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ROLLING STONE:

Did Britney Spears See the Future With ‘E-Mail My Heart’?
In the age of social distancing, her cheesy 1999 song about love and email sounds better than ever.

If you didn’t parade around your room in 1999 wearing blue eyeshadow while blasting “… Baby One More Time” on your stereo, you missed out. It was a golden age for girl groups and boy bands, a time when pop stars flourished and tabloids knew no bounds. The Internet was growing popular, and the fear of Y2K came with it. Oh, and Britney Spears prophesied the future.

It’s been 21 years since a girl from small-town Louisiana became the biggest pop star of her moment. Teenagers all across the world sang along to her debut album then, and people of all ages are still singing along now to the addictive chorus of its title song and the giddy, love-struck lyrics of “(You Drive Me) Crazy.” Under all the “oh bay-by bay-by’s,” though, there lies a forgotten love ballad: “E-Mail My Heart.”

This particular song is not the best of Britney’s pop anthems; any serious ranking of her discography would have to put it lower than “Soda Pop.” When the song came up on a 2018 episode of Rolling Stone’s Music Now podcast, writers Rob Sheffield and Brittany Spanos said they loved it, to which host Brian Hiatt interjected, “You do not love that song.” Somehow, they are all right. We might hate “E-Mail My Heart,” but we love it, too. Even as we’re put off by its over-the-top Nineties production, we love the way it predicted our digitally-dependent existence. Yes, it’s the most ridiculous track on her debut album, but its relevance cannot be denied. Now more than ever, this cheesy ballad about love and email is the Britney song we need most.

Psychicney!