1992: Little girl, big voice
At 10, Britney Spears performs on US TV talent show Star Search. She won the first round of the competition, but lost in the second stage, singing Love Can Build a Bridge in that inimitable style, perhaps best described as the voice of an adult caged in the body of a small child.
1993: Join the club
Joining The Mickey Mouse Club machine during the sixth season of the show, Britney dons a patchwork waistcoat and spends her days dancing with the likes of Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera and Ryan Gosling. She continues to perform on the show until 1995, before being peddled to a number of labels (who subsequently reject her), dabbling with the idea of joining pop group Innosense and eventually singing to Jive Records in 1997.
1999: Smash hit
Her blockbuster debut is released and becomes the biggest selling track of the year. Originally turned down by both Backstreet Boys and TLC, the Max Martin-penned … Baby One More Time was first entitled Hit Me Baby One More Time but soon changed as a result of concerns over the title’s dubious suggestion of domestic violence. Fun fact – all of the costumes for the video came from Kmart.
2000: Like a virgin
Britney’s debut album is certified two-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, while the album tops the charts in 15 countries and sells over 10m copies in a year – making it the biggest-selling album ever by a teenage artist. Elsewhere, the Catholic schoolgirl attire garners some unwarranted attention: “A mystery businessman contacted Britney’s record company and offered £7.5m to relieve the pneumatic teen of her virginity,” ran our report of the incident. “Gossip suggests adenoidal radio anarchist Howard Stern was involved. Britney reacts with predictable crossness. ‘It’s a disgusting offer,’ she told one newspaper. ‘He should go and have a cold shower and leave me alone. It’s outrageous how a man like that can offer something which is totally unacceptable.’”
2001: Sex, snakes and Slave 4 U
From the success of her second LP, Oops! … I Did it Again, which sold over 20m copies worldwide, to her Slave 4 U video and an MTV performance featuring a sequinned bodysuit – 2000 was the year in which Britney Spears shed her bubblegum schoolgirl persona and came of age. It was also the year of the double-denim ensemble with new boyfriend Justin Timberlake and perturbing Peta by performing on stage with a caged tiger and an albino Burmese python at the 2001 MTV Video Music awards.
2002: Bad break-ups and the big time
A year in which Britney rides the highs and lows of stardom: she branches out into the movie industry with Crossroads, she opens an American bistro, her relationship with Justin Timberlake creaks to a close (not to mention the break-up’s public airing in the form of Justified’s Cry Me a River). A media ubiquity also leads to to her topping Forbes’ Celebrity 100 list: “This year’s champ: Britney Spears. She doesn’t have Steven Spielberg’s pull, but in the last year she arguably had a bigger impact on pop culture,” the magazine said in its 8 July issue.
2003: PDAs at VMAs
Madonna enlists the globe’s biggest female stars for her Hollywood performance - Christina briefly touches the thigh, but Britney controversially kisses the lips. Britney also releases Toxic – the acceptable pop smash for chin-stroking Pitchfork fans to approve of.
2004: Weird weddings
If Timberlake’s succession of singles seeking vengeance on the singer wasn’t enough of a public humiliation, here media coverage of Britney’s love life begins to get a little surreal, thanks to two marriages in 12 months: first to childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander (for 55 hours in January) then Kevin Federline in September.
2005: Britney Baby 1
As former Mickey Mouse chum Christina gets ready for her wedding to Jordan Bratman, Britney’s first son arrives and hastily gets snapped for the cover of People magazine, looking somewhat like the pop singer’s tiny conjoined twin.
2006: Grin and bare it
Spears gets in hot water over paparazzi images which show her driving with her son sat on her lap instead of in a carseat. Before the birth of her second son, Britney poses nude and with what looks like a cracking headache, for the cover of Harper’s Bazaar.
2007: Close shave
Tragedy strikes, as the press rubberneck during Britney’s breakdown. “It is a very shocking visual statement,” wrote the Guardian’s Zoe Williams at the time of Britney’s famous head-shaving incident. “And sure enough, although it is real, she is not in her right mind. Britney Spears has checked out of rehab before the end of her programme, she has argued with her family, she is not long out of a marriage to a person who apparently has not a single scruple, and now she has shaved her hair.”
Her Blackout comeback album is promoted by an ill-advised, dead-eyed performance at the MTV VMAs.
2008: Custody battles and sixth album
A year in which she temporarily loses custody of her children and gets committed to a psychiatric ward, yet still releases her sixth album Circus, which receives an amicable three stars from the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis:
Circus isn’t bad as pop albums go, but whether by default or design, it’s substantially less edgy and exciting than its predecessor. You’re left to conclude that the sound of Britney back on track is substantially less interesting than the sound of Britney going off the rails.
Additionally, a 90-minute documentary entitled Britney: For the Record airs on Sky in December. If you need further proof of her odd ‘08, this year she briefly dates celebrity pap Adnan Ghalib.
2009: The bounce-back begins
New single Womanizer becomes her first No 1 in the Billboard Hot 100 since Baby One More Time. The track- gets a five-star score from the Guardian, which proclaims: “The princess is back.” A judge issues a restraining order against Spears’s former manager, Sam Lutfi, ordering him to keep away from the pop star for the next three years.
2010: TV and Trawick
Britney rekindles her relationship with childhood friend Jason Trawick, and draws the highest ever Glee ratings with cameo appearance.
2011: Mediocre music
She releases her seventh studio album, Femme Fatale. “It would be tempting at this point to say that Britney is on fire, having turned in the ‘fierce dance record’ she promised. But let’s just say: she’s hot to trot,” writes Kitty Empire. It hits No1 in the US and her summer tour of the US is declared “better than even diehard defenders would’ve predicted”, by Rolling Stone magazine.
2012: X-treme makeover
Simon Cowell scoops Britney from the pop scene and relaunches her TV career as a judge on US X Factor.
2013: Will.it.work?
Ups and downs. Britney’s hits, including Oops! I Did it Again and Baby One More Time, are apparently employed by British naval officers in an attempt to scare off pirates along the east coast of Africa. In this same year, she quits X Factor, returns to music with the will.i.am collaboration Work Bitch and begins a residency in the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
2014: EDM experiments
Britney Spears’ Britney Jean album gets a lukewarm reception – and, according to the Guardian, features but a “handful of anonymous, emotion-sapping EDM stompers, bookended by songs that could have formed the backbone of a much better album”.
2015: Igg-nite the icon
Graces cover of Women’s Health looking like a fitness cyborg version of her former self, and plays the part of bimbo cyborg in new video for her new teen friendly collaboration with Iggy Azalea, Pretty Girls. Speculation surrounding Britney’s cyborg heritage begins. Spurious rumours matter not, however: through years of turbulence and triumph she has rightly achieved her status as an official Feminist Role Model.
