...Baby One More Time - Background and Development

Background and Development

In June 1997, Spears was in talks with manager Lou Pearlman to join female pop group Innosense. Lynne asked family friend and entertainment lawyer Larry Rudolph for his opinion and submitted a tape of Spears singing over a Whitney Houston karaoke song along with some pictures.Rudolph decided to pitch her to record labels, which required a professional demo. He sent Spears an unused song from Toni Braxton; she rehearsed for a week and recorded in a studio with a sound engineer. Spears traveled to New York with the demo and met executives from four labels, returning to Kentwood the same day. Three rejected her, arguing audiences wanted pop bands such as the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls, and "there wasn't going to be another Madonna, another Debbie Gibson or another Tiffany." Two weeks later, executives from Jive Records returned calls to Rudolph. Senior vice president of A&R Jeff Fenster stated, "It's very rare to hear someone that age who can deliver emotional content and commercial appeal. For any artist, the motivation—the 'eye of the tiger'— is extremely important. And Britney had that." They appointed her to work with producer Eric Foster White for a month, who reportedly shaped her voice from "lower and less poppy" delivery to "distinctively, unmistakably Britney." Spears recorded ten songs with White, including "Autumn Goodbye", "E-Mail My Heart", "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart", "I'm So Curious", "I Will Still Love You", "Soda Pop", and "Thinkin' About You". The singer also recorded a cover of Sonny & Cher's 1967 single "The Beat Goes On". White was responsible for the vocal recording and song production, while additional production was done by English electronic music group All Seeing I.

After hearing the material, president Clive Calder ordered a full album. Spears flew to Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, where half of the album was recorded from March to April 1998, with producers Max Martin, Denniz Pop and Rami Yacoub, among others. Martin showed Spears and her management a track titled "Hit Me Baby One More Time", which was originally written for American R&B group TLC; however, they rejected it. Spears later claimed that she felt excited when she heard it and knew it was going to be a hit. "We at Jive said, 'This is a fuckin' smash'," revealed the label's A&R executive, Steven Lunt; however, other executives were concerned that the line "Hit Me" would condone domestic violence, and later revised it to "...Baby One More Time". The singer revealed that she "didn’t do well at all the first day in the studio, I was just too nervous. So I went out that night and had some fun. The next day I was completely relaxed and nailed it. You gotta be relaxed singing ‘… Baby One More Time’." By June 1998, the album was done, and Spears embarked on a promotional tour sponsored by L'Oreal. ...Baby One More Time was released as Spears' debut album on January 12, 1999.