1998 – Ready, VSHN Player One?

Everybody you know is into pop, right? That’s why it’s called “popular music” in the first place? Well, believe it or not, that’s not quite true. If you want to make music and money you have to appeal to more basic sentiments. In the German speaking world, you need to write Schlager or Volkstümliche Musik – like the Zillertaler Schürzenjäger, most of whom, I kid you not, are actually quite capable as jazz musicians. If you’re in the ‘mericas you need to perform Country.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t do a little cross-over. Which explains why it turns out the best-selling female country music artist of all times isn’t Dolly Parton after all! The title belongs to a Canadian – Shania Twain.

She released “That Don’t Impress Me Much” in two versions, but the so-called Country Version didn’t impress that audience too much. Contrary to the previous six singles she had released, this one totally failed to become #1 on the charts (well, it did make it to #8, which is more than most singers could wish for…). The International aka Dance Version, however, became a worldwide hit.

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Her knack for choosing what would prove to be popular is also demonstrated by calling out Brad Pitt – there were so many famous actors at the time whose names you would most likely not recognize anymore these days…

I remember a day in what must have been about 2000 or 2001 in a gloomy Bonnie Prince Pub, when my fellow drinking mates and I – all students at ETH proud of their good taste in music – finally admitted (after sampling copious amounts of the liquid on tap) that despite their catering to the masses, secretly we did like the Spice Girls. We did not change the station when Christina Aguilera came on. We adored Britney Spears.

When she’s making headlines these days, it sadly tends to be because of her long and difficult struggle with conservatorship, and not for being “The Princess of Pop”. Having started her career in early childhood – winning gymnastic competitions and talent shows alike – her first breakthrough happened in 1992 when she was cast as a member of the rekindled “Mickey Mouse Club” alongside Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, and Ryan Gosling. After the show was canceled it took a few years before she returned to the big stage, but boy, did she have an impact, when she finally did so with “…Baby One More Time” in 1998, still at the tender age of sixteen.

The song was named by Rolling Stone Magazine as “the greatest debut single of all time” as recently as 2020. The video has been voted the best of the entire 1990s and one of the most influential in the history of pop music. And a whole generation of young men had their hormones thoroughly shaken up. But unlike other videos where young women cater to the sexist ideals of men the video was Britney’s own product from A to Z. The dancing? Her idea. The wardrobe? Her choice. The knotted T-Shirt? Her final touch. The music… well, that’s another topic (the song had been offered to both “The Backstreet Boys” and “TLC” before, but they were not interested).

And the “love interest”? Was her cousin Chad.

Her career had only just started. She would produce a row of other really big hits over the years, but they would become less and less successful in time. It’s hard to have an even bigger hit when you start at that level.

a primer to music pop culture from the eighties to the noughties

Category: 1998

Hardly Dazzled

Hit Me, Britney