Baby One More Time

Britney Spears' debut single, written by Max Martin, and the one that catapulted her into the upper echelons of worldwide fame at the age of just seventeen. The cynical-minded might try to claim that the song's popularity was more down to the promo video that got heavy rotation on MTV, featuring young Britney in a schoolgirl uniform singing and dancing throughout school corridors rather than the song itself. And cynical-minded could be right.

The Scottish rock band Travis have recorded a more credible, accoustic version of the song - recorded live at Robin Hood's Bay with backing vocals by Mark and Lard - and released it as one of the b-sides with their single Turn. It's also quite a popular target for ska punk bands to have a go at (having seen two such bands live this year that have performed the song) and surprisingly manages to lend itself to other genres with consumate ease. Perhaps Cannibal Corpse could have a pop at it...

Lyrically, it's really not a bad song but - oh! - Britney throws in way too much cream and sugar.

Also covered by Fountains of Wayne. It was supposed to be the third track on the Red Dragon Tattoo single. The day after mastering it had been leaked to the Howard Stern show. The day after that Atlantic Records and various international affiliates were calling Chris saying how much they loved it and that it was going to do extremely well and that they were going to basically promote it as the single (instead of Red Dragon Tattoo).

Chris had this to say about the whole thing, "We just didn't want to have a big dumb novelty song because we strongly felt that it would ruin any chance for the rest of the record to be taken seriously.". Talking about this causing them to be compared to Barenaked Ladies, "Nobody would have given them the time of day if they didn't have a big, dumb novelty hit 'One Week'. I'd rather be unsuccessful and good than successful and bad."

And that is why there is no commercially released version of this song, however you can search for the mp3 of the leaked copy. Its a truly excellent cover.