Britney Spears

Britney Jean Spears was born December 2, 1982, in the small town of Kentwood, LA, and began performing as a singer and dancer at a young age. She sang in her local church and with a nationally televised appearance on Star Search already under her belt, by the age of eight she auditioned for Disney’s Channel’s The New Mickey Mouse Club. Even though she was turned down because she was too young to join the cast a producer on the show introduced her to a New York agent. She spent the next three years in New York City studying at the off-Broadway Dance Center and at the Professional Performing Arts School, appearing in several commercials and even got a part in the off-Broadway play “Ruthless”. By the age of eleven Britney returned to audition in The Mickey Mouse Club and finally earned a spot in the show. After spending two seasons in the show, it was cancelled in spite of the impressive array of future stars it included: *NSYNC's Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez, Christina Aguilera, and Felicity actress Keri Russell.

After cancellation of the show she returned to home, but her passion for music drove her to audition for pop bands and to record demos. Her demo tape eventually landed in the hands of a Jive Records executive who quickly signed her to the label.  Spears entered the studio with top writer/producers like Eric Foster White (Boyzone, Whitney Houston, Backstreet Boys) and Max Martin (Ace of Base, Backstreet Boys, ‘NSYNC). In the fall of 1998, Jive released her debut single named "...Baby One More Time." She also toured around in malls and got the chance to open to the already successful boy band 'NSync. In January of 1999 her album, homonym of her single, hit the shelves and landed on top of the Billboard Charts and stayed number one for six weeks.

After the big success of her first album which granted Britney four MTV Europe music awards and four Billboard music awards, she released her second record entitled “Oops!... I Did It Again.” With this record released in spring of 2000, Britney was able to locate some of its songs in the music charts. It sold over a million copies in its first week of release, setting a new record for single-week sales by a female artist. It also accredited Britney some more awards including an American Music Award as favorite new artist, a Billboard Music Award as album artist of the year, and 2 Teen Choice Awards.

For her next album, Spears looked ahead to a not-so-distant future when both she and much of her audience would be growing up. Released in late 2001, the record “Britney” tried to present the singer as a more mature young woman. This was her third consecutive album to debut number one, though its singles were not able to rank as high as previous ones. The album was quickly followed by Britney’s motion picture debut, “Crossroads,” which proved that she has the talent and box-office pull to be a multifaceted superstar. In 2003 she released “In The Zone” which as expected topped the charts and bestowed her more awards including a 2004 Teen Choice Award of Choice Music Single for “Toxic”, 2004 Female Artist of the Year at the MTV Europe Awards and a 2005 Grammy for Best Dance Recording of “Toxic”. In January 2005, Britney released “Greatest Hits: My Prerogative” album that recompiles Britney’s bright Career.