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In The Number Ones, I\u2019m reviewing each single #1 single within the historical past of the<\/em> Billboard Hot 100, beginning with the chart\u2019s starting, in 1958, and dealing my manner up into the current.<\/em><\/p>\n Don\u2019t name it a comeback. The phrase \u201ccomeback\u201d is just inadequate to explain what was taking place with Britney Spears in 2008. Britney\u2019s complete saga is a wild, twisty, miserable ordeal that indicts all of Bush-era American tradition. Britney Spears, Miss American Dream since she was 17, was idolized, demonized, and damaged by the celebrity-industrial advanced when that complete machine was working at its dehumanizing peak. She by no means had an opportunity. When Britney returned to the highest of the Billboard<\/em> Hot 100 for the primary time since her epoch-defining 1999 smash \u201cBaby One More Time<\/a>,\u201d she was already working as a human ATM machine for the individuals who\u2019d assumed complete authorized management of her life.<\/p>\n And but Britney Spears by no means stopped making hits. Even when she was within the deepest depths of her private issues, Britney held pop music in her thrall. Britney solely notched a number of top-10 hits within the \u201900s, however that\u2019s probably not a mirrored image of her music or of its reputation; it\u2019s merely an indication that she was succeeding in metrics that the Hot 100 wasn\u2019t correctly geared up to measure. Britney\u2019s return to the highest was partly the results of a canny publicity marketing campaign, but it surely was additionally an indication that Billboard<\/em> had lastly caught as much as Britney. When Britney launched \u201cWomanizer,\u201d she didn\u2019t need to depend on radio or on gross sales of bodily media. Instead, our new century\u2019s final digital diva may surf a tide of iTunes downloads, as the general public consumed her hyperreal dance-pop blasts one tidily packaged three-minute MP3 file at a time.<\/p>\n \u201cWomanizer,\u201d the tune that returned Britney Spears to #1, isn’t one of many girl\u2019s canonical classics, but it surely did its job. After promoting tons of of 1000’s of iTunes downloads in its first week, \u201cWomanizer\u201d surged from #96 to #1 \u2014 on the time, the largest Hot 100 leap in historical past \u2014 and quickly dislodged T.I. and Rihanna\u2019s \u201cLive Your Life<\/a>\u201d juggernaut. That kicked off an entire new run of Britney smashes, as her numerous handlers offered her to the world, as soon as once more, as an environment friendly vessel for hooks and beats and choreography and catchphrases. As all the time, the true story was an entire lot extra difficult.<\/p>\n Within the primary few seconds of her first video, Britney Spears captured the world\u2019s fascination. \u201cBaby One More Time\u201d was the tune that modified all the things, the Armageddon<\/em> comet of the TRL<\/em> period. Britney Spears went on to promote 14 million copies of her debut album within the US alone. She kicked the tabloids right into a feeding-frenzy fervor when she began courting the ramen-haired *NSYNC heartthrob Justin Timberlake, a fellow former Mouseketeer and a determine who\u2019s already been on this column a bunch of occasions. Britney was nonetheless only a child, however she\u2019d spend her subsequent album attempting to persuade the world in any other case.<\/p>\n In the summer time of 2000, Britney Spears launched her iconically titled sophomore album Oops!\u2026 I Did It Again<\/em>, which bought greater than 1,000,000 copies in its first week and which ultimately went diamond. Once once more, Britney labored primarily with Swedish pop mastermind Max Martin, who understood find out how to write melodies that hit like sledgehammer to your ribcage. On the album\u2019s title monitor, Britney insisted that she was \u201cnot that innocent\u201d \u2014 not a lady, not but somebody who needed to cope with a womanizer. (\u201cOops!\u2026 I Did It Again\u201d peaked at at way-too-low #9. It\u2019s a 9. Follow-up bangers \u201cLucky\u201d and \u201cStronger\u201d didn\u2019t even make the highest 10, which doesn’t mirror properly on Billboard<\/em>\u2018s early-\u201900s tabulation strategies.) <\/p>\n Eventually, the world got here to just accept the notion that Britney Spears was not that harmless, and she or he steered into the attention of the storm. In 2001, Britney launched the Neptunes-produced single \u201cI\u2019m A Slave 4 U,\u201d and its video was the closest factor to an orgy that MTV may air throughout sunlight hours. The tune didn\u2019t fairly earn Britney the futuristic R&B cred that she may\u2019ve been chasing. Instead, it labored as a sign that Britney\u2019s hyper-glossy artificiality would observe her into any and each style that she may try. \u201cI\u2019m A Slave 4 U\u201d solely reached #27, however the picture of Britney with the python on the VMAs is eternally.<\/p>\n Over the following few years, Britney Spears was some of the exhaustively documented individuals on the planet. She broke up with Justin Timberlake and served because the goal of his petty masterpiece \u201cCry Me A River<\/a>.\u201d (\u201cCry Me A River\u201d peaked at #3. It\u2019s a ten.) She starred in her personal B-movie car Crossroads<\/em>, which was directed by Tamra Davis, Mrs. Mike D, and written by a pre-Grey\u2019s Anatomy<\/em> Shonda Rhimes. She made out with Madonna throughout the opening of the 2003 VMAs, and the digicam missed the Madonna\/Christina Aguilera makeout second to catch Justin Timberlake\u2019s response. Britney was in all places. MTV was hers.<\/p>\n While all this was taking place, Britney continued to crank out albums, and people albums didn\u2019t promote in addition to her first two. Even at her lowest, although, Britney reliably did platinum numbers. She didn\u2019t land one other top-10 hit till the busy, claustrophobic \u201cToxic\u201d made it to #9 in 2004. On that monitor, the Swedish producers Bloodshy & Avant went for a sort of Basement Jaxx-esque joyous, discombobulating maximalism. I bear in mind this because the second that rock critics began taking Britney severely, although it was extra that we took the tune<\/em> severely. Britney herself wouldn’t get credit score as a cultural game-changer for a really, very very long time.<\/p>\n Whether or not she had a tune within the high 10, Britney Spears was an awesome presence, and she or he didn’t all the time react properly to all that focus. The wilder she acquired, the extra voracious the eye grew to become. In 2004, Britney married some rando at a Vegas chapel after which had the wedding instantly annulled. Later that 12 months, she married Kevin Federline, the dancer who\u2019d been the best-looking of the Orange County unhealthy guys in You Got Served<\/em>. Federline cherished<\/em> the eye that got here with being Britney\u2019s husband, and the 2 starred in Chaotic<\/em>, a actuality miniseries with critical car-crash attraction. <\/p>\n Britney Spears grew to become a mom at 23, and she or he took a few years off of releasing music, however the consideration didn\u2019t go away. Whenever Britney went anyplace, paparazzi would mob her. Photographers would pray for the chance to catch Britney doing one thing ratchet, and some of them had their prayers answered when Britney drove with a child on her lap or went clubbing with out carrying underwear. She divorced Kevin Federline quickly after the beginning of her second son, and their bitter custody battle was most likely the basis reason for a really public 2007 meltdown.<\/p>\n If you had been alive in 2007, should you had any entry to the web in any respect, then the main points of Britney\u2019s darkish interval don\u2019t even bear repeating. We all lived by it. We couldn\u2019t escape it. Britney shaved her head. She left a rehab facility after lower than a day. She bashed a photographer\u2019s automobile with an umbrella. Most of her worst moments got here instantly after she was prevented from seeing her children. The tabloid press documented all of Britney\u2019s struggles with gleeful schadenfreude. People like Perez Hilton made fortunes by exploiting this younger girl\u2019s private disaster. It was gross. <\/p>\n While all this was occurring, Britney Spears stored working, and she or he drew on that chaos for her 2007 album Blackout<\/em>. For my cash, that\u2019s Britney\u2019s masterpiece \u2014 a sleazed-out electro-pop opus that instantly addressed the untenable actuality of Britney Spears\u2019 life. When Britney carried out lead single \u201cGimme More\u201d on the VMAs that 12 months, she appeared robotic and barely current, which makes good sense on reflection. But at the same time as individuals rushed to move judgment, the report and its attendant publicity shot Britney proper again into the pop zeitgeist. \u201cGimme More\u201d peaked at #3 \u2014 her greatest chart hit since \u201cBaby One More Time.\u201d (It\u2019s an 8.) Britney additionally acquired to #18 with \u201cPiece Of Me,\u201d a tremendous tune that turns the hell of Britney\u2019s life right into a smooth, ingenious jam. It is likely to be my favourite Britney Spears tune ever.<\/p>\n Britney didn\u2019t tour or do press for Blackout<\/em>; she didn\u2019t want any assist producing headlines. Britney wasn\u2019t concerned in writing many of the songs on Blackout<\/em> \u2014 she\u2019s nearly by no means been concerned in writing her songs \u2014 however I nonetheless consider Blackout<\/em> because the second when her authorial voice got here by most clearly. The album dug into the murk of her public life whereas nonetheless functioning as big-tent pop music, and it anticipated the approaching EDM growth. There are deep cuts on Blackout<\/em> that, at the least to my thoughts, ought to\u2019ve been enormous hits. (\u201cHeaven On Earth<\/a>\u201c? That\u2019s<\/em> a tune.) Within a number of months, Britney would lose no matter management she\u2019d gained over each her profession and her life.<\/p>\n Two months after the discharge of Blackout<\/em>, Britney refused to ship her children again to Kevin Federline. Police, known as to Britney\u2019s home, hospitalized her involuntarily, and a courtroom granted a short lived conservatorship that gave full management of Britney\u2019s life and funds to her father and a court-appointed lawyer. That sort of conservatorship is a drastic step, one which\u2019s often reserved for aged individuals who can\u2019t take care of themselves. In Britney\u2019s case, the momentary conservatorship lasted for greater than 13 years.<\/p>\n Britney\u2019s father and her handlers put her to work and constructed an entire comeback narrative round her. MTV was solely too joyful to assist out. The 12 months after the \u201cGimme More\u201d debacle, and some months after she guested on an episode of How I Met Your Mother<\/em>, Britney returned to the VMAs, opening the present by doing a comedy sketch with Jonah Hill after which accepting each huge award for her \u201cPiece Of Me\u201d clip. All of this was supposed to arrange the arrival of Circus<\/em>, the grand-return pop album that might come out on Britney\u2019s twenty seventh birthday. Circus<\/em> bought a half-million copies in its first week, and \u201cWomanizer\u201d was its first single.<\/p>\n