Britney Spears: Glee
Britney Jean Spears
(born December 2, 1981) is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born
in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, she began performing
as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She
signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut studio album ...Baby
One More Time in 1999, which became the best-selling album by a teenage solo
artist.[2] During her first decade in the music industry, she became a
prominent figure in mainstream popular music and popular culture, followed by a
much-publicized personal life. Her first two albums established her as a pop
icon and broke sales records, while title tracks "...Baby One More
Time" and "Oops!... I Did It Again" became international
number-one hits. Spears was credited with influencing the revival of teen pop
during the late 1990s, and became the 'best-selling teenaged artist of all
time' before she turned 20,[3] garnering her honorific titles such as "Princess
of Pop".[4]
In 2001, she
released her third album Britney and expanded her brand, playing the starring
role in the film Crossroads. She assumed creative control of her fourth studio
album, In the Zone (2003), which yielded chart-topping singles "Me Against
the Music", "Toxic" and "Everytime". After the release
of two compilation albums, Spears experienced personal struggles and her career
went into hiatus. Her fifth studio album, Blackout (2007), spawned hits
"Gimme More" and "Piece of Me" despite receiving little
promotion. In 2008, her erratic behavior and hospitalizations caused her to be
placed in a conservatorship. Later in the year, her sixth album Circus was
released, with the global chart-topping lead single "Womanizer", and
hits such as "Circus" and "If U Seek Amy". She embarked on
her highest-grossing global concert tour,[5] The Circus Starring Britney
Spears, in 2009. In October of the same year, she released a chart-topping
single, "3", which became her third single to reach number one on the
Billboard Hot 100. Her seventh album Femme Fatale (2011) became the first of
her albums to yield three top ten singles in the United States, "Hold It
Against Me", "Till the World Ends" and "I Wanna Go".
The same year, she gained her fifth number one single when she featured on the
remix of "S&M" alongside Rihanna.
Spears's work has
earned her numerous awards and accolades, including a Grammy Award, 6 MTV Video
Music Awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award, 9 Billboard Music
Awards, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2009, Billboard ranked her
as the 8th overall Artist of the Decade,[6] and also recognized her as the
best-selling female artist of the first decade of the 21st century, as well as
the fifth overall.[7] The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) also
recognized Spears as the eighth top-selling female artist in the United States,
with 34 million certified albums.[8] Nielsen SoundScan ranked Spears the tenth
best-selling digital artist of the country, with more than 28.6 million digital
singles as of January 2012.[9] She has sold over 100 million albums worldwide,
making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.[10] Rolling Stone
recognized her instant success as one of the Top 25 Teen Idol Breakout Moments
of all time,[11] while VH1 ranked her eleventh on their "100 Greatest
Women in Music" list in 2012,[12] and Billboard named her the sexiest
woman in music.[13] Forbes also revealed that Spears was the highest paid
female musician of 2012, ranking in $58 million, having last topped the list in
2002. -Wikipedia
