Oops!... I Did It Again (album)

Background and development

After vacationing for six days following the completion of the ...Baby One More Time Tour in September 1999, Spears returned to New York City to begin recording songs for her next album; the majority of the recording took place in November. It featured contributions from Max Martin, Eric Foster White, Diane Warren, Robert Lange, Steve Lunt, and Babyface. The songs "Oops!... I Did It Again", "Walk On By", "What U See (Is What U Get)", and "Don't Go Knockin' On My Door" were the first to be recorded at Martin's Cheiron Studios in the first week of November; followed by "Stronger" and "Lucky", which were finalized (along with the title track) in January 2000. "Where Are You Now" was recorded at Cheiron in November and finished at Battery Studios in January. "Girl In The Mirror" and "Can't Make You Love Me"'s instrumental track and melody were recorded in the fall of 1999 in Sweden, with Spears recording the vocals in mid-January at Parc Studios in Orlando, FL. Spears recorded "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know" at Robert Lange's villa in Switzerland; Lange produced the song. Spears returned to New York, linking up with producer Steve Lunt to record Diane Warren's "When Your Eyes Say It" at Battery Studios on Friday, January 28, 2000, which preceded her TRL appearance that day. "One Kiss From You" was also recorded at Battery Studios but was later finished at 3rd Floor, NYC. Spears also recorded the last track for the album "Dear Diary" which would later be completed at East Bay Recording, Tarrytown NY and Avatar Studios, NYC. Another song recorded during these sessions was "Heart". Her cover of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" was recorded with Rodney Jerkins at Pacifique Recording Studios in Hollywood, CA during February 24–26, 2000 after attending the 42nd Grammy Awards.

By January, the then-untitled album was halfway to completion; Spears had worked on it primarily in the US and Sweden, and finalized material in New York City. She was heavily pressured after ...Baby One More Time's" huge commercial success: "It's kind of hard following ten million, I have to say. But after listening to the new material and recording it, I'm really confident with it." During the release of Oops!...I Did It Again, Spears told that "I mean, of course there's some pressure," Spears says. "But in my opinion, [Oops!] is a lot better than the first album. It's edgier - it has more of an attitude. It's more me, and I think teenagers will relate to it more." Geoff Mayfield, director of charts at Billboard, adds that the decision to release Oops! less than a year and a half after Spears' debut amounts to "very smart timing. My philosophy is, when you have a young fan base, get 'em while they're hot."

Music and lyrics

"Oops!... I Did It Again" was considered as a sequel to Spears' debut album, "...Baby One More Time" (1999), percolating with a carefully measured blend of familiar pop, funk, R&B and power-balladry. Spears said on an interview that the album has a more mature, R&B-flavored pop sound. "It's not something I changed purposefully," Spears said of the album's sound. "It's just something that kind of changed on itself with me being older. My voice has changed a little bit and I'm more confident, and I think that comes across on the material." One of its producers, Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins talked about working with Spears on a Rolling Stones cover, stating, "It's going to shock everybody," he said. "It has flavors of the original, but it's a straight 2000 version — new to the ear. Which I think is cool, because people who appreciate that song are going to love it. And I made it so new and young that the young kids that love Britney are going to love it. It's going to grab both a mature and young audience." Spears also worked with Robert "Mutt" Lange, saying, "When you hear the song, it's so pure and delicate. It's just one of those songs that pull you in," Spears told MTV News. "I think they wrote it 'specially for me, because the lyrics of the song, if you really listen … they're more of what I can relate to, 'cause they're kind of young lyrics, I think. I don't think Shania would probably sing some of the words that I'm saying."

Songs

The title track and opening song, "Oops!... I Did It Again", was compared to her debut single, "...Baby One More Time" (1998), featuring a slap-and-pop bassline, synthesizer chord stabs and a mechanized beat. Lyrically, the song sees Spears warning to an overeager prospective lover: "Oops, you think I'm in love/ That I'm sent from above — I'm not that innocent." The song also breaks down for a spoken-word interlude, involving a line from the movie Titanic. The second track "Stronger" is a synthpop and R&B-infused track, where lyrically, it's a declaration of independence, where Spears cuts loose a guy who treats her like property. The line "my loneliness ain’t killing me no more" makes reference to Spears' debut single. Another R&B-infused track, which also adds a bit more funk to the mix, "Don't Go Knocking on My Door" finds Spears confidently forging ahead after a breakup. The fourth track, a remake of the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", begins with mushy guitar plucking and breathy coos, until a dry, crackling lockstep is thrown down, turning the song into an urban stomp. The dance-pop version also jettisons the song's final verse and adds some new lyrics ("how white my shirts could be" becomes "how tight my skirt should be"). "[It] was my idea [to record the song]," Spears said. "I was just like, 'I like this song,' and I think it will be a really cool combination working with [hip-hop producer] Rodney [Jerkins] and doing a really funky song like that."

The fifth track, "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know", was co-written by country-pop singer-songwriter Shania Twain and her then-husband, producer Robert "Mutt" Lange, who also produced the track. The ballad, which boasts a slinky keyboard riff and Lange's characteristically lavish production, finds Spears allowing a bit of country twang into her vocals as she begs a lover to reveal his feelings: "My friends say you're into me ... but I need to hear it straight from you," she sings. The sixth track "What U See (Is What U Get) demands respect by rebuking a jealous beau, while seventh track, "Lucky", is a heart-rending tale of a Hollywood starlet's loneliness, proving that fame can be empty. "If there's nothing missing in my life/Then why do these tears come at night?," she asks. "School crush" is the theme of "One Kiss from You", a track that has a reggae-style beat and lyrics about the feelings of falling in love, and the quickness of it, with Spears cooing that after only one kiss she sees her entire future with her lover. The ballad "Where Are You Now" talks about wanting to know where a previous love is, and what that person is up to, so that she can finally let them go and find closure. Lines on "Can't Make You Love Me", an Europop song, state that fancy cars and money pale in comparison to true love, with Spears singing, "I'm just a girl with a crush on you." The mid-tempo, synth-backed "When Your Eyes Say It", penned by songwriter Diane Warren, combines a string section with a loping hip-hop beat, while Spears makes her own songwriting debut on the modest, keyboard-driven ballad "Dear Diary", which she has said is autobiographical. On the track, she sings of wanting to become "so much more than friends" with a boy.

Promotion

In late 1999, Spears promoted her upcoming album in Europe with live performances of her past songs. She appeared on Smash Hits in the United Kingdom. In Italy, she did a short interview on the show TRL Italy in early 2000. and gave a surprise performance in Paris in May 2000. In Australia, Spears appeared on The House of Hits and Russell Gilbert Live on May 13. In Spain, she gave an interview with El Rayo on September 8 and October 24. Spears performed at large venues in the United Kingdom, including Birmingham, the Wembley Arena in London, and the Manchester Evening News Arena. She was accompanied by 'N Sync, who toured with her during a short United Kingdom outing in October 2000.

In the United States, Spears appeared on Saturday Night Live on May 13, The Rosie O'Donnell Show on May 15, and Teen People's 25 Under 25 on May 26. On May 10, she was interviewed on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. On May 13, Spears was both the host and musical guest on NBC's Saturday Night Live. She also performed on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on May 23. Spears' held her post-TRL listening party, "Britney's First Listen", on May 16, and was toast the arrival of her album on next Tuesday's installment of TRL that started at 3:30 pm (ET). On May 14, she was at Times Square studios for two hours of "Britney Live" that started at 12 noon (ET). Spears performed "Oops!... I Did It Again" on MTV's All Access: Backstage With Britney that was broadcast on July 19, 2000. On September 7, at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards in New York City at the Radio City Music Hall, Spears gave a memorable live performance. which included a cover of the Rolling Stones's 1965 hit single "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and her own hit "Oops!... I Did It Again", released earlier that year. While she began her segment in a black suit, she shocked the audience and the media while, at only the age of eighteen, ripped it off to display a revealing, flesh-colored stage outfit with hundreds of strategically placed Swarovski crystals. One month before the release of the album, Spears' headed to Hawaii on Easter Sunday so she could tape a Fox television special titled Britney Spears in Hawaii. The free concert was started at 6:00 pm on the beach in front of the Hilton Hawaiian Village lagoon in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Fox concert event was intended to serve as a preview of Spears' Oops!... I Did It Again album that features her 12 new songs. Spears had on a month-long international promotional tour in support of Oops!... I Did It Again, and on May 2, she had a press event in Tokyo's "Kokusai Forum Hall", and she made stops in both London and Hawaii. Spears was also among the scheduled performers on the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards, which aired on CBS at 8 pm (ET/PT). She was also expected to drop by for a Grammy-day TRL.

Singles

"Oops!... I Did It Again" was released as the lead single from the album, and achieved worldwide popularity. It became Spears's third top 10 single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 9; however, in comparison to the huge success of her debut single "...Baby One More Time", JIVE Records considered "Oops!... I Did It Again" a minor disappointment. The song peaked at number one on the Top 40 Mainstream, holding the record for the most radio additions in one day."Oops!... I Did It Again" peaked atop the charts of over fifteen countries, including Australia, Italy, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Spears's music video for 'Oops!... I Did It Again' saw her in now iconic red shiny catsuit, while she is visited by an American astronaut who hands her the fictional Heart of the Ocean jewel which Rose threw into the sea at the end of Titanic.

The album's second single "Lucky" was released on August 8, 2000 and received positive response from critics, who considered one of her best offerings from the album. Commercially, "Lucky" topped the charts of Austria, Europe, Sweden and Switzerland, while reaching number 5 on the UK Singles Chart. In the United States, "Lucky" only managed to peak at number 23 on the Hot 100 chart and at number 9 on the Top 40 Mainstream. The "glittery" music video sees Spears as the narrator and an actress named Lucky, who is a melancholy movie star and shows her conflicted relationship to fame.

The third single "Stronger" was released on November 13, 2000 and became the album's second highest charting single in the United States, peaking at number 11 on the Hot 100 and number one on the Hot 100 Single Sales. In the UK, it reached number 7 on the UK Singles Chart. Its music video sees Spears catching her boyfriend cheating on her at some futuristic, turntable club, driving off and getting in a wreck and singing in the rain, while the chair sequence in the video was inspired by Janet Jackson's video for "The Pleasure Principle".

The final American single "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know" was released on March 5, 2001 and is one of her favorite tracks of her career. In the United States, the song performed well below expectations, failing to chart on the Hot 100 or the Top 40 Mainstream. However, the song attained success in Romania, reaching number one, and peaked inside the top ten in Austria, Europe and Switzerland, while reaching number 12 in the UK. The music video was considered too racy at the time, portraying Spears in love scenes with her fictional boyfriend, played by French model Brice Durand.

Other songs

"You Got It All" received a promotional release in France in May 2000. "When Your Eyes Say It" was planned to be the fourth single, however, "Don't Let Me Be The Last to Know", was eventually chosen instead. A music video for the song was filmed in January 2001 by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. The video was never released. A promotional CD Single for "When Your Eyes Say It" was released in the UK in January 2001.

Tour

The album was supported by the Oops!... I Did It Again World Tour, which visited North America, Europe, and a promotional appearance in Brazil as part of Rock in Rio. On the Crazy 2K Tour, Spears introduced the song "Oops!... I Did It Again" and "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know". On June 24, 2000, Spears was featured in a print and television advertising campaign for Clairol's Herbal Essences shampoo line. In a special coup for Clairol, Spears recorded her own song for the brand called "I've Got the Urge to Herbal" that was featured in 60-second radio spots and was part of a pre-concert video presentation for Spears's 50-city summer concert tour, in which Herbal Essences was the tour sponsor.

Critical reception

Oops!... I Did It Again received favorable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Oops!... I Did It Again received an average score of 72, based on 12 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Giving the album 4 out of 5 stars, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic noted that the album "has the same combination of sweetly sentimental ballads and endearingly gaudy dance-pop that made 'One More Time'," but remarked that, "Fortunately, she and her production team not only have a stronger overall set of songs this time, but they also occasionally get carried away with the same bewildering magpie aesthetic, [...] giv[ing] the album character apart from the well-crafted dance-pop and ballads that serve as its heart. In the end, it's what makes this an entertaining, satisfying listen." Billboard magazine wrote that "'Oops!...' indicates that she's developing a soulful edge and emotional depth that can't be conjured with a glass-shattering note," praising the album for consistently cast[ing] Spears as a young woman coming to terms with her inner power—and that's a darn good message to offer an impressionable audience." Entertainment Weekly's David Browne gave the album a "B" rating, writing that the album "reminds us once again that the best new pop can be a blast of cool air in a stifling room."

Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone gave the album a 3.5 out of 5 stars rating, calling the album "fantastic pop cheese, with much better song-factory hooks than 'N Sync or BSB get",also noting that "the great thing about Oops!, under the cheese surface, is complex, fierce and downright scary, making her a true child of rock & roll tradition." A writer of NME reported that "she's modern-day pop perfection realised in a nearly, human form," commenting that "she's done it again." Lennat Mak of MTV Asia named it "a brilliant second album," writing that Spears "is armed with a more mature and seasoned pop star look, stronger and poppier songs, and of course, extensive media exposure." Andy Battaglia of Salon called the album "a masterpiece of sorts not for its message but for the way it applies the conventions of the pop-musical medium." While the website The A.V. Club was more mixed, calling it "a joyless bit of redundant, obvious, competent cheese, recycling itself at every turn and soliciting songwriting from such soulless hacks as Diane Warren and assorted Swedes."

Commercial performance

In the United States, Oops!... I Did It Again reportedly sold 500,000 copies in its first day of release before debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of over 1.3 million copies. With its success, Spears held the record for the highest one-week sales by a female artist. This record was held for 15 years, only to be surpassed in November 2015 by the album 25 by Adele, which sold over 3.38 million albums in the United States in its first week. The album fell to number two in its second week, with additional sales of 612,000 copies. It held this position for fifteen consecutive weeks. By its fifth week of availability, Oops!... I Did It Again had sold over three million copies and had passed five million copies by August. On its seventeenth week on the chart, it was certified seven-times Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipments of seven million units. The album spent eighty-four weeks on the Billboard 200, thirty-one weeks on the Canadian Albums Chart, and two weeks on the Catalog Albums chart. Oops!... I Did It Again debuted at number eighty-two on the European Top 100 Albums chart, and quickly peaked at number one; it sold over four million copies within the continent, being certified four-times Platinum by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Oops!... I Did It Again reached number two in the United Kingdom, selling 88,000 copies in the first week of release; it remained in the top five for four weeks. The album debuted at number one in Canada, selling 95,275 copies in its first week.

It topped the French Albums Chart and also peaked at number-one in Germany also being certified triple Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry, double-Gold by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique and triple Platinum by Bundesverband Musikindustrie, denoting shipments to retailers of 900,000 units, 200,000 copies and 900,000 respectively. Additionally, the album debuted at number two on the Australian Albums Chart, and spent ten weeks in the top twenty; it became the fourteenth highest-selling of 2000 in the country and was certified two-times Platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association the following year after shipping 140,000 copies to retailers. Oops!... I Did It Again opened at number three on the New Zealand Albums Chart and was certified Gold after just one week on the chart. The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand ultimately certified it two-times Platinum. Oops!... I Did It Again became the third best-selling album of 2000 in the United States, selling 7,893,544 albums according to Nielsen SoundScan and fourth best-selling album according to Billboard Year-End of 2000. On January 24, 2005, the album was certified ten-times Platinum (Diamond) by the Recording Industry Association of America. Also, the album landed at number-twenty seven on BMG Music Club all-time best-sellers list with 1.21 million units, behind Shania Twain's The Woman in Me (1.24 million) and Nirvana's Nevermind (1.24 million). As of July 2009, the album has sold 9,184,000 copies in the United States, excluded copies sold through clubs, such as the BMG Music Service. Combined, Oops!...I Did It Again has sold over 10,394,000 copies in the United States.^[*] Worldwide, it sold 2.4 million copies in first week, 1.2 million in its second week, and 920,000 in its third week, making it one of the fastest selling albums in music history. In late 2000, it sold 16.3 million copies, becoming the best-selling album of 2000.

Controversy

Musicians Michael Cottril and Lawrence Wnukowski filed a copyright case against Spears, Zomba Recording Corp, JIVE Records, Wright Entertainment Group and BMG Music Publishing, claiming Spears' "What U See (Is What U Get)" and "Can't Make You Love Me" are "virtually identical" to one of their songs. Cottrill and Wnukowski claimed that they authored, recorded and copyrighted a song called "What You See Is What You Get" in 1999 to one of Spears' representatives for consideration on a future album, though it was rejected. The case was later dismissed after it was ruled that they lacked sufficient evidence and that there "weren't enough similarities between the two songs to prove copyright infringement."

Track listing

Personnel

Adapted from the AllMusic credits.

Decade-end charts

|}