'I just love the song. It's just a great song,' Nigel Dick says.

In 1998, Britney Spears sauntered down the halls of high school, dressed in uniform, singing about the boy who broke her heart. " ... Baby One More Time" let the world know that a new pop starlet was in town.

"I decided to try this idea that someone had thrown at me and they hated it — they absolutely hated it," the video's director, Nigel Dick, told MTV News. "So I jumped on the phone with Britney and she says, 'Well, I now I think it should be about me in school and there be lots of hot boys around,' and that was pretty much it — oh, and a bunch of dancing. And my response was, 'OK.' "

In a 1998 interview with MTV, Spears revealed that she wanted the video to reflect the lives of her fans, so she wanted to set it in a school. "The first idea we had for the video was so off the wall," she said. "I was like, 'I want something a lot of kids can relate to.' It's just a fun video."

Britney's "Lolita"-esque schoolgirl look may have resonated with kids, but it didn't exactly please their parents. And Dick gives full credit to Spears for that idea. "My idea originally was just jeans and T-shirts, and we were at the wardrobe fitting and Britney holds up the jeans and T-shirts and says, 'Wouldn't I wear a schoolgirl outfit?' " he said. "Every piece of wardrobe in the video came from Kmart, and I was told at the time not one piece of clothing in the video cost more than $17. On that level, it's real. That probably, in retrospect, is a part of its charm."

Later on, in 2000, Britney would sit down with MTV and explain why she decided on the semi-risqué fashions. "Me showing my belly? I'm from the South; you're stupid if you don't wear a sports bra [when you] go to dance class, you're going to be sweating your butt off," she explained. "It was such a wonderful experience. All these people there, working for you. I had my own trailer. It was an amazing experience."

Dick said at the time all his colleagues wondered why he would want to work on a video for a 16-year-old unknown, but he had his reasons. "My response was, 'It's a great song. I don't know anything about Britney. I never watched the "Mickey Mouse Club." She seems like a great kid and she's very enthusiastic,' " he said. "But I just love the song. It's just a great song."

When Britney sat down with MTV in 1998, she echoed the sentiment, noting that as soon as she heard it, she knew she had to record the track. "It's a song every girl can relate to," she said. "She regrets it. She wants him back."

With the release of Britney Spears: The Singles Collection, MTV News is looking back on the pop star's career through interviews with video directors, music-industry insiders and Spears herself, as she reflects on some of her greatest hits.

http://www.dailymotion.co...ore_people

http://www.mtv.com/news/a...tney.jhtml
[Edited 11/20/09 23:21pm]

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I never understood people saying how sexual and overt this was, it's just a navel! Yeah, she's young but young people go to school and sometimes do rebellious stuff like that, so what? The rest of the video is just dancing in sporty outfits. To me, people who see this video as sick are pretty sick themselves.
[Edited 11/20/09 23:22pm]

Let's see: a blonde, teenaged girl in pigtails with her midriff exposed in a short catholic high school girl miniskirt. You know, you're absolutely right - I have NO clue how anyone could interpret that as overtly sexual. They must be sick! Clearly, there are a lot of sick minds out there.

And look at all the imitators Britney has inspired! These are just studious women going about their business.





And how could ANYONE interpret other Britney photoshoots or videos from the period as sexual or disturbing? THEY are the ones with sick minds! Perverts! Britney is such a serene angel who probably has never taken the seal off her vagina.



And her she is just demonstrating her technique for the pictorial edition of How To Shit In The Woods. Britney's overt sessuality is not even hinted at here.


[Edited 11/20/09 23:55pm]

I'm sure there were schoolgirl outfits in porn long before Britney came along. And since she came up with the idea herself, are you saying she was fully aware of the underlying connotations the outfit had? So is she smart or the dumbest pop star ever like everyone likes to say?



The only thing that makes hers any different from the others is the peek of her bra. Even then, the focus in that scene is her dancing, she does nothing except dance yet the way people salivate over it, you'd think she was humping the lockers and lifting her skirt. In fact the whole video is just one big dance session, there's barely anything sexual about this video. Go watch Slave 4 U then compare it to this.

Those women in those pictures are deliberately being sexual. Britney was just having a dance with a tiny bit of sexiness thrown in.

I'm not saying her photo shoots after weren't questionable, clearly she enjoyed the frenzied reaction she got from this essentially harmless video.

Anyway, teen Brit can't dance with a bra showing without the world freaking out yet teen (or in his twenties?) Prince can hump the ground while singing about fucking his sister and everyone adores him?
[Edited 11/21/09 4:38am]

I never got all the shock from that video either. I guess it came from people watching too many porno movies with schoolgirls because otherwise how would one make the connection? Baby One More Time was a great video, the sexuality in it wasn't more than usual and it was essentially a dance video, not a sexual one. As for the other pics, yes they are sensual, so what? Doesn't every female pop star use sensual imagery to promote herself?
[Edited 11/21/09 7:23am]

ugh. this bitch shoulda been just a 1-hit wonder. It's a joke that this 1 video has propelled her career for this long...and plz...the naughty catholic school girl was used in movies way before BS made this video.

mimi2 said:

Oh no. Then we wouldn't have had 'Toxic', the Madonna-kiss & 'Piece Of Me'

purplesweat said:

They knew exactly what they were doing when they dressed Britney up as one of porn's biggest fantasies for her first video. Because of her age, they got exactly the reaction they were looking for. This happens every time someone sexualizes a young girl - and, yes, the reaction is a bit sexist, but it's there and the marketing crew anticipated it. They certainly were not shocked.
Early Britney was sold on that potent combination of feminine sexuality and innocence.
[Edited 11/21/09 13:31pm]

Sex is always the thing to bank on, plain and simple. Madonna and all the 80's peeps that created videos are why it is the way of the world in the visual sense now.

VoicesCarry said:

There were 3 kinds of people that liked Britney in 1998:

1. The teen girls that loves Britney's music.

2. The teen boys that lusts Britney's body and loves Britney's posters.

3. The fathers of those teen girls & boys that wished they could fornicate Britney (THINK: Lolita) at the expensive of losing their marriages to their wives!

It's no wonder why there were a lot of angry mothers back then.

VoicesCarry said:

They....?

She thought of it. All of it. The original idea they chose was to have her as a cartoon super hero.

Britney Spears is a talentless hack formulated and spat out by the Disney robotics factory. Too bad her copycats from American Idol now rule the Pop Music Machine in the United States of Mediocrity!

jiorjios said:

No. Have you heard Annie?

As for Britney, "Baby One More Time" was definitely intended to raise eyebrows, and it did. Congrats to her.

Moonbeam said:

poetcorner61 said:

poetcorner61 said:

purplesweat said:

She could barely string a sentence together back then and you're saying she was masterminding her entire career launch? No - Jive Records did.

I don't know about your high school, but this concept of losing clothing to appear sexy was not lost on my generation. We had school policies re-written to cover midriff-baring shirts, etc.

TonyVanDam said:

4. Those of us who agree with the director and like the song. It's damned catchy.
[Edited 11/28/09 14:39pm]

I wonder if she looks back and remembers that used to be her real hair?

VoicesCarry said:

Surely they'd want the credit for something so iconic if that were true?

NigelDick said:

Wait a sec, there were hot boys in that video? Or was he, ahem, cherry-picking his favorite ideas?

purplesweat said:

Since when is it the business of executives to take credit for marketing successes? A marketing team has to remain invisible if it's going to be successful - and, the entire point of the exercise is to further the product (in this case, Britney). You don't see these people patting themselves on the backs in press releases saying "We really sold THAT one."

I think Britney releases great pop music, but I'm not going to delude myself into thinking she was ever the brains behind her career. Madonna, yes. Britney, no. Has a lot to do with intelligence and self-awareness, which Britney lacks at the best of times.
[Edited 11/29/09 11:25am]

VoicesCarry said:

I love it. People everywhere call her a puppet then when evidence of her possible contribution comes out she's suddenly too brain dead to walk and there's no WAY she could've come up with a music video on her own. Which is it?

purplesweat said:

Yeah, the latter.