The Hollywood Reporter: Turning 21, Turning it on...
All grown
up, the pop princess is ready to prove that with her
newfound adulthood, she's just beginning to fulfill her potential.
By Chris
Gardner
In August
1998, Jive Records' Barry Weiss walked into the Alley Cat
Studio, a dance hall in midtown Manhattan where Britney Spears was
rehearsing for her debut music video, "... Baby One More Time." A 16-
year-old in sweat pants, she shyly walked up to greet the important
executive with a "Hey, Barry, how ya doin'," delivered in her now-
signature Southern drawl. No time for chatter -- Spears went directly
back to the beat.
"The minute the music went on and she started doing her dance
routine, she turned into this vixen, almost on cue," Weiss says. "One-
two-three, and the music started. She went from being just a nice,
kind-of girl-next-door from the South to being this sexy star with
energy and presence that was overwhelming. Still, to this day, I've
never seen anyone (else) who can press a button and go from being a
sweet, demure girl -- which she is -- and then the camera shines on
her and -- bang! -- she's Marilyn Monroe. I remember leaving the room
and thinking this was much bigger than I (previously) thought."
Chances are that neither Weiss nor anyone else in that dance hall
could have imagined how big the young star would become before today,
her 21st birthday. A more-educated guess might have been made a few
months later in January 1999, when Spears' debut album hit record-
store shelves and reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 a week later,
joining her single of the same name, which also had bowed at No. 1.
The rest, as they say, is history.
"It's been a whirlwind -- so overwhelming," Spears says of the past
four years. "But I look back now, and I don't think there can be
anything better than when you first come out. Just the first
presentation and getting everything out there and the first time you
hear yourself on the radio. There's nothing like it -- it's so cool."
Who knows if it's that cool for all debut artists: None of the
previous female pop stars such as Debbie Gibson, Tiffany or even
Madonna had come out of the gate with those kinds of numbers.
With "... Baby," Spears became the first new artist -- male or
female -- to have an album and single debut at No. 1 and the youngest
female in Billboard history to claim a simultaneous No. 1 single and
album.
The album went on to sell 22 million copies worldwide, and the former
Mouseketeer became an overnight sensation who would parlay her
multiplatinum music career into film, television, books and, more
recently, restaurants. It all happened so quickly that even she was
surprised.
"I just wanted my song to be played on the frickin' radio," Spears
says. "I just wanted my friends back home to say, 'Britney, we heard
you on the radio!' But then all that happened."
The beginning
Britney Jean Spears WAS born Dec. 2, 1981, the middle child of mother
Lynne, a schoolteacher, and father Jamie, a contractor. Only a few
years later, she displayed a penchant for performance.
"Ever since I was 7 or 8 years old, my mom would have company over,
and I was always performing for everybody in front of the TV," Spears
says. "My mom's friends would ask her, 'Are you going to tell her to
calm down?' But she was so used to me doing it that she was oblivious
to it. Even when I went to school, I was always the weird child; I
would go outside and instead of playing, I wanted to have 'Star
Search' competitions."
As Britney was her first daughter (she has an older brother, Bryan),
Lynne Spears thought that all girls were a bit "girly" and loved to
put on shows for family friends.
"I didn't start really noticing until I saw her interacting with the
other kids in the day care," Lynne Spears says. "Britney was the
ringleader, and she was choreographing and dancing and doing all
kinds of theatrical things, so I started saying to myself, 'There's
something different about her.'"
Not all children get to realize their recess dream and make it to the
stage with Ed McMahon on "Star Search." Following her 1992 appearance
on the syndicated talent show (and her eventual loss to now-fellow
recording artist Marty Thomas, who received a top score of four
stars), Spears stayed on the small screen, joining the Walt Disney
Co.'s "The All New Mickey Mouse Club" in 1993. She calls that
experience one of the best of her life to date.
"It was so great for us to grow and everything -- it was amazing,"
Spears says of her two-season run alongside fellow soon-to-be-famous
mouseketeers Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake and Keri
Russell. "We had an amazing time; we got to sing and dance and do
everything. I got to experience, for the first time, being in a
studio, so it wasn't completely new to me when I went later."
The music
When Larry Rudolph met Britney Spears, he believed that popular music
at the time did not demand that she put her skills to use and run
straight to the recording studio.
"If you looked at the pop music charts during that time, in the
summer of 1995, it was (Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs), hard rock and hip-
hop; there was no white teen pop as we understand it today," says
Rudolph, then an attorney and founder of the New York-based firm
Rudolph & Beers, who eventually would segue to a managerial role in
Spears' burgeoning career with co-manager Johnny Wright.
"I said, 'Go home and be a normal kid for a year or two, and let's
see what happens.' Then, about a year-and-a-half later, in early
1997, all of a sudden Hanson, Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys
started to hit, and there was clearly an opening for a solo female in
that genre."
So Rudolph and Spears set out to fill the void and shop her to
various labels. Spears flew from Kentwood, La., to the Big Apple --
on Rudolph's dime because her parents couldn't afford the $200
ticket -- for a full day of back-to-back meetings with record
executives whom Rudolph had roped in with a demo cut of Spears
singing "Today," a sacked track from Toni Braxton's second album.
"I was so nervous," Spears says of that humid New York day. "I had
this 5-7-9 (Stores) cheap-ass dress on and these high heels. We went
to four or five different record labels -- it was crazy. (Record
executives) see people everyday, so it's not like they're happy to
see you; they just give you these dry faces, and you have to stand
there in front of two or three people. And if they really, really
like you, they'll bring other people in -- but if they don't, they'll
just let you go."
Jive Records could not let her go. Two weeks after the showcase,
Clive Calder, chairman and CEO of the Zomba Group of Companies,
called Rudolph and offered Spears a deal -- with one exception.
"The deal we made -- and it's still the Britney Spears record
contract to this day -- came with a provision in her contract that
says they will pay her X number of dollars to start to record, and
within 90 days of the date of commencement of the contract, (the
label has) the right to terminate it with no further obligation if
they don't like the way it's going in the studio," Rudolph
says. "It's a very unique provision -- you won't see that in any
other record contract -- and that's what happened. (But) when they
got her into the studio, things went very well."
They were about to get even better. An edgy, upbeat track Spears had
inherited from TLC, "... Baby" would be produced by pop maestro Max
Martin and become the obvious choice for her debut single, one that
would launch her to superstardom and pave the way for her three
albums to date: "... Baby"; 2000's "Oops! ... I Did It Again," which
has sold 17 million copies worldwide; and 2001's "Britney," a 9
million-unit seller worldwide. Then there are the numerous awards and
honors, including seven Billboard Awards, four MTV Europe Music
Awards, a World Music Award, an American Music Award and a No. 1
ranking on Forbes magazine's 2002 "Celebrity 100" list of the world's
most powerful names.
The image
Like Madonna, one of HER inspirations, Spears' success has not come
without its share of controversy. First, it was the Catholic
schoolgirl uniform she wore in her debut video -- complete with plaid
skirt and white button-down shirt tied above the midriff -- then it
was the David LaChapelle-photographed April 1999 cover of Rolling
Stone magazine. While the images drew fire from the media and even
from a few parents, Spears never caved in to the criticism.
"In my heart, if someone tells me I can't do something, I'm gonna do
it just to prove I can," says the confident pop star, who came up
with the concept and styling for "... Baby." "I would never do
anything crazy like drugs or anything like that, but when it comes to
clothes and showing your body, I'm really comfortable with myself, so
I wear what I want to wear -- I don't care what anybody thinks."
Weiss might have thought a thing or two about her image, but in the
end, Spears seemed to gain his -- and everyone else's -- trust.
"She had a lot of vision, and she knows how to press the controversy
button and take it right to the line but still keep her core
audience, both older and younger," Weiss says. "While at certain
points it was scary, I have to admit that she was right more than she
was wrong."
Agrees Rudolph: "(Spears) has particular style instincts -- she knows
what she wants and the way she wants to dress. I don't stop her
because she is the driving creative force behind who she is. I've
never stepped in and said, 'You can't do this; you can't do that.'
When she decided to tie up her shirt for the '... Baby One More Time'
video and show off her belly, nobody said no to her, and it became a
classic."
The future
Very few music artists have been as successful as Britney at her age,
says her ICM agent, Nick Styne.
"The Beatles, Michael Jackson and even Madonna, who was considerably
older when she started to achieve a lot of success, didn't have the
kind of run (Spears) has had so early on, and she's just turning 21,"
Styne says. "This has all happened in the past four years. She's got
to figure out in her own way where to go with her next record and
where to go in her career."
That is the question hanging over Spears' head and speculated on
continually in the media following Britney's supposed hiatus
following her Dream Within a Dream Tour in the summer. In a classic
case of backlash, the media in particular seemed eager to see her
fall after her astounding run (or, as Francis Ford Coppola once
said, "Who the gods want to destroy, they first make successful.").
But Spears seems to be taking it all in stride. Her "break" did not
last long, and soon she was back at work writing songs.
"She's only taken a couple of weeks off and has been writing music
and going ever since," Lynne Spears says. "She just didn't want to be
under tour time or stressed-schedule time. Britney loves what she
does, so she doesn't really want to not do it; she wants to be in
control of it and not be on some rigid schedule."
Those outside of Spears' family also recognize the importance of not
looking at the clock.
"It may take her a while to get there or she may wait a while to get
it right, but she's going to do the right thing," MTV's Tom Calderone
says about the all-important next step. "But you are also looking at
someone who is so hands-on that she won't misstep. The fact that it's
her fourth album already at the age of 21 is an incredible feat right
there -- how many people can say that?"
Spears says she sees herself working at a less-frenetic pace in the
music world, with more time spent on other passions.
"I will probably do an album every two years," she says. "The
ultimate dream is to do movies in between -- that would be awesome.
But I will never be able to leave my music."
Spears is at work on her fourth album and is finishing out the year
meeting with record producers. She has sat down with Daft Punk and
frequent Madonna collaborator William Orbit (1998's "Ray of Light")
and has scheduled meet-and-greets with Steve Morales, Missy Elliot
and Timbaland in an effort to evolve her style.
"Musically, I seriously think I am going to do a little bit more
rock, hip-hop and just play with it," Spears says. "That's the
direction I'm in now, but who knows? A month from now, it may change,
and I could come up with this amazing, amazing song, and then
everything just kind of shifts."
Rudolph says fans should look for a more adult Spears, complete with
grown-up lyrics and a display of what she is capable of vocally. No
matter what she decides, this 21-year-old is ready to prove that she
is no longer the girl in that midtown Manhattan dance hall.
"I just know that my next albums to come will definitely be
more 'me,'" Spears says. "I'm growing up right now, and I couldn't go
back and sing '... Baby One More Time' again. I have to grow."