March 6, 1999

...Baby One More Time

We seem to have reached crisis point: pubescent pop is now so rife that 17-year-old Britney 'lizard-lounge' [B]Spears[/B] is already halfway through her lucrative showbiz career...

1 / 10 We seem to have reached crisis point: pubescent pop is now so rife that 17-year-old Britney 'lizard-lounge' Spears is already halfway through her lucrative showbiz career having, lest you forget, earned a place in Disney Channel's Mickey Mouse Club at the tender age of 11, not to mention off-Broadway and commercial work prior to that.

Now she finds both her debut album and single at Number One in the US charts - indeed the first female to ever do so - with the UK gagging for her kindergarten cutesiepie cack.

And, let us not be mistaken, it is cack. '...Baby...' is the kind of soullessness that saturates Stateside charts and consists of nothing but over-chewed bubblegum beats and saccharine sensibilities designed to accompany your first fumbling grope at the youth club disco of a Wednesday night. If you're lucky.

Although Britney may think it's cool to emulate her peers - Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Backstreet Boys, other rubbish - she can't help but filter out, Steps-style, any trace of danger by balming every manufactured tune in her Saturday morning TV marshmallow-soul croon. Which is, one presumes, why the kiddies love her.

Hopefully, if she starts to live the wretched life that we all eventually do, her voice will show the scars, she'll stop looking so fucking smug, she'll find solace in drugs and we'll be all the more happier for it. Now grow up, girl. Quick!