britney spears book review

britney spears book review

Britney Spears: A Review of Her Life and Career

1. Introduction

In this book, the author looks at Britney Spears and her place in the current Hollywood scene. The author begins by looking at the recent pregnancy of Britney and how this fits in with the modern young starlet in Hollywood. She draws comparisons with how other stars such as Brooke Shields and Jamie Lynn Spears have dealt with their pregnancy in the public eye and how the fan base and public opinion of them has changed since becoming pregnant. The book then moves into the beginning of Britney’s career with the release of her first single and how the change in her image from young child star to sex icon has affected her career up to now. The focus of the book then begins to shift to the relationship between Britney and the media and how Britney is perceived by the public. The media can be seen as having a predatory stance on Britney, having played a large part in her mental breakdown in 2007. The author also refers to Britney as a modern tragic hero who is a victim of her own hubris, with her rapid rise to fame. Primarily, it was her marriage to Kevin Federline which pushed her into the pit of despair in the public eye, which the author looks at in great detail.

2. Early Life and Rise to Fame

The track E-mail My Heart eventually set up Britney as a priority in Jive Records’ roster. Jive began the mission of creating a star. Over the next three years, Britney’s schedule was anything but idle. She concentrated on dance lessons, vocal lessons, and acting lessons. She appeared in several hundred presentations of Off-Broadway productions. They did however, find she was too much of a small town girl, so in her victory, she donated 30 million dollars to build a children’s hospital featuring a campus tour and photographs with sick kids. This campaign’s importance was never ingrained in her mind. Jive set up a showcase in 1997 which featured one among many competitors, the Backstreet Boys. They prepared for an unexpected strategy to awe people. The showcase was in a small venue but all the way in the back, two assistants unraveled a poster of Britney in a now infamous pose. Soon Jive’s street team was sparkplugging through high schools nationwide. Known by the students through various dance and drama classes, it was now her turn on the same stage as an upcoming pop sensation.

In December 1992, she was finally cast in The Mickey Mouse Club (1989) alongside an impressive cast including Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Keri Russell, and Ryan Gosling. This popular show was where she would remain for a year and a half. She even accomplished a great feat of memorizing Prince William’s and Prince Harry’s autographs for them. After the show’s cancellation, Britney returned to Kentwood and attended high school for a year. She has always been headstrong. When required to wear uniforms, Britney violated the dress code, wearing a sports bra over her t-shirt. It was at that point, a family friend helped to organize and finance her first demo session with Uptown Records.

Britney Spears was born on December 2, 1981 in a small town in Louisiana. She started performing in local dance schools and church choirs as a child. At age 8, Britney tried out for The Mickey Mouse Club (1989), but was too young to get in. When she was 12, a New York agent advised her to attend that year’s New York Professional Children’s School. Britney needed no advice on busting into show business. Off the bat, she won a part in a rising star, Toni Braxton’s, stage show.

3. Controversies and Personal Struggles

In a society that is fascinated with the famous, rumor and speculation which stem from a star’s personal issues often overshadow the artistic accomplishments. This is certainly the case with Britney Spears. In February 2007, Spears stayed in a drug rehabilitation facility in Antigua. She checked in and out within the same day. The following night, she shaved her head with electric clippers at a hair salon in Tarzana, Los Angeles. She admitted herself to other treatment facilities during the following weeks. While there, she was seen by a psychiatrist who the court later awarded temporary conservatorship. These events led to an ongoing struggle for the once celebrated pop star, and the mastermind behind her ordeal is still uncertain. During the same year, she lost the rights of custody of her two children to ex-husband Kevin Federline. The following year, Spears was committed to the psychiatric ward of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and put under 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold. This was amidst a custody battle and a refusal to relinquish custody of her children to Federline. Her stay was again marked by uncertainty and strange behavior. After her release, she began a successful return to the music career, and regained split custody of her children. The drama did not seem to stop, and in January 2019 Spears announced an indefinite work hiatus, and the canceling of her Las Vegas residency, in order to take time off for her father’s health after a life-threatening colon rupture. This same year she checked into a mental health facility and in 2021, it was later revealed by court documents filed by her lawyer that she is taking time off to resolve issues which stem from her conservatorship.

4. Comeback and Resilience

After a brief period of thinking, Britney returned to work in November 2008 determined to prove her critics wrong. To the surprise of many, she handed in another spot-on performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, picking up 3 awards, all for ‘Piece of Me’, further showing the quality of the track. She also won a further award for Best Pop Video for the same song. This time, nothing was going to stop her and she returned to the studio to work on what is now titled as her ‘comeback album’ with producers such as Max Martin (who worked on her first 2 albums) and Christopher ‘Tricky’ Stewart, who masterminded Rihanna’s number 1, ‘Umbrella’. The new single ‘Womanizer’ was released in September 2008 to wave of positive reviews, and it showed a return to the classic mould of Britney Spears’ music. It debuted at number 96 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the following week made the biggest jump to number 1 in the chart’s history, a feat that has only been beaten by Kelly Clarkson’s ‘My Life Would Suck Without You’. The album, titled ‘Circus’ was released on December 2nd 2008, Britney’s 27th birthday. The album had over 1 million pre-orders in the USA, the first album in history to do so without promotional deals, showing that expectations were high. The album itself was a return to classic Britney; the introduction of modern day pop and R&B had been replaced more with the process of artistry and melody. The initial single ‘Womanizer’ reached the top of the charts in 7 countries and the album as a whole reached number 1 in 6 nations and the top ten in 27 countries, including reaching number 1 in the US Billboard 200. This was a huge improvement from the previous album. This era was paramount in the resilience. It was really the first time that Britney had something to prove – that she could still be one of the world’s leading Pop acts. She had come through one of the worst stages and proven that she was still capable of producing music of the highest quality to satisfy her ‘army’ of fans. It was the beginning of the fight back.

5. Legacy and Cultural Impact

In a short time, Britney Spears went from being just another teenage pop star to becoming one of the best-known celebrities in the world. She is a frequent figure in tabloids and a favorite target of the paparazzi. She has often held a high position in the list of most powerful celebrities in the world. According to Forbes, in 2002, Britney was the most powerful celebrity in the world with a net worth of $40 million. Since then, she has always been on the list, usually in the top 20, until her drastic fall in 2007. Her continuation in the list of powerful celebrities is a result of a combination of her personal life, the public’s infatuation with her, and her various business and entertainment endeavors for the past decade and a half. At a mere 31 years of age, Britney has already done enough to be remembered in pop culture for generations to come. She was the quintessential pop star of the early 2000s, a key player in the teen pop revolution of the late 1990s and the new millennium. In 2003 and 2012, Britney was inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records. The first time was for being the best-paid female singer in 2002. On the second occasion, Britney received three records. The first was for the best-selling album by a teenage solo artist. The second was for having the best-selling album in the United States by a teenage solo artist. The last record was for being the highest-paid judge on a music competition show. With her induction into the world record book, Britney has set herself some high standards for future artists to challenge.