Text: Aparajita Saha
Audio/Video courtesy:
Zoomba Records
GSIL
How did a 17-year-old girl from Kentwood, Louisiana become the youngest artist ever to strike gold with a best-selling debut album and single?
According to her mother, Lynne, as soon as Britney Spears got took her first steps, she became interested in music. Little Britney learned to dance as soon as she was steady on her feet.
She was a little ballerina, a tiny tapper and a proficient gymnast by the ripe age of nine. At nine, Britney returned to her first love, dancing. This time she added singing to the mix. She joined a dance company and her specialty became jazz lyrical dancing.
After three summers of studying at the renowned Off-Broadway Dance Center and the Professional Performing Arts School in New York city, several national commercials and Off-Broadway shows later; after being a part of the Mickey Mouse Club; at fifteen, Britney got he opportunity to audition for an all-girls singing group.
It was here she decided that solo performances were her forte. She put together an audition tape that she took to New York, where she signed a recording contract with Jive Records. The result of this union was the tremendously successful album ...Baby One More Time.
The album showcased Britney's unbridled vivacity and musical curiosity. Her lively, assured vocal style is intoxicating. "I want to be an artist who everyone can relate to, that's young, happy and fun," she says.
An unabashedly devoted fan of pop music, her favourites include Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. She declares, "I love performing more than anything and having people hear my music. It's wonderful as long as you love what you’re doing!"
Her second album Oops I Did it Again has all the hallmarks of her earlier chart-topping efforts, the funky pop-bass lines and R&B rhythms blend effortlessly to form yet another surefire hit for the 18-year-old sensation.