Max Martin celebrates 25 years of Britney Spears’ ‘…Baby One More Time’: “It changed the landscape of pop music”
In light of its 25th anniversary, music producer Max Martin has reflected on how Britney Spears’ ‘…Baby One More Time’ “changed the landscape of pop music”.
After the iconic pop song hit the milestone yesterday (October 23), the producer posted on his Instagram to share the ways in which the track impacted both his and Spears’ careers – as well as the music industry as a whole.
Sharing a compilation image of images from the singer’s breakthrough era, Martin began the post by writing: “On October 23, 1998, @britneyspears released her debut single ‘…Baby One More Time’ in the U.S.A, the pop classic that became No 1 in every country where it was released, and that launched Britney’s career as an international pop icon.”
He continued, going on to describe the final result as a “masterpiece” and recall how its lyrics, music video and sales led to it marking the beginning of “a new era” in pop.
“After exactly 25 years to the day, so much has been said about this masterpiece of a song — the artists who could have recorded it, its controversial lyrics, its iconic music video, the record-breaking sales figures, how much it has changed the landscape of pop music and defined a new era,” he wrote.
“Da Vinci painted ‘Mona Lisa’ and Max Martin composed ‘…Baby One More Time’, and I think this is no overstatement to claim that every single second of ‘…Baby One More Time’ is f**king glorious,” he added. “’Baby’ is one of these songs that you just can’t ignore, whether you are a pop music lover or not.”
(@maxmartinmusic)Elsewhere in the post, Martin took to the comment section to document the standout moments and nuanced details of the song as if he were listening to it for the first time. These were split into eight sections, including the “The iconic ‘Dun Dun Dun’ opening keyboard riff that makes you recognize the song in 1 second” and details in the singer’s vocals.
He also broke down the track into more technical aspects, highlighting the “perfect balance between ‘happy’ major chords and ‘sad’ minor chords” throughout, as well as “the sugar-coated bells that follow the vocal melody [to] make the chorus sound wider and more powerful”.
Following its release in 1998, ‘…Baby One More Time’ became an immediate hit for the then-17-year-old singer, and spent nearly two years (103 weeks) on the Billboard 200 charts – including six weeks at the Number One spot. Check out Max Martin’s full review of the track in the post above.
In other Britney Spears news, the pop icon released her long-awaited debut memoir The Woman In Me today (October 24).
Already, excerpts from the book have made headlines in recent weeks for their details about the singer’s abortion with Justin Timberlake and her infamous head-shaving incident in 2007.
Ahead of its release, Spears took to her Instagram page over the weekend to share that she doesn’t want the memoir to “offend anyone” as she has “moved on” from the incidents it recalls.
The Woman In Me will also detail her life under her 13-year conservatorship, which ended in November 2021. The singer recently revealed that she only learned of the #FreeBritney movement in 2018 thanks to a nurse at a rehab facility.
Recently, Spears announced that she would be co-narrating the audiobook version of her memoir due to her “heart-wrenching” time “reliving” experiences. Listeners will hear Spears in a short intro, leaving actress Michelle Williams to narrate the rest of the book.
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Liberty Dunworth
NME
