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At the beginning of the '90s, teen currency shifted from bubblegum'n'Tiger Beat to grunge'n'Maximum Rock Roll. Although it may have been pushed from the spotlight, teen pop hadn't died -- it, in a way, went underground, spending time on the fringes of pop culture. One of the leading lights of the exiled teen brigade was The New Mickey Mouse Club. For several years, it toiled away on the Disney Network, earning a small fan base -- but, more importantly, providing a launchpad for several careers, including that of Britney Spears. Like her fellow NMMC alumni 'N Sync, Spears shot to stardom in the late '90s, just as she was on the verge of late adolescence. By that time, everything old was new again. Albums like her debut, ...Baby One More Time, were topping the charts as if they were Hangin' Tough, which is only appropriate since it sounded as if it could have been cut in 1989, not 1999.
...Baby One More Time has the same blend of infectious, rap-inflected dance-pop and smooth balladry that propelled the New Kids and Debbie Gibson, due to the Backstreet Boys' producer, Max Martin, who is also the mastermind behind Spears' debut. He has a knack for catchy hooks, endearing melodies, and engaging Euro-dance rhythms, all of which are best heard on the hits: the ingenious title track, "Sometimes," "(You Drive Me) Crazy," and the utterly delightful, bubblegum-ragga album track "Soda Pop." Like many teen pop albums, ...Baby One More Time has its share of well-crafted filler, but the singles, combined with Britney's burgeoning charisma, make this a pretty great piece of fluff.
~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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We seem to have reached crisis point: pubescent pop is now so rife that 17-year-old Britney 'lizard-lounge' Spears is already halfway through her lucrative showbiz career having, lest you forget, earned a place in Disney Channel's Mickey Mouse Club at the tender age of 11, not to mention off-Broadway and commercial work prior to that. Now she finds both her debut album and single at Number One in the US charts - indeed the first female to ever do so - with the UK gagging for her kindergarten cutesiepie cack. And, let us not be mistaken, it is cack. '...Baby...' is the kind of soullessness that saturates Stateside charts and consists of nothing but over-chewed bubblegum beats and saccharine sensibilities designed to accompany your first fumbling grope at the youth club disco of a Wednesday night. If you're lucky. Although Britney may think it's cool to emulate her peers - Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Backstreet Boys, other rubbish - she can't help but filter out, Steps-style, any trace of danger by balming every manufactured tune in her Saturday morning TV marshmallow-soul croon. Which is, one presumes, why the kiddies love her. Hopefully, if she starts to live the wretched life that we all eventually do, her voice will show the scars, she'll stop looking so fucking smug, she'll find solace in drugs and we'll be all the more happier for it. Now grow up, girl. Quick!
~ NME: Rating: 1
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