A Celebration: Britney Spears's 'Oops!...I Did It Again' Turns 20

Image: Mark SeligerToday marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Britney Spears’s second album Oops!…I Did It Again which first slid into music retailers on 16 May 2000. One of the defining release not just of Spears’ career but also pop music in the early 2000s, the album spawned 4 global hit singles and would sell over 20 million copies worldwide, making it one of the biggest selling albums of all time.

Spears had first burst onto the music scene in 1999 with the classic single ‘…Baby One More Time’ and debut album of the same name. She quickly became a pop culture phenomenon and barely 9 months after the release of the …Baby One More Time album she was back in the studio recording the follow up which would become Oops!...I Did It Again. Recorded in New York, Switzerland and Sweden, Spears worked with a number of high profile producers and writers including Diane Warren, Shania Twain and the Swedish powerhouse team of Max Martin, Andreas Carlsson and Per Magnusson who had also worked on …Baby One More Time.

First single ‘Oops!...I Did It Again’ was released ahead of the album in March 2000 and it became startlingly apparent that Spears was not just a flash in the pan. An insanely catchy pop track with a kitsch but mesmerising music video, in hindsight it was the ultimate Britney Spears moment and quite probably the moment she crossed the line from teen pop star to pop icon. The hits continued – ‘Stronger’, ‘Lucky’, ‘Don’t Let Me Be The Last To Know’ - and Spears carved her place in history as the artist who inspired countless young women of that generation to not only see strength in their femininity but to love music and even pursue careers in music.

Oops!...I Did It Again went on to peak at number 1 on the US charts, breaking the record for most debut week sales for a female artist, a record that remained in place for 15 years. It peaked at number 2 in Australia and the UK and number 1 in 14 other countries across the world. And while the album followed a similar musical path of the dance-teen-pop of her debut album, its incorporation of R&B and more sophisticated ballads paved the way for the maturation of Spears as an artist 12 months later with the harder electronica and R&B of the Britney album.

To celebrate the 20th birthday of Oops!...I Did It Again Women In Pop are revisiting it track-by-track below. Tell us your favourite track in the comments!