het een volledig album is geworden. 1,5 ster als het kon, dus we ronden toch maar af naar 2.

Umm disappointing Sunday for a lazy Sunday...the title track is a banger as they they say. The rest depends into very lightweight cheezy pop. Insubstantial. 2

I really tried to approach this one with an open mind, but after a listen it's just not for me. It definitely does capture the late 90's pop music to a T.

Jeez that was a though listen. Had some bangers though

Probably deserves to be on the list for cultural impact? The title track still sounds huge and a couple of the other singles are either also genuinely decent or at least hold some nostalgia value. The rest is trash, really. But I suppose it was primarily aimed at kids.

This album is like candy, it looks shiny and colourful but it rots your teeth.

Ok, well. It's not as bad as I remember. I mean it's super over-produced, the lyrics are shallow and inane, and she's kind of terrible at singing. But... Maybe it's the perspective that this project has given me but, well... it's not Bjork or Devo so I guess it could be worse.

First 3 songs were pretty good. then idk what happened at soda pop and onwards

Menos ...Baby One More Time, no me ha gustado nada. Me ha decepcionado.

Aina ihana Britni <3

Oli tässä oma viehätyksensä kuunnella ja muistella

Baby One More Time (the song) is undeniably a masterpiece. Britney slays the vocals, the piano has attitude, the classic 90's drum beats. I love this song fervently. And with the slight exception of a couple other tracks that's about where it ends for me in the praise department. Nothing else comes close to it on this album and a lot of these songs sound seriously phoned in. Sometimes has possibly the most awkward key change I've ever heard in a song. Email My Heart may have aged worse than any song we're likely to review. The Beat Goes On really shouldn't. When I listen to this album I feel like I'm trapped in a chair at the dentist's office. 2/5. Gonna strongly recommend the music of Rina Sawayama here. She's inspired by a lot of the production and vocal stylings of Britney but is a much better and more interesting songwriter. Check out her EP Rina

Nope

Na een klein dansje verdween dit album toch al snel op de achtergrond. plots was ik al bij nummer 9. Kortom, nee.

Toegegeven, er staan een paar catchy liedjes op dit album. Verder is het ten hemel schrijend. Die stem! Alsof ze aan een heliumballon heeft gehangen.

I made sure to come with an open mind for this album since it came out when I was young and I didn't care for Britney Spears. Listening to it in 2022, it really starts off with a bang, before really becoming the same thing. Very front loaded and the rest of the stuff after the first couple of songs is disposable and forgettable. Better work was done by people like Max Martin later. The first couple of songs are bangers though. 2.5/5

I am trying to decide how much time to spend on this review. I don't want to be overly picky about what I listend to. ...Baby One More Time is the first full album I've listened to from Britney Spears, even though I have heard several songs. My shortest review is that the best tracks got an "okay" from me, but more of the tracks got a "no thanks". Too many songs with lyrics about a life changing love... from a teenager. The album felt very crafted, but it was hard to not see the album as a collection of tracks hoping to make it's mark in pop-culture. Spears was successful with an entry into pop-culture, but the music feels weak.

Basic and Overrated.

This album was very popular growing up, sure, but even back then I wasn’t a fan of it

Decent voice, but not much of interest for me

El disco abre con una canción muy conocida y la segunda también la reconocí. De ahí en adelante la mayoría de las canciones siguen la misma fórmula pero sin lograr destacar. Hay un par de canciones que suenan diferente pero sin llegar a ser buenas. Entre todos los discos reseñados he encontrado pop buenísimo (hola Tay-Tay) pero este disco no es el caso.

Habiendo pop muy bueno en la lista (Taylor Swift) este es el contraejemplo y creo que llega a la lista solo por el hecho de su relevancia en la cultura pop, pero no por su calidad. Por todos lados se nota la asquerosa mano de Max Martin: el teclado, los stabs, los silencios para entrar a repetir el coro, la guitarra acústica de fondo. Aquí creo un molde que se debió haber destruido en vez de usarse diez millones de veces más. Me sorprende que conozco demasiadas canciones del disco. Sin duda por haberle dedicado una infinidad de chances. 😏 Y creo que la parte que podría valer la pena es que Britney sí tiene una voz interesante: bastante rango, cambios interesantes entre nasal y pecho, etc. Igual eso no alcanza más que para su 2.

I didn't really care at the time and I don't really care now. Sure Britney was popular and what not but still just a shit pop album in my opinion.

2.5. Really?

Didn't completely hate it! Vocal effects are a little ick.

It's not terrible, just not for me. I did look into the meaning of ...Baby One More Time and it seems to a non-native English speaker "hit me" means "call me". I mean hit me up some time Britney we can have a chat. Fave song, Autumn Goodbye, mostly because it's the last song.

I'll never listen to that again 1/5

This one lacks everything I found in Madonna's Like a Prayer. It's all a sale of slightly catchy beats which try to sound interesting but feel more like a neon sign than a painting. The sexuality and message is top to bottom transparent and was a huge part of what took off. It's as hollow and soul crushing as pop had found at that point and continued music onto a trend that lost a lot of art and humanity. Catchy, relevant, should be on the list, inherently depressing that it exists

This feels like the height of the plasticization of pop music in North America. They had almost gone too far making a product and taking the humanity out of it. South Korea took the ball and ran with it now. I wanted to find something in this, I tried. I felt like I was falling into a deep dark pit.

Some of the worst people I've ever met in my life loved this music. The meanest bullies, the angriest most spiteful teachers, the brattiest most self-entitled teens, the most hateful parents, the most narcissistic peacocking alcoholics, they all loved this shit. Because of that I cannot appreciate or respect anything presented on this album. I started having memories repressed for over 25 years start bubbling up into my memory and actually had to stop listening because it was pushing me into what I believe to be my first ever panic attack. I hate it with my whole heart. 0/10.

As important as Britney Spears is for the millennial experience and modern pop music, I can't stand most of her songs. Here, it's because they're a stream of childish bubblegum pop that's so overproduced I can't even think anyone with an actual human soul worked with it. In other records its for different reasons. I also grew up on grunge and metal, so I barely feel any nostalgia for any of the songs, which could've made it at least bearable. Still, I like ...Baby One More Time (the song) because it's always funny when it plays around people my age.

Yeah. Sorry

Motel me prefers shaved head era Britney. So All Seeing I did a cover of Beat Goes On sampling the Buddy Rich cover then about a year later produced a Britney cover based heavily on their version? Iterations, over time, diluting the message, obscuring the original.

The unquestionably iconic, turn of the millennium wankbank material merits this its sole star. Like a quickly snatched bashing of the bishop whilst having a double page red top newspaper article of said artist open on the bed, the album shoots its load early. Allowing for the the massive hit opener and a couple of passable pop tunes that follow immediately after it, the music is highly likely to be deemed awful unless you are a pubescent female with a penchant for autotuned vocals. I get its inclusion, but that doesn’t make it a good listen. I heavily suspect that most people on this journey, just like me, do not fit comfortably into that demographic pigeonhole.

I was wrong about Britney Spears. Most of us were. Not full blown “leave Britney alone” vibes, but the woman was groomed and used and stalked and we as a culture laughed along. I would like to think that in 2026, we'd all have collectively jumped in if we saw someone dating Kevin Federline. That's a danger flag. But we should treat people like people and terrible musicians like terrible musicians. And the reality is that Britney was all doe-eyes, exploited child sexuality, and one of the most mediocre voices in pop music. The sort of voice that doesn't have enough pathos to be a Dylan, but doesn't have enough skill to carry polished pop. That's why so much of this has 800 layers on it. Her particular style of pop-by-numbers is probably best expressed on “(you drive me) crazy”, which is just “Baby One More Time" with less of the weird “hit me” slang that never really felt like actual slang. It's a clean, banal pop song about a teenage girl who is feeling the same thing every teenager in love has ever felt and expressing it as though no one else has. Much better than a song which, due to being written by folks who had no concept of the English language, absolutely came across as “yes, please, abuse me.” TLC was apparently offered this and declined for that reason. So they went with the dumb teen and made it her signature song because surely she wouldn't think twice. They're absolutely the same fucking template, though. The turn of the century loved “skins”, from Winamp to video game characters to MySpace, anything that allowed you to temporarily and at whim change the visualization of a program, a device, etc. Baby One More Time is the same product as You Drive Me Crazy with a different skin. Oops I Did It Again is, Similarly, the same exact bones with a different skin. When I heard the same thing but in a less bold vein on “i will be there” i had to check… all three are written by Max Martin. So is Oops. That's the man, officer. Arrest him. Speaking of B1MT's weirdness, we need to talk about “sometimes i'm scared of you” from “Sometimes.” Again, knowing what this woman went through as a child, I think we need to presume this is intentional. It feels like a throwaway in a song that definitely sounds like the mid-highschool xanga poetry it was trying to ape, but even as a teen myself in 199X, it felt sinister. Britney would have been newly 17 when the album came out. She recorded it at 15 and 16. No one should be telling a 16 year old girl that “sometimes i'm scared of you” is a valid thing to feel about a partner. No one should be letting a 16 year old sing a song called “Born to Make You Happy”. You are a child. And we all were horny little pubescents, but this is concubine coded. Fuck the people who wrote these songs. Anyway, after the big hit trio, we get Soda Pop, which feels like it would have gone flat immediately after opening. Speaking of going flat, “From the Bottom of my Broken Heart.” Some of the worst vocals, like a breathy sheep. And really, like any pop album, this is absolutely bloated with tracks no one ever needed to hear but mediocre producers demanded to make money off. As one-trick as Martin and his Swedes are, the back half is just watered down and insipid. Outside of things that have lead to death, “Email My Heart” is one of the worst things that has ever happened in art. It should be on par with the Gardner Museum thefts and the psycho that tried to chip away at the Pieta. And “the Beat Goes On” is a middle of album track at best. It is inspired lunacy to end on such a wet fart as Email My Heart followed by The Beat Goes On. There is no reason to ever hear this album. There is nothing that makes it unique among other pop albums except for the things that make it absolutely awful. It's a powerful reminder that popularity will never equal importance or quality. It's a powerful reminder that mediocre men will do anything to exploit and profit off of young girls, and have zero qualms about selling barely pubescent sexuality. Everyone involved in this album (and so many albums like this) should be in jail, and yet we piled it all on Britney. But all of that doesn't make one note of the music essential. ⭐️

The hype around Britney Spears in 1999 was pretty wild, and honestly pretty gross. She wasn’t 18 yet, and there were a lot of jokes and comments from people in the business, especially from the likes of radio DJs, about what they would do to her if she was. I think one guy even had a countdown going and announced when turned 18 and was “officially legal”. Of course she heard all of this, (how could she not?) and I’m sure if played a part in her eventual downward spiral into substance abuse, bad relationships, and general mental instability. As a teenager myself during that time I can’t help but remember being as enamored with her beauty as everyone else. She was everyone’s fantasy, which certainly didn’t hurt her ability to sell records. Musically, I don’t think anyone can deny that she’s talented. She’s not the world’s best teenage pop singer, but she’s good enough to get a record deal. I think Christina Aguilera has the better voice, but Britney wouldn’t be where she is if she couldn’t sing. So we’ll call her average for the industry. Stylistically, this debut is very typical for the era. There’s no denying that “…Baby One More Time” is a banger, but aside from a few other decent tracks, it’s mostly generic danc-y pop music and ballads… both of which are filler. It’s not my jam, but in the late nineties and early two thousands this was the latest hotness that was all over MTV and Total Request Live.

First two songs got me so hype for the day as I was simultaneously listening to music and experiencing many a childhood ephemera. As I continued to listen the songs began to sound incredibly predictable and hardly distinguishable from one another whether it be the sound or lyrical content. THEN I started to think about all the context in which we live and what came before, and I got the big time ick thinking about the fact that this album is the product of exploiting a 16-year-old Britney's talents. It suddenly became unbearable to listen to her wax on about love and yearning knowing she didn't write any of it! My enjoyment soured very quickly and I did not finish listening to it.

Highly traumatic experience. It sounds like the discarded songs of weird mix of artists.

It was pop crap when it came out, it's pop crap today.

I can only think its inclusion was a joke; but that would mean Dimery's sense of humor is as off-putting as his taste in music. It's inclusion is beyond embarrassing. The music is drivel. But the tragedy is, of course, her story. Britney's handler's pushed her into the public eye, into a mental health crisis, and then into a legal form of slavery; all while laughing, sadistically, all the way to the bank. What aspect of this album would we champion, laude, or celebrate?

Zero reasons for this album to be on a top albums list

Not good.

I'll be honest, I didn't listen to this one for this project. I've heard it before. It was pop nonsense at the time and it's pop nonsense now. Hard pass.

Nothing that came out of the Mickey Mouse Club deserves anything beyond 1 star.

Reminds me of some of the Madonna albums. A strong single with not much else…

I'm not a 14 year old girl, so no, I do not need to hear this album.

Overall Rating - 1.11/5 (2.21/10). This album brings back every awful memory of the musical wasteland of the late 90s and early 00s. Why did I have to go from David Bowie Glam Rock to awful, overproduced, industrialized, cookie-cutter, bubblegum pop?

Eh

I was 15 when this came out. I wasnt a fan then but did enjoy the music videos (Cant remember why). The end.

Even worse than I was expecting. I thought I'd at least get an album of decent pop music. Beyond the few catchy hits, this is complete dross. I don't think the album was ever intended to be listened to in full. It's a product purely created to make money. Zero artistic merit, she doesn't even have a pleasant voice...

Spear Britney.

Ah, yes, the sound of 2000. Overproduced, cheezy, unimaginative, and blindingly glossy pop made by gross men hypersexualizing teenage girls. If I found a man in possession of pictures from that photo shoot I'd call the police. And yet it's an album cover. This doesn't have Toxic on it, and that is the one Britney song I will listen to without complaint. Britney has every right to be on this list, but my god was this excruciating on multiple levels.

1.5 - not for me

I cannot stand this album. It does not appeal to me at all.

Well, this album doesn’t belong here. It just doesn’t. There’s nothing to even get excited about. The production is so “of its time” that it hasn’t aged well. It feels so shallow and over produced. Not to mention it feels like the definition of a record company’s kind of album. Just soulless, corporate, mass produced garbage. And that’s just talking about the music. The actual vocals?!? Who shoved this poor girl into this garbage? She has no place being a singer, her vocals are so terrible. It’s just breathy over-compensating singing and I find it wildly grating. I don’t say this lightly, but this is the WORST album I’ve heard on this list so far, and it also is insulting that a space on this list is being wasted with this. This isn’t even the best pop album from said time. Total waste of time, thankfully we as a society has moved on from this.

Oh my God, no. How they found FIVE singles to peddle from this bag of spanners is beyond me. Culturally significant, at a push. Musically significant, not a chance! My ears and brain do not thank you for requesting that I listen to this samey, cliched, bland, pop crap. I need to go and listen to some Joy Division to bring myself back down to normal levels...

Ugh.

I don't know why I expected more but this was painfully manufactured and lacked any soul past song two. Email my heart is a contender for the worst song I have ever heard. Music like this is not designed for albums, may as well just release two hit singles and be done with it. Sorry Britney. Bad.

Yeah. Sorry

Really terrible. I thought nostalgia of my youth would kick in but no such luck.

There are two ways to approach reviewing these albums. Some seem to score albums based on their historical impact or influence on future artists, while others score the albums based on their personal feelings about it. I fall into the second category, but I do try and listen objectively and not let my preconceived notions affect my score too much. That being said, this is basically what I expected it to be. Obviously this was a hugely influential album, but that doesn't make it a good one. It's trite lyrically (there are 3 songs with "heart" in the title for goodness sake) and musically. It's just a very difficult listen for me. I make it through all of it but didn't enjoy it at any point. Britney has a great voice, but I really can't stand the way she sings most of the album. At times she sings in a way that I can only describe as someone trying to hiccup seductively. It's incredibly annoying and occurs frequently. This is a 1.

2/10

This album is an example of the dark side of business, and has nothing to do with art. I’m not against pop music, but I am against the pursuit of capital at any cost regardless of who or what it impacts. Spears was a teenager here and the way she is marketed turns the stomach. Her struggles are well documented as a result. Who knows how many other people this impacted in a bad way by way of a corporate role model.

I was really expecting to come back and like this album and acknowledge that I was wrong and it is in fact a classic but actually no, I still don't like Brittany Spears

2/10 This was a painful listen. Not much good here at all. ...Baby One More Time is an undeniable hit that has a huge influence on turn of the century and early 00s pop. The rest is certified cheesy, cringey garbage. Best track: ...Baby One More Time Will I revisit?: No

No. No. No. Beyond the first few tracks, this is such a tough listen. I guess it has a place in time, but no.

No, just no. Absolutely no way.

Ew, no. Fuck no. I actually listened to this whole thing (in the background) and still no.

..............Waarom? Ik wil goede muziek, geen commerciële poep van een of andere over het paard getilde tuthola, die niets meer is dan een door een paar op geld beluste goochemerds uit hun duim gezogen concept. Na het uitluisteren van dit stuk ranzige geldklopperij voelde ik me vies en leeg. Dan echt duizend keer liever een wat dommige, maar duizend keer echtere volkszanger uit Fijnaart. (Zie verder mijn rant over de Vengaboys, alles wat ik daar zei is ook hier van toepassing, behalve dat het hier tenminste geen luie covers zijn.)

So much filler.

Linkin Park followed by Britney Spears is exactly why the early 2000s were weird.

Is this here for satire reasons or to get us on the dance floor when we're drunk? I am not drunk. But seriously, I get uneasy hearing this music. its so bad and manufactured and the way she was dressed and put in our faces was a pretty sick moment in our pop culture. and we didn't stand against it. maybe THAT is why its here., to remind us of how low things can go. (young people, watch ghe video clips to her two big hits to see why)

No.

Ugh

nope

I’m not a teenage girl from 1999.

No one needs to listen to this if they haven’t already. Unless you’re 12. And maybe not even then.

The main influence of this album was Max Martin, who has had a hand in some of the best pop tracks over the last couple of decades. However, I found this quite an uncomfortable listen, both musically and in the context of what emerged about her subsequent treatment. The production is anaemic compared to modern pop, the songs are not particularly strong melodically, and the vocals are poor. Not a huge amount to recommend.

What a bag of shit this was. With hindsight this is even more problematic based on the exploitation of a young person by many people surrounding her, the hypersexualisation of her in the media, and the invasion into privacy which must have undoubtedly led to some of the mental health issues later in life. The music is awful, saccharine sweet, oversung at every opportunity, problematic lyrics, horrible bass runs thrown in to accompany the plodding hyperquantized drums; it just reeks of the manufactured pop that this probably influenced what followed. Obviously Max Martin found a niche and cultivated this particular sound and type of melody and was hugely successful as a result, but good god the singles were bad, the rest of the album was awful.

In a nutshell: "give me a sign..." Now, I'm judging this album as a whole. I'm well aware of its popularity, the number of copies sold and how it changed the pop music landscape forever because I was a meek 14 year old in 1999 who thought liking Oasis was daring. I must confess...some lyrics do perfectly capture the doom of the first heartbreak, the utter devotion to and confusion of early love; learning about love: "the reason I breathe is you", "I don't know how to live without your love" "all I really want to hold you tight. Treat you right. Be with you day and night..." People remember the title track (which is an earworm to this day), but what about the rest of the songs? I tried to look for the sign of a solid album, but we are clearly back in the singles era. It's not you Britney, it's me. Overall: 2/10

One good song 1.4/5

Overproduced, cheesy music. If I want to listen to a baby voice, I'll listen to my kids.

Dear God, no. I never expected this album to be on here. Maybe a later one. Maybe the one with Toxic on it. Now Toxic is a jam. I can’t stand her voice, I can’t stand how they sexualized this 16 year-old girl to sell records and I think we can all agree the whole Britney Spears experiment has ended up very sad. I tried to listen to this album all weekend and I just can’t. I’m not sure why it would be on the 1,001 Must Listen Albums, because I think you’ll be just fine. This era in pop music was bad with Britney and her clones, boy bands and their many clones. The songs were catchy, but they were empty calories. If you want to listen to this album, go for it, as for me, I lived through it and I have no desire to relive it. Ugh, I’ve actually put it on as I write this and it just makes me cringe. The music is bad, just a bunch of computers trying to mimic instruments. Skip this and relisten to Carole King’s Tapestry.

No thanks

I gave a 1 because I can't give it negative stars.

…Baby One More Time is a fine pop song and is the highlight of the album. It’s downhill from there…. Soda Pop is criminal and how do you make a cover of The Beat Goes On so bad. Utter bobbins.

prosze nie

You just wonder what the album could have been with a real band.

Album #56: …Baby One More Time - Britney Spears Genre (W): Pop, bubblegum pop, dance-pop, teen pop Singles: …Baby One More Time, Sometimes, (You Drive Me) Crazy, Born to Make You Happy, From the Bottom of My Broken Heart I have not listened to this album before. Thoughts?: This is the first time I disliked an album. Truly disliked it enough to one-star it. I can’t stand how bland this is. I know that it defined the sound of pop at that time, but it’s still really bland. It feels manufactured too. I don’t want to get another album like this again. Favorite songs: None of them.

This started well, front-loaded with the hit single. But the rest of this is bland teeny pop. Gave up way before the end.

Refused to listen

Debut album. Pop. Bubble gum, American white girl, cheese Pop, sung nasally while utilising fucking awful production. LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE 😢 😭 !! (as in leave this shit well alone)

I don’t care if any of the underlying songs have any merit it’s drowned by the saccharine, sanitised late 90’s production. I don’t even think Britney has a good voice unlike some other paedo baiting sex pots of the period. 1.0

...and I'm being kind with 1.

I didn't like pop like this in my youth - but obviously this music was not for my ears and instead was targeting amusical children and teenagers, and perhaps adults with minor to moderate learning difficulties. I get that this had a big cultural impact at the time but so did Sunny Delight. And no one is recommending we go back and consume that again.

I get that there is an all time classic on this album (the title track) and three lesser hits that have some reverence from her fans, but the majority of this album is not good. The Beat Goes On cover is a highlight.

Vapid trash.

I was a 10-year-old girl when this came out. The target audience for this bollocks. It was a nope then, and a nope at 38. She appeared on Top of the Pops wearing the same pair of white and silver Adidas tracksuit bottoms that I had. I was devastated. As much as I feel for her treatment, fuck you Britney, you ruined my favourite outfit for me. Just pop crap. Nothing to say particularly.

1.4 I felt a bit bad listening to this, knowing how badly the entertainment business messed Britney up. Sure, she made millions of dollars but still seems like she was taken advantage of. Anyway, this is pure bubblegum. I also feel bad for teenage girls who connect with the lyrics in anyway, teenage love cant be that complicated, can it? Also watched a Sun Ra documentary the same evening I listened to this. Could not be any farther away from Brit on the musical spectrum, Black, avant-garde space jazz. Pretty interesting abiet a bit cultish

I have high confidence I will not listen to this album in full again. But time may tell. I also did not remember the guitar solo in “(You Drive Me) Crazy”

actual radio slop

I don't think this album is meant for me. I am not a middle school aged girl, nor was I when this came out, nor have I ever been. This just reminds me of everything that I don't like about most modern pop music - where it's put together by a committee of producers and designed to check all of the "hit" boxes. Just feels soulless and boring, like a mass produced disposable product. Maybe this is the album where all of that started - perhaps that is why this album is on this list?? The only reason they needed Britney involved was to come in and sing. It could have been any other person. To be honest, her voice actually isn't very good on this album - which is kind of sad since that's her only contribution. I don't know how her voice here compares to her subsequent releases. It funny, it sometimes seems like she's trying to sound like a young Michael Jackson. It seems they just chose her because she's cute - which I guess actually is a different contribution since that shows up well on videos. To compare to other popular women artists who all started out fairly young such as Taylor Swift, Lorde, Liz Phair, Madonna, Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morrissette, or Sinead O'Connor - at least they write a lot of their own songs - which I can respect since you feel like you are hearing the perspective of the actual artist. In this case we are hearing the thoughts of middle aged men trying to put themselves in the mind frame of a teenage girl. I'll never proactively listen to any of these songs again. It's just all pretty bland and forgettable. Actually, the best song on this is "The Beat Goes On" - which technically isn't even on the album since it's only on the Deluxe Edition. It's got much more interesting music. Liked songs on Spotify: 0/11 Rating: 1/5 (should be zero)

Bubblegum pop

I get this sold a lot of records at the time but I’m not sure that’s enough for an album to make this list. Let’s just move on and forget this ever happened.

After 300+ albums I am finally making a review because this 1 star isn't because of Britney Spears but rather the sexual exploitation of young female stars that reads through in the album. Britney has a great voice and personally I like her 2003 album In The Zone better.

Bubblegum pop just isn't my jam.

Manufactured, over produced pop slop with no redeeming features.

Not for me

1.3 1x once was enough. Man those deep cuts were pretty bad. Listened embarrassingly while in SLC in layover. 3/32

OK, I'll admit, I didn't make it all the way the end but why bother?

Sorry, har inte åldrats väl och de flesta låtar är helt forgettable

Only liked the hit song

I definitely regret how I saw her as a punchline back in the 2000s, she deserved better for sure. Not much here for me musically though, the first couple of songs are decently catchy but most of the rest is balladry that does little for me

There’s no reason anyone should ever listen to this.

Δε μου αρεσει που σχετιζεται τοσο με τα γκομενικα και επισης δεν μου αρεσει η ποπ

Not for me 1/5

Man I really wanted to enjoy this album. I thought it would bring me so much nostalgic joy. It really did not work for me. I found it so boring. It really did not age well. It just feels uninspired.

Of all the albums ever released, is it really necessary to hear this album before i die?

Certified carbage

Awful

Feels like this was the beginning of committee music for the masses, calculated blandness for maximum profits, all the while record companies also made sure they were the major beneficiary of any and all profits. Empty, dull and artificial like cotton candy.

Essential for this list, but it will never grace my ears ever again.

Seriously?

Britney Spears’ Debütalbum „…Baby One More Time“ erschien 1999 und markiert den internationalen Durchbruch der US-amerikanischen Popsängerin. Die Aufnahmen fanden überwiegend in den Cheiron Studios in Stockholm statt, einem Zentrum der späten 90er-Popproduktion. Stilistisch gehört das Album zum Teen-Pop und Dance-Pop, mit starken Eingängern und klar strukturierten Melodien, die stark auf Studioeffekte und Groove ausgerichtet sind. Besonders prägende Tracks des Albums sind der Titelsong „…Baby One More Time“, „Sometimes“, „(You Drive Me) Crazy“ und „From the Bottom of My Broken Heart“. Diese Songs trugen wesentlich zum kommerziellen Erfolg bei und etablierten Spears in der Popwelt. In der Gesamtbetrachtung wirkt das Album als Produkt seiner Zeit mit hohem Wiedererkennungswert.

I do enjoy bubble gum pop, and even love the first Spice Girls album, but this album sucked.

Didn't like it when it came out in '99, still don't like it now.

Leave Britney alone! Seriously, dont press play, dont consider the merits of this, dont feed this machine. Culturally a significant milestone but aurally it is lowest common denominator pop, made by committee to be as inoffensive as possible, packaged in what is obvious in hindsight in a really troubling paedo-centric way.

I have lots of fond memories of the pop music from the late '90s, early '00s. Destiny Child's. Neptunes. Timbaland. Missy Elliott. Kylie's Can't Get You Out of My Head. It was often much more exciting and forward looking than the so-called 'alternative' music that had been my natural habitat for a while. I assumed that I could have put Britney in this list as well but having listened to her debut album I have to make a u-turn on that. This is terrible. Hit Me Baby is still great. The rest is all filler and slop. Cheap, unimaginative r&b-pop with some cheesy ballads. The second best track is a totally superfluous cover of The All Seeing I's The Beat Goes On.

Shite

I go from Systems of a Down to Britney. Be careful what you ask for. The contrast with every element of the music is vast. This is just sickly, processed saccharine. The synthesized clap beat in every song is annoying. The lyrics are as dull and whiney as much as SOAD, if for opposite reasons. And Britney's warbling is as bad as SOAD roaring. Maybe it was a good juxtaposition algorithm to show there is lots of average music being made at the forefront of their genre.

Dass der Opener einer der größten Pophits ever ist - brauchen wir nicht zu diskutieren. Aber wir bewerten hier die besten Alben. Und nach dem einen Song ist das ein einziges Snoozefest. Leider.

Ich hatte deutlich mehr erwartet. Funktioniert als Album für mich überhaupt nicht, alles beliebig zusammengewürfelt. Dafür sind es aber zu wenig Hits, dass das funktionieren würde.

Das ist schon okay, aber wir bewerten hier die besten Alben und das hier hat 1 Highlight, 1 Lowlight und dann viel dahinplätscherndes belangloses. Das ist maximal auf Platz 1002.

No.

Not totally offensive bubble gum pop. But I’m offended that I had to listen to this and someone in a position of power thought this album was essential listening. Email my heart. Shame on you.

Please… please, just… no. I’m so many ways. I feel so bad for Brittney and her exploitation. I feel even worse that I showed so much hate towards her back then. Still, if it wasn’t for KISS’s 1998 terrorism causing album “Psycho Circus”, this album might have ruined my day. But thankfully knowing that “Psycho Circus” exists makes “Baby One More Time” sound like “The White Album”

Yes, it's a one-star failure to rise above commodity culture, but it's not a one-star trainwreck or a deeply offensive nightmare, or a creative catastrophe consigned to conservatorship — but certainly not anything I needed to hear in full, not once, and definitely not ...Baby One More Time.

Fuck this extremely bland pop w crap vocals.

Not my taste

I mean, come on. This isn't actually good music.

Unerträglich! Wer stellt diese Liste zusammen?

Day 58 Looking back, it really is creepy how Britney Spears was marketed around this album. A couple of decent enough bubblegum pop songs on here, although Soda Pop is probably the cringiest thing I’ve ever heard, the song I liked most is the only(?) cover. 2/10 Highlights Born to make you happy The beat goes on

Production is slick, with an emphasis on creating anthemic statements with the singer projecting agency while simultaneously pleading her lack of agency, her neediness, and lack of power in her relationships. Production is very slick while the aggregate message is nothing short of repugnant. These songs are all written by one Max Martin. Britney Spears has not written or received writing credit for any of them. The ellipses in the project's title obscure a telling lyric: [Hit me,] baby, one more time. I should listen to this...why?

I can't think of any alternate reality where I would listen to this album and not give it one star for being cheesy pop-pap.

Wtf

Every once in a while, a record crops up on this list that makes me think, ‘God, this is going to be awful, I can’t do it.’ But I pull myself together, park my preconceptions and dive in with an open mind only to be rewarded by something surprising and oddly enjoyable, even if it’s something I wouldn’t normally give the time of day. Sadly, this wasn’t one of those records and I feel like every last drop of enthusiasm I may have had for life on earth has been sucked out of me. So yeah, thanks for that.

I thought hard about writing a convincing erudite review: Utter shite.

It's Britney Byatch.. Kitsch, the beginning of the end, super weak lyrically, samey. I can see why this would be historically important, however this stands against everything I believe in music.

Åh äntligen ett popalbum! (Ej sagt ironi, snarare sarkasm mot all jävla gitarrmusik vi tvingas utstå Dessvärre är det inget bra sådant. Jag hade förväntat mig fler potentiella hits och en high-end produktion av guds nåde. Men det är frapperande hitbefriat, det är egentligen bara de två inledande spåren som har hitkvalitet, resten är ren utfyllnad. Och produktion är inte dyr och särskilt fet alls, den är tunn och känns tafflig, gjord med vänsterhanden. Och ja jag vet att en av Cheirons kännemärken är att skala bort men då måste man ju i så fall boosta det lilla som är kvar. Produktionen har åldrats fruktansvärt illa. Jag har lyssnat på lite annat samtida i samma fåra (Justin T, Jennifer Lopez t.ex.) där är det bättre bett i produktion och därav håller den betydligt bättre idag också även om drt ibland tippar åt andra hållet istället där. Kanske visste man inte riktigt hur man skulle paketera Brittan här, det är ju debuten, eller så valde man helt enkelt att sätta begränsningar på reglarna så det skulle låta så snällt som bara möjligt. En annan sak slår mig, det här är startskottet till all den format tv musik (vi kan kalla den Idol, men det har funnits uppemot ett 15tal motsvarande) som vi fått sen dess, det börjar här i och med Brittan. Det går att föra ett jätteresonemang kring det, men nöjer mig med att konstatera och skuldbelägga Max Martin även för detta. Denniz Pop va da shit, Max Martin är en klåpare! Lyssna hellre på Spice Girls - Spice world, Justin Timberlake - Justified , Rovyn - Dont stop the music

Ska detta klassas som musik eller som utnyttjande av minderårig. Vuxna män skriver texter om hur en kvinna ska vara en man till lags och låter en 17-åring framföra dem. Djupt obehagligt att lyssna på.

Well executed pop music. It is awful.

I was around for the rollout of this as an early 20-something indie/hardcore dude and it felt so thoroughly shoehorned-in. Spice Girls and Backstreet was the same vibe: "electronica," trip hop, and myriad one-hit wonders were on the come-up and then all of the sudden, manufactured pop groups? The sense I got was the industry had no clue what to do with (broadly defined) rock and hip hop and just reverted back to a prior formula. So hackneyed and in Britney's case, not a little queasy-making. It's wild reading reviews here where folks claim this ushered in an era for girl pop singers and I'm like, Debbie Gibson? Tiffany? Janet? Madge herself? The music itself mostly ticked off a lot of boxes that made it an easy fit for pop radio, especially the europop blend of the late 90s: just enough (but not too much) hip hop and past sell-by-date r&b flourishes with a white girl up front. Very safe. And apparently the stuff of worldwide success.

Fuck Britney Spears Zero reasons for this album to be on a top albums list

Ha man, crazy to listen to this. What a weird time in popular music, especially since I was squarely in the age range this music targeted at the time. I obviously know the hits, and they stand out. The rest of the album, not so much. I guess that probably comes with the territory of manufacturing bubblegum pop in the model of hitting a couple big radio/MTV hits. Some killer and a lotta filler. This album is obviously notable because it had a huge effect on pop music and culture going forward. But it's not something you need to listen to.

1/5 - I most definitely did not need to hear this before I die. Britney Spears was a cultural phenomenon, but this album nose dives after the first track and hits bottom on “E-mail My Heart.” This album is laugh out loud, wretched pop written and produced by an exploitative factory. I only made it through this because I had 9 hours of driving today, and it made all the other music feel like a savior.

An album for teenage schoolgirls and people who like to perve at teenage schoolgirls. One and done with Britney, I never want to hear this low effort pop shrilling again.

I’m glad my wife knows I’m doing this project otherwise there would be questions. Seriously, though, Britney is the best modern example of being chewed up and spat out by the industry. Truly a sad tale and this album is the beginning of all that 2000s nonsense in pop.

Not my style.

Didn’t need to listen, heard plenty of songs when I was younger

Oh my god, it's my childhood. The first couple of tracks were inescapable around TV/shops/radio/school/football matches/literally everywhere for what seemed like an eternity to a 6/7 year old who has just been allowed to start watching Kerrang! I can see why the title track was so universal - tightly produced and precision engineered to send primary school discos into a pre-hormonal frenzy, a pop classic. The whole album is a lot of the same shit, every song sounds like the closing credits music to a different Disney summer blockbuster - this is the sound of America at its zenith, right before before the new millennium downfall. Don't like it. Don't like the industry which created and grew fat from it. I don't like how much I don't like all this! If all those guitar squeals and mini-solos aren't on a PRS, I'll be amazed. Bass slides everywhere. Didn't want to come into this and just give it 1 star by default - but the longer I listen, the more repulsive it gets. Manages to be both boring and annoying, can't live up to the first track. Sorry, Britney.

Huge pile of shit

The musical equivalent of cotton candy at the state fair that's been sitting around for a while, getting a strange texture from the humidity in the air, and you just know that anything that touches it is getting stained pink. I don't fault Britney Spears for essentially doing as she was told. I fault the greedy adults around her who valued mainstream appeal and sales numbers over anything with artistic integrity.

I did not enjoy this. It seems rather simple.

Cynical. Totally manufactured pop. This is the Ultra Processed Food version of pop music, mostly made up of synthetic chemicals that are designed to be addictive, and containing no natural ingredients or anything of any nutritional value.

Unlike many albums on this list I do understand why this album is among the 1001 albums. It is historically a "big" album, an important album in terms of influencing others. But that does not change the fact that this is simply pop music. And not especially good pop music. But it was at the start of and shows the way music has taken in the last 25 years, becoming simpler and simpler and easier to listen to. It enters your brain, it leaves it immediately and doesn't leave any trace behind. It is - if you like this kind of music - nice for now only, not for after five minutes, not to mention for after one day/week. So easy only, you don't have to think. You're only consuming like a robot for a kick of joy, which disappears more or less simultaneously when listening.

90s Disney channel pop. Not for me.

No.

Britney ran so Beiber could walk……

Does it deserve to be on the list? Absolutely! Is it an easy 1 star rating? You bet! Does it mark the downfall of the western civilisation? Likely so. Britney’s debut is just completely vapid, and there's something really unnerving about a 16 year old girl singing “I was born to make you happy” - a song written by two men.

A rare 1 star album that actually deserves a spot on this list. Because of course it does! The title track is a pop milestone, but there are so many horrible tracks on here that it’s hard to fathom - “Soda Pop” anyone?! Some of the lyrics are also weird if not problematic when you consider Britney’s age. Nevertheless - this should definitely be here, 1 star or not.

I didn’t listen to it all so I can’t rate it fairly. But the fact that I didn’t listen to it all goes to show that it wasn’t enjoyable. Music for teenage girls and I’ve never enjoyed the album track even after hearing it for most of my life. I might revisit the album to give it a fair rating but I doubt that will happen. Dated late 90’s, early 2000’s pop…

Boring bland pop album from the 90s

Good Lord that was bad. Who knew Brittney had a reggae track?

I will have to go back to my other albums that I rated a 1 and give them a bump up to 2. This sucks. The first three songs were all singles and are either ok or at least I've heard them so much that at least tolerable. The album goes downhill from there. If you like psuedo dancehall but done by Britney Spears or the Swiss then there is something for you. Throw in some songs rejected by Mariah Carey sung by someone with a much lesser voice and you have "Baby one more time."

Teen pop equaling the end credits of bad romance movies. The described reality of the songs is at best delusional. Most well known song is "Baby one more time".

How do I rate this? I don’t like the music, but as a teen I’ve been to many parties, where the music was played, and being a drunk teen is fun. The record is significant in music history, so it might be fair to put in on this list. However, this type of pop music is just so cookie cutter, and the music from other artists of the same kind (both girls and boy bands) was just not good

I thought it would be somehow interesting, because, well, it's Britney Spears' debut, it has to be culturally significant or something. It turned out to be two very famous hits that sound pretty much the same and some unlistenable trash. '...Baby One More Time' is almost a masterpiece next to the rest of the tracklist, and I really wonder what would I think had I never heard it before. Is it any good or it only seems so, because I don't know the world where it's not iconic?

My little sister loved this album, I think. She also loved N*Sync and Backstreet Boys. I never got into those bands (descendants of NKOTB), but I recognize this as part of my sister’s formative musical journey. Her taste is far more sophisticated than mine now, and her tolerance and appreciation for modern pop is also much higher than mine. I assume it is the Britney effect. I can’t give this album a fair shake because I can’t make it through any songs past the title track. I’m sorry, Britney. The first song is a classic though. “toxic” is my favorite Britney jam (late stage Britney).

pop drivel

The Good: nothing The Bad: nothing The Ugly: everthing I refuse to listen to this album. Nothing against Britney as a person, or a singer, or a dancer. The reason I refuse to listen to this album is that I don’t understand at all why this is something you need to listen to before you die? We’ve all heard “hit me baby one more time”, and now we can die...

There’s been worse albums on this list (only 34 in), but there is zero moments that are special about this album. This came out when I was a freshman in high school and I remember how big of a deal it was then and how you couldn’t turn a corner without seeing/hearing the lead single. It blew my mind as a 15 year old, and I sit here even more bewildered that a legit music critic/author felt that this needed to noted in the annals of history. This album was trash, it’s not a dumpster fire, or anything like that. It is just generic, regurgitated pop. Britney doesn’t have an amazing voice, its not awful either, maybe a C- in terms of pop stars. The music is so bland too, even bad pop music will get my toes tappin from time to time. The melodies are catchy, but that is far from a reason to immortalize this record. Putting this album on this list is the equivalent of putting 7/11 pizza on the 1001 dishes you need to eat before you die list. I’ve heard these songs, I never enjoy hearing these songs but sometimes these songs pop up. I’ve eaten 7/11 pizza, I am never happy when I eat 7/11 pizza, but sometimes you end up eating 7/11 pizza. The entire time I wrote this review (and assuredly for hits to come) the title track’s hook looped through my head painfully. 2.5/10 #34/1001

Oh no! Why 1001 albums? Why? 0.5 /5 Album 38/1001

I tried, I really did.

Too poppy

Fitting that this was served up to me on April Fool's Day

Britney Spears is in the list but e.g. Heart is not. That's the review. OK I'll try again...: music for people who don't really like digesting music which was made/processed/bought/sold in a factory by a ton of people notably and nearly tragically not really including the actual marketing ploy on the cover. This is all so utterly formulaic (ooo! a key change! didn't see that one coming...just like the previous song...) and fake - it's AI before AI. 3/10 1 star (feels a little bad lumping it with the Korn/KidRock/Slipknot genresofshit but this is straight-up terrible).

Хммммми ну чисто ради hit me baby one more time... Остальное ну просто голяк Слишком слащяво, 2/10

Iky.

Was soooo tempted to go with the “DID NOT LISTEN” option.

Imagine my dismay when this came up. I lived through it once already, isn’t that enough

Few albums have, on paper (on the sleeve?), such a powerful opening trio. Just the names - ...Baby One More Time, Crazy, and Sometimes - kick the brain into nostalgia mode, where everything sounds sweeter and stronger than you remember. And those songs are all remarkably catchy, tightly paced, and well-arranged to achieve their intended orgasmic end. But they don't work as a trio. These were all produced as late-90s singles. They were designed to cut through all the other songs on radio and MTV. They were not intended to sit side-by-side. They're meant to shoulder other songs out of the way. While they don't have the effect of that Durutti Column record with the sandpaper sleeve that scratches up the records on either side, there is no sense of cohesion, no flow, no album per se. You may as well be listening to a pop station that plays 'only the best new music.' If you did that, you would skip some of the filler, which, for all the producer's expertise in the genre, can't touch the exquisite Born To Make You Happy. In 2000, when Billy Corgan was breaking up Smashing Pumpkins, he said that he could no longer fight the good fight against the Britneys of this world. He could have meant a lot by that, but he was coming out of a struggle with Virgin over whether or not he could release a triple album. He would leak the unreleased portion of the Machina Mystery onto the internet, essentially breaking up the album into downloadable shards. His grand artistic statement was not supported by the music industry. Britney's debut album makes no grand artistic statement, but it is as fragmented as any attempt to piece together Machina. It is one polished shard after another and they make no more sense together than apart. Pop albums have always been like that, to some extent, but, in 1999, it was starting to become clear that albums were on the way out. There are four songs here which, juiced up by nostalgia, are better than most songs on the albums generated thus far. That should clutch this album a respectable score, but it's not an album - it's a greatest hits compilation with seat fillers taking up space while the other hits are waiting to be written. I don't know how to score it. 2.5 Yesterday Peter Mandelson, British Ambassador to the United States, described Donald Trump as ‘a very consequential President’. It is a just statement. Ambassador Mandelson obviously feels it beneath his job description to say anything less than complimentary about the President but beneath his self-respect to say anything contradictory to the truth that Trump is working for the destruction of civilisation in the West. ‘…Baby One More Time’ is a very consequential album. Even if I had the inclination, I am not historian enough to trace either the scale of the (immediate) impact this album had on popular culture, the music industry, society I dare say, nor its true relationship to its cultural forebears - Elvis, The Beatles, Madonna…etc. What I will say is that I remember well this album’s appearance in everyone’s lives and I remember too the unmistakeable sense that some standard, perhaps several, had been successfully lowered. I tried today to give this album as fair a hearing as I would any. I listened twice. I listened attentively. Britney Spears’ debut album is utter trash. These songs represent musical and lyrical proceduralism of the lowest order. (You drive me) crazy is 3 minutes 19 seconds; it features the chorus four times and a bridge which is essentially the chorus with a sloppily modified harmony. Soda Pop, almost exactly the same length, features its same unmodifed chorus 6 times. The lyrics have the quality of having been quickly composed on the back of a napkin during a coffee break; each the mere unfolding of the conceit of its title with as little thought as possible. ‘Thinkin’ About You’ comes off as if it lacked even that first humble draft. That and the track which follows it, ‘E-mail my heart’, represent the low-point of an album that shouldn’t be capable of low-points, but there it is; the trough within the trough. This is an album as cynically disrespectful of its listeners as I have ever sat down with. That it was right about them, that it won, that Britney Spears was elected, none of that makes any difference to my conviction here. This was and is wrong. Shame on the people who made this. 0/5

Oh man, I wanted to like this, for her as the ‘underog’, but this was bad, bad like the ice cream dropping of your cone, bad

There will not be one more time of listening to this

This album is really weak with the exception of the title track. Just as bad as I remember it.

Not good.

No. This was always weird and gross.

Seems like this album was included just to troll people. I fully expect to get Rick Rolled next and I’ll definitely enjoy it more.

...Baby One More Time (You Drive Me) Crazy

Terrible. A shopping mall of an album. Of course it's capably written and smoothly produced, but life is too short for this over sweet shite.

fya

Nope.

No

Sometimes I'm scared of this..

No, 1 Star - and not because I at my age am not the target audience obviously, I can appreciate good pop, but this is half baked, a poor excuse of an album, that it sold shed loads is just an indictment on the power of icky school girl videos and whatever that teen cover and title is selling to "teen" audiences at the time. That wiki entry was humorous while listening, trying to match up the gushing praise with the half finished dance pop and bad teen romance ballads that sound like those direct to video sequels that Disney did with lower quality control and hack songwriters instead of the A listers that did the movies, and that is somehow ground breaking. A fine example of exploitative manifactured music practices maybe gets it on the list., nothing else.

Poptimism be damned... this is plastic, artificial, manufactured.

I deserve a medal after listening to this

Awful. This is the result of marketing, not talent.

No thanks.

No va

WTF?! No

I detest this record and it not because I don’t like pop or I think that Brittany isn’t talented. The album is the definition of over produced. Of this record were made of brass you would be able to see yourself in it. It needs more grit. It suspends the belief that music artists can imperfect but still make art. Things the opposite of art.

1. baby - 1.5 2. crazy - 1.5 3. zometimez - 1.5 4. zoda - 0 5. happy - 1 6. heart - 1 7. there - 1 8. love - 1 9. deep - 0 10. you - 0 11. email - 0 12. beat - 1 13. loving - 1 14. autumn - 0

Soulless manufactured dross. Besides a couple of song the rest of the album sounds all the same.

It comes to something when the second and third "best" tracks were the rubbish remixes of the first track. One iconic song, but the rest of the album was awful. An unimaginative cover version stands head and shoulders above most of the original tracks. I expected to dislike this album. When I was half way through the title track, I started to feel cautiously optimistic. By track 3, I realised that it wasn't even going to reach my original expectations.

Hmm... no

Not good or interesting.

How does this make the list? I know music is subjective but in what world is this ‘essential’?! Shite, terribly produced bubble gum pop, not to mention how the poor lass was exploited in this way.

Horrendous, both musically and the creepy, exploitative way they sexualised a 16 year old to sell crap pop music. On occasion it was enjoyably terrible (soda pop) but it was mostly unlistenable.

I'm a bit conflicted here, as I recognise a lot of this is exploitative nonsense (she was 15-17 when much of the album is recorded, and this does not sit well at all), and the production shows its age (very much rooted in 1999 with all the tricks, overlays, disc scratches, and exotic array of instruments). However, from a writing perspective - goodness me this pop music is well-written. The mainly Swedish team really delivered (on paper) a sequence of tip-top pop - catchy hooks, direct, and somewhat whimsical. 0 stars for the album, 4 stars for the writing, 1 star overall.