"Britney" at 20

This past week marked the 20th anniversary of the release of "Britney", Britney Spears 3rd album.

For me, this isn't just an anniversary of an album, but of an era. "Britney" is always in the discussion for the title of my favorite Britney album, but there is never a question that this was my favorite Britney era.

This had it all. You have this amazing album. But you also have the iconic VMA performance. You have the career altering Slave single and video. You have another slew of major TV appearances, as this was still peak era TRL.

You have the HBO concert special showcasing her Dream Within A Dream tour. A couple weeks after the special I got to see it in person at Target Center, my 1st ever Britney concert. It was a religious experience. And an incredible show. There is no overstating how huge her first 3 albums were, and seeing those hits all live was unreal.

We got another iconic, perfect video and single with I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman, the song of hers that always gets to me. And we got that, because this era also brought us her movie debut Crossroads (which I will get to in the Cinematic Throwbacks in a few months), which INAGNYAW was the theme song for. 

And Crossroads brought us another wave of TV appearances, including her 2nd stint hosting Saturday Night Live. It was even her best looking era. It's preposterous how gorgeous she was in that era. It was just a great time to be a Britney fan.

Back to the album, though. It was very much a statement. Her 1st 2 albums reside very much in that turn of the millennium teen pop genre. "Britney" was her move beyond that. Not that it wasn't pop, but it was more grown up and overtly sexy and had more edge. The Neptunes did Slave, and soon everyone was getting them for their music. That then shitheel boyfriend of hers ripped off this whole approach less than a year later.

Slave 4 U makes all the lists of best Britney singles. INAGNYAW is sublime. The other singles vary by location. This was at the end of that era where big releases would have different singles in different countries. The album version of Overprotected, one of my.faves, got released in some overseas markets, with an awesome video (peak powers Britney there). It was years before I ever got to see this video. Same with her great cover of I Love Rock & Roll (which drove haters nuts), which also got an overseas only release. 

Us in the US got two other singles off this album...sort of. We got a pair of remixes, each of which were not nearly as good as the originals. We got a remixed Overprotected. Cool video with it and all but the song was a step down. And to this day it still irks me that instead of sticking with the album version of Boys, another one of her very best all time, we got a remix there too, with a Pharrell verse that did not stand out. It kept this album from kind of spanning a huge chunk of time like her others did.

The other big faves for me on the album are the bouncy, joyous Anticipating, the banger Cinderella, and the sweet That's Where You Take Me.

Only real skipper is the Timberdouche produced What It's Like To Be Me.

This album and era was the capper to 3 great years of Britney domination, and also the last era where it was all good. Not long after we get the breakup, the media completely turning on Britney and trying to destroy her, and she also took her first real hiatus from doing anything.

It was never quite this great again.