#Oops i did it again microphone tv#

The 25-minute gap that would theoretically delay communications between mission control and Mars? Who needs science, nerd?! Wouldn’t Britney Spears, flesh-and-blood Louisiana native, need an oxygen suit to effortlessly breathe and thrust in the cosmos? Or risk messing up the sleek space-age coif that she’d ordered styled like Elizabeth Hurley in Austin Powers? Don’t even bother asking about the arbitrary ban on rocket ships. Bruce Weber directing Barbarella-except this time, Jane Fonda had a motor in the back of her Honda. The “Oops!” video had fire eaters, interplanetary travel, shirtless-yet-suspendered synchronized laborers, and a jiggy phalanx of silver-suited backup dancers gyrating inside a Martian space dungeon commanded by one Britney Spears, sadistically taunting a rocketeer boy toy, chained and dangling from the ceiling. Nothing would ever be that innocent again. Americans are gratefully duped into believing what they want to believe, and this was the last gasp of willful delusion. But this was the peak of blood-rush hysteria, the last time the illusion could be sustained.

Britney would go on to produce better songs (“I’m a Slave 4 U,” “Toxic”) and remain essential to the pop culture industrial complex until this day (though her public struggles with mental health have often overshadowed the music). The iPod would enter the world shortly thereafter, followed by social media and forever wars. The single and album-the latter of which was released 20 years ago on Saturday-were the last successful world-conquering acts of the exhausted American century (even if the songwriting and production were already outsourced), the final classic album of the teen-pop era, a goodbye to the gilded years of the record industry. I Did It Again” shock and awe defined that moment. The Ringer’s 40 Best Singles and Albums of 1999 How the Backstreet Boys Represented the Pinnacle-and Death Rattle-of the Old Music Business How the Original ‘TRL’ Conquered Teen CultureĪ hit is a hit, but like anything that seeps into the collective memory, the “Oops!. She was the vestal pseudo-virgin at the center of that neon helix between impeachment and implosion in a perfumed Abercrombie & Fitch nation, soundtracked by Swedish pop shamans and their sparkling American veneers. In this never-ending prom of frosted-tip and puka-shell pop, Britney Spears was the queen, barely legal and the biggest star in the world. The eponymous lead single shattered ’NSync’s freshly set record for most radio station adds in a single week. Towering above all pop culture totems was a 5-foot-4 ex-Mouseketeer turned teenaged Marilyn, who sold more first-week albums than any female artist ever had-1,319,000 copies-nearly triple that of the previous record-holder (Alanis Morissette). Santana drank the blood of the Product G&B for eternal youth, and no one has heard from them since. Sisqó introduced the globe to the concept of underwear minimalism. The Billboard singles charts were a game of musical chairs between ’NSync, the Backstreet Boys, Enrique Iglesias, Christina Aguilera, Ricky Martin, Destiny’s Child, Eminem, and Nelly. Monica had just spurned Tom Selleck to accept Chandler’s marriage proposal. Gladiator, an anachronistic swords-and-sandals epic, dominated the box office.

Stock in both America Online and peroxide manufacturers was at an all-time high.

#Oops i did it again microphone tv#

In the middle of May, at the dawn of the millennium, Bill Clinton was still president, unemployment limboed to its lowest rate since the late ’60s, and Survivor was still two weeks away from ushering in the reality TV takeover. The ’90s were only a few months gone, and a lacquered mirage of peace, prosperity, and maximal pop gleamed on the infinite horizon. There was a lot to consider, but no one had time for that.