…baby one more time

Cover Versions of #1s… Britney Spears

/ UK #1s blog / Leave a comment

For our latest covers special, we bring you two covers. One of the legendary Miss Britney Spears, and one by the legendary Miss Britney Spears….

In 1999, Britney was the big new pop superstar on the block, while Travis were the big new indie band. Travis were either part of the tail-end of Britpop, or part of the start of the ’00s indie revival, or a bridge between the two, and were hugely popular. They were also divisive, part of a group, alongside the likes of Coldplay, Embrace and Starsailor, who many felt compared poorly to the big Britpop acts, and whom Oasis’s manager Alan McGee had infamously dubbed ‘indie bedwetters’. I always quite liked Travis though, as they had a great ear for catchy melodies, and weren’t as whiny as Chris Martin and chums.

And in covering Britney’s ‘…Baby One More Time’ they kick-started something that would define British pop music in the 21st century. I’m not sure if it was definitely the first ever ‘Live Lounge’ performance for Radio 1, but the novelty of it went viral, by the standards of 1999, and helped create a phenomenon which carries on to this day. It is a simple enough premise for a radio feature: a popular act of the day perform a live version of their current single, and a live cover of a song in a genre with which they aren’t usually associated. Which in the early days of Live Lounge usually meant guitar bands doing goofy and knowing covers of pop tracks (see above).

On the one hand, it could be fun to hear, say, Arctic Monkeys covering Girls Alouds’ ‘Love Machine’. It was all part of the blurring between rock and pop, mainstream and indie, cool and uncool, that happened during the 2000s. And occasionally a Live Lounge track would go on to become a bona-fide hit single, such as Jamie Cullum’s cover of Pharrell’s ‘Frontin’. There have been Live Lounge tours, and Live Lounge compilation albums. Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, and Taylor Swift have all done Live Lounge. Walls have broken down, genres blurred, love has reigned…

But I was a regular Radio 1 listener in those days, and half the time I turned off when Live Lounge came around. Not because the covers were bad, but because the tone of it was so bloody self-congratulatory and back-slappy. Jo Whiley purring in reverential tones, as if she’d been on the rooftop with the Beatles in 1969, when in actual fact she’d just heard the Zutons covering the Scissor Sisters. They’re musicians, I’d think to myself, of course they can pull a half-arsed cover out of the bag.

So, I chose this Travis version of Britney’s biggest hit precisely because it is so half-arsed, and also because it sparked a genuine British pop music phenomenon, for better or worse. Anyway, to prove that I’m not precious about pop acts going rock, or vice-versa, here’s Britney herself. Covering the Stones.

Brit’s version of ‘Satisfaction’ is ten-times better than Travis’s barroom singalong of ‘…Baby’ because a) she’s treating the source material with respect, and because b) she does something different with the song, seamlessly updating the sound for the Y2K generation.

It’s not as good as the original, of course it isn’t, not even close. But is a worthwhile exercise. It was also fairly well-received by critics . At the same time, it annoyed rock snobs who probably didn’t even listen to it before railing against popular music going to hell in a handcart.

The year after this cover, Britney and Mick Jagger met at the VMAs for a slightly awkward interview in which Britney looked like she wasn’t 100% sure who the old man next to her was, and Mick claimed unconvincingly that she did ‘very well’ covering ‘Satisfaction’. Then Britney went off and performed with a snake around her neck. It was quite the time to be alive…

Our regular posts will resume in a couple of days…

817. ‘…Baby One More Time’, by Britney Spears

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

It’s Britney, bitch.

…Baby One More Time, by Britney Spears (her 1st of six #1s)

2 weeks, from 21st February – 7th March 1999

Sorry, couldn’t resist. That iconic intro is still eight years off. But let’s be real, the three note piano motif (the official term, apparently) that introduced the world to Britney Spears, and that underpins one of the all-time great pop songs, is even more iconic.

Yes, ‘all-time great’. Up there in the pop pantheon with ‘Cathy’s Clown’, ‘She Loves You’, ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘It’s a Sin’… You name a pop classic from any era, and ‘…Baby One More Time’ is up there holding its own alongside them. It has all the indefinable qualities – the ability to hook you instantly, the ability to remain catchy but never cloying, the ability to still somehow sound fresh after twenty-five years – which all classics need.

But, I hear you argue, is this not too bubblegum to be an all-time classic? Don’t Britney’s vocal, shall we say, limitations not detract? To the first charge I say no, for this has as much underlying melancholy as the best ABBA songs. What other teenybop songs involve lines about fatal loneliness? And to the second I say that sixteen-year-old Britney’s vocal stylings are perfect for a song about teenage lust and longing. Plus, she managed to influence the way an entire generation pronounced the word ‘baby’ (Bayba? Baybay? Byebuh?)

To reach truly magical heights though, a song needs a moment where everything just clicks. That moment of transcendence arrives in the middle eight, as the chorus lines are chopped up and loaded with emphasis: I must confess, That my loneliness, Is killing me now…

Of course, this was a massive smash across the world, and now stands as one of the best-selling singles ever. It’s most recent placing in the Rolling Stone Top 500 of all time was #205. It’s also been voted the greatest debut single of all time, and the UK’s 7th favourite number one. Britney aside, it also properly introduced the world to Max Martin, one of the most successful chart-topping writers and producers of all time. At last count I make this his first of twenty appearances in the credits of a chart-topping single in the UK.

‘…Baby One More Time’ also won awards for its video, in which Britney flaunts almost every school uniform rule in the book. It got criticism too, for sexualising both school uniforms and the teenage singer in them, as well as the suggestion that it was glamorising sexual violence. Martin has since argued that the ‘hit me’ in the lyrics refers to ‘hitting someone up on the phone’ (as the kids put it in 1999), and that any confusion stems from the fact that English isn’t his first language.

But frankly, who cares? A song this good doesn’t deserve to be caught up in tawdry speculation about its slightly risqué video. Having said that, while this might technically be the best of Britney Spears many singles, it is not my favourite. Britney has five more number ones to get through, and two of those songs can rival this for classic status.