One More Time:
The Britney Symposium

Britney Spears' "… Baby One More Time" reached #1 on the charts on January 30, 1999 – ten years ago this week. After her came the deluge: the end of the record industry as we know it, yes, but also the end of America as it used to conceive of itself. Five writers mark the decennial of this debatably historic occasion.

Faster, More Trumpet
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Nick Sylvester

Imagine you're sixteen—Britney's age. You are wearing your overweight father's tuxedo. The jacket fits like a shawl, the pants stay tight via this metal device your mother goes a good deal out her way not to call a diaper pin. This is a pretty good band you're in.

Britney Republic
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Christine Smallwood

Britney asked you to smack her and Bill came on Monica's dress, but he didn't have sexual relations with that woman and Britney was a virgin. There was just one constant in that topsy-turvy world: a little girl needs protection. Me, I needed a job.

After the Glitter Fades: A Mix-Tape
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Emily Gould

Mix tapes are tricky in the way that all presents are tricky—you have to balance your own taste with the taste of the recipient, even if that person's taste is terrible. You have to hide the medicine in the applesauce. Keeping this in mind, I have refrained from making the entire mix tape just Bikini Kill.

Inside the Box
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Wesley Yang

When I first saw Britney Spears on the Box, what I thought about was Britny Fox. Britny Fox was a terrible hair metal band that had scored a hit with a song called "Girlschool." It featured a classroom full of Catholic schoolgirls gyrating to the beat in defiance of a stern teacher. They roll up their shirts to expose their abs, and muss their hair, but they don't go any further—there isn't anywhere further to go.

A Hot Dog in Versace
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Carlene Bauer

I keep coming back to the thought that the ascendance and persistence of Britney Spears has coincided with the ascendance and persistence of a cynical government. We've been looking at Britney, and faces like hers—blank, and unrepentantly blank—for too long.

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