Born to make you happy ...

Believe it or not there was a time when Britney wasn’t on the front page of the Enquirer every week. When she was 17, she and some producers released this album – the most popular ever by a teenage artist, and she’s been entertaining us in more ways then just music ever since. I rather like this CD. It’s a bit like vanilla ice cream: it’s common, but really tasty and goes with anything. I give it five stars for being lyrically sweet and rhythmically satisfying.

The overall sound of music on the CD is sort of a synthetic pop sound, which is to say, a bunch of synthesizers arranged around a nice rhythm and decent music. I believe other writers have termed this style “synthpop” and “factory powerpop”. To make powerpop, you take a good-looking singer with a decent voice, throw in some romantic lyrics, add some nice synthesized beats and melodies, and put the whole thing in a flashy choreographed show. I think that Hannah Montana is the current synthetic pop queen – but Miss Spears had this position in 1999 after releasing this CD.

The lyrics on this CD are better then most. While Britney didn’t write any of the lyrics, she has a way of singing where you can understand all them all. On this CD, all of the lyrics are pure romance lyrics. By this I mean they are the type of thing you felt when you were falling in love for the first time. Or maybe the second time. Either way, they talk about true love: you are everything to me, “I was born to make you happy”, “all I really want is to hold you tight” and things of this nature. Perhaps if you’ve been through four divorces they don’t quite work, but in the meantime, they are very nice, and feel good for the heart.

As for the individual tracks, they fall into two categories: slow and fast. The fast ones are 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 11. The slow ones are 3, 6, 8, and 10. The fast songs have a heavy rhythm provided by synthetic percussion and keyboards. Each of these songs also has a hint of influence form a slightly different genre. Track one (…Baby One More Time), for instance, has a hint of disco in it with twangy disco licks. Track nine (Thinkin’ About You) has it has a hint of Jamaican Reggae in it. Overall these songs are just more synthpop songs – not weird enough that it can’t be played on “Today’s Hits”. They all retain the basic percussion and a driving bass to keep them quick and popular.

The slow songs tend to have a less drum-heavy rhythm, and deeply romantic lyrics. Many artists show great range in their slow songs; Britney’s songs tend to emphasize sweet lyrics rather then an expressive voice. Still, the lyrics are romantic enough that the songs are very pleasant and better then average.

Some people have suggested that the singer has… deteriorated… since this CD was released. Her current throng of paparazzi cannot diminish from what this CD is, however: fun, entertaining, and romantic. The music on this CD is very pleasant on the ears and goes with just about anything: exercising, work, even a romantic dinner. Five stars for being so harmonious, and five stars for being romantic as well.

Track list (with writers):

1. ...Baby One More Time (Max Martin)
2. (You Drive Me) Crazy (J. Elofsson, P. Magnusson, D. Kreuger, M. Martin)
3. Sometimes (J. Elofsson)
4. Soda Pop (M. Bassie, E. Foster White)
5. Born to Make You Happy (Kristian Lundin, Andreas Carlsson)
6. From the Bottom of My Broken Heart (E. Foster White)
7. I Will Be There (Max Martin, Andreas Carlsson)
8. I Will Still Love You (with Don Philip) (E. Foster White)
9. Thinkin' About You (M. Bassie, E. Foster White)
10. E-Mail My Heart (E. Foster White)
11. The Beat Goes On (S. Bono)

42:38.

So that you know – the American version of this CD has 11 songs on it. There is an international version with 16 songs on it, although I’m not sure how good the other five tracks will be. The CD being reviewed CD has a picture of a young Britney on the front of it kneeling on a pink background.