The year is 1001. Britney has yet to release her greatest album ever, and one of the greatest pop albums ever, and most curiously titled albums ever, In The Zone. Britney had finished promoting her second album, Oops..., which had spawned one HUGE no.1, almost as big as ... Baby One More Time, and had two massive selling albums behind her.

So, in order to keep the momentum, she and her team decide to release Britney, the self-titled album, in 2001. They even cut short the promotion of Oops... , by cancelling a planned final single, Knocking on my Door, in order to move on to Britney at the earliest opportunity.

Britney is a transition album; it deftly balances the burgeoning rnb pop scene of the early 2000s with the doo-pop, piano-led, bubbly pop of the trademark Britney sound of the late 90s. It also serves as the soundtrack to Britney's first, and final, foray into the film industry, with Crossroads. As such, whilst the album keeps the catchy, instant pop hooks on several of the big pop numbers, namely: Overprotected, Anticipating, Lonely, and Bombastic Love, That's Where You Take Me, it also has to present a new, more mature sound, threaded through with subtler, more current (for the time) rnb beats. Not only that, but it had to work as a body of music that could run through a feature film. Many critics at the time commented that Crossroads, at times, felt more like a musical, and some, less complimentary critics, decried the film as a vehicle for promoting Britney. In many ways, Britney and Crossroads followed the model of Spiceworld, which had come just a few years earlier.

As a result, the self-titled album does NOT have a song as strong as Oops... or ...Baby, in the sense of it marking a cultural cornerstone, or having an insatiable, huge chorus, or being the album workhorse as lead single. The closest pop track that matches the description is, Overprotected. Whilst I'm a big fan of the song, it has aged worse than Oops and Baby, and it does not feel like a cultural classic, in the way that her first two album openers did. Bombastic Love could also be in contention here, but it feels like a weaker first single choice than Overprotected.

Therefore, given that the album is a transition album, with a more mature, rnb sound permeating throughout, with the entire project clearly designed to launch Britney into the next stage of her career - adulthood (much like Hannah Montana give way to Miley Cyrus) - and because of the lack of a clear cultural classic cornerstone track, the first single had to be radically different to the sound that came before. Besides, the "trick", with two massive, era-defining pop songs leading her previous albums, had now worked twice; trying a third time could have really worn out the strategy. It could have also limited Britney's artistic range; given that this was designed as a transitional, not traditional, album, that idea would have been anathema to her team. Although ... perhaps the record company could have been persuaded to make it a hat-trick... for the benjies.

That leads us to... I'm a Slave (4 U), the single which launched the third album in September of 2001. First, let's address the elephant in the room: Christina Aguilera. The fact that Christina, just one year later, released Dirrty and Stripped, shows that Britney and Christina were eager to leave the teen sound behind. If Britney had not changed her sound and released I'm a Slave, her music could, perhaps, have sounded reductive in comparison to her immediate peer, the one with whom she was incessantly compared. That is enough of a reason in itself for this to be the correct single choice.

Slave itself is an utterly bombastic song. It has a pulsating, sensual rhythm, and Britney introduces, for the first time, but not the last, her sultry tones, which were reminiscent of Janet Jackson. It should be no surprise, therefore, that the song was written for Janet by Pharrel (neither of whom are strangers to cool, or sensual, beats). It sounds cool as a breeze on a balcony in high summer, the beat is almost hypnotic, and it comes across as a coming-of-age leap in musical direction. It basically announces, I'm Britney, and this is my sound. The blend of rnb with esoteric, rumbling drums, synths, and Turkish/ Caucus strains, and the lack of any chord progression in the verses, results in an utterly unique piece of pop history. Overnight, she became a seductress with sultry vocals, and the song STILL stands out within her entire discography. The song is an absolute blast, and sounds like a proto-Maneater by Nelly Furtado. It's a downplayed, dancehall thumper, with its muted, hypnotic beat as capable as any club track of filling a dancefloor. It's simply stellar, and it helps lead us directly to In the Zone. As the first single of a transition album, what more can you want? The video is a perfect accompaniment to the track. It's cool, and totally different to anything she had done before, whilst showcasing her dancing. The setting is iconic, and it is one of her most daring, provocative, yet simplistic, videos, too. Even the jarring colour scheme screams out for your attention. Absolute pop mastery in every way.

Not just that, but perhaps the only way to compete with the two JUGGERNAUT singles from her pure pop, breakout days was to do something radically different. In this sense, Slave works as a first single. On the other hand, the song is such a monumental, seismic change from her earlier sound, and the song itself is so unusual, with a peculiar key movement and lack of chord progression, that it was EXTREMELY risky as a first single. It is far more daring than the previous two, whilst establishing a new sound for Britney as well. The fact that it is a new, traditional, rnb-infused sound, in and of itself, is risky enough, without even touching on the strange nature of the song itself ... as a pop song by a major artist, one who had been known for a particular sound (and one that she had popularised and headlined, in doo-pop). This same risk was the undoing of the Spice Girls not even one year prior.

Then came the VMA performance...

The public reaction was ... over the top. However, that same reaction kept Britney on everyone's minds, and took up column inches and newsreel minutes. This is exactly what Britney's team were aiming for, in releasing the new album a year after Oops... They wanted to avoid any loss of momentum. Britney was on top of the pop world with the song, and the sensual VMA performance of the track EXPLODED in an early portence of what would one day become social media virality. It was one of the main topics of conversation in the entertainment world at the time. In this sense, we can see that the song WAS the right choice of first single... except for the fact that ... there is another, perhaps stronger, contender. Particularly if we consider how Beyoncé launched her sophomore effort with, If I was a Boy, and the major success that left-field move achieved.

That brings us to what I believe would have been a stronger first single choice:

I'm Not a Girl is a stripped-back ballad, with mature lyrics and a subject matter that literally deals with transition, namely the transition of one life stage to the next, mirroring the album and Britney's life. It is one of Britney's best-known tracks, even though it was her third single from the album, and has even featured on Family Guy! It is only a few million behind Slave in views on youtube, even though Slave is protagonised by one of her most famous videos.

I believe this song would have SLAPPED and SERVED as the lead single. It was a radical departure to the first two leads, in the sense that, instead of a brassy, upbeat pop track, we have a soulful ballad; and yet, at the same time, it was still a piano-led doo-pop song; only now it was more mature and felt very authentic.

However, the only way that this would have worked is if they had NOT pushed to release the album exactly a year after the sophomore effort, and had, instead, decided to take their time. This is because this song had always been purposed as the main lead for her movie, which wouldn't be released until summer of 2002. I think they should have had more confidence in Britney's star power and waited half a year more. They could have led with this as the main single for the album, and also as the main promotional track for her movie. It would have been very reminiscent of Spice World and Spice Up Your Life, in that way. This would have been the perfect transition song, and would have set up the stage for I'm a Slave to come as the second song, both thematically and sonically. Overprotected could have followed Slave, as an admonishment to the overreaction and backlash to Britney's maturing sound, and the three songs in that order would have been a critical commentary of society's relationship to famous women, and have served as a coherent narrative. In this order, there would have been no need for I Love Rock and Roll, a song that derailed the campaign and had critics lambast her as, manufactured, for the sudden about turn sonically, with a cover that offered nothing different to the original. It was released to help promote the movie; however, with this order, I'm Not a Girl, as both first single and movie single, would have done most of the promotional heavy-lifting. Moreover, saving the two other biggest songs, to run alongside the promotional window for the movie, would have helped far more than a cover of a song that sounded nothing like anything else she had ever released up until that point (or, in fact, to this day...). A fourth and fifth single could follow, in the form of Anticipating and Boys, to cement the change in sound, and help pave the way for her best album, which was yet to come.

So, in short, whilst Slave is a unique blast of a track, and one of Britney's very best, it would have served her better as second single... had they been willing to buy their time. Otherwise, it was by FAR the best option for the September release. Just like Toxic needed to be set up by another single first, I believe Slave would have benefitted in the same way.

What do y'all think? Are you big fans of the song, too? Do you think it was the right choice as the first single?

Omg... THIS, to all of THIS! I'm a Slave 4 U was yuuuge in 1001 and the correct choice for that time period

It was a unique single at the time and very different from her but musically it was the start of me going off her and musically i never really got back into her from then on.

6 hours ago, Padamic_Tension said:

It was a unique single at the time and very different from her but musically it was the start of me going off her and musically i never really got back into her from then on.

How would you have reacted to I'm Not A Girl as the first single?

And yeah, her music changed DRAMATICALLY after the first two albums. I'm not a big fan of the Britney album, except for the singles, but In The Zone is one of the best pop albums I've ever heard to this day. But after that, i went off all the stuff she did... but mainly because it was no longer HER sound, or what she wanted to do.

This is a very interesting concept and certainly could have worked too. Very well thought out.