Britney Spears – 10 of the best

With Britney Spears releasing her ninth studio album, Glory, we look back over a career of pristine pop and distressing vulnerability

The title alone is uncomfortable to contemplate, and the song as a whole can only be described as a determined erasure of the autonomous self. Is the most disturbing line the one in which Britney apologises to her absent ex for crying over the split? Like most of her real relationships, this one doesn’t seem as if it was ever that healthy. Forget the idea that Britney’s job was to set any sort of example; calls for pop stars to be role models, especially in their music, are moralistic cant. Born to Make You Happy is horrifying as text and irresistible as pop, and the two are inextricable. The sugar-sweet melody – unlike her other early singles, this one required no modern production tricks – and that magnificent key change pull you in despite the horror; the song invites you to willingly, ecstatically, be swept into its darkness. The horror is not only that a sweetly smiling teenager is giving voice to disturbing emotions, but that this penchant for self-degradation and co-dependency is within us as well: she’s tapped into it and forced us to enjoy it.

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