Britney Spears fans are blasting back to the past with the release of Britney (25th Anniversary Edition). The revamped album features five previously unreleased songs: “Right Now (Taste The Victory),” “Am I A Sinner,” “When I Say So,” “My Big Secret,” and “She’ll Never Be Me.”
Co-written with Justin Timberlake in 2001, “She’ll Never Be Me” arrived in October as a preview of the anniversary release. Spears recorded the song for her third album, but it was left unfinished and ultimately scrapped from the record to prioritize other songs.
Meanwhile, “My Big Secret” was an effort from the Neptunes, the production duo of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo. It is rumored to have been offered to Janet Jackson before ending up with Spears, who held onto it for all these years. There are two remixes included on the new edition of Britney. Williams features on the Co-Ed remix of “Boys,” while Darkchild helmed the “Overprotected” remix.
Britney arrived in 2001 with the breakout hit “I’m a Slave 4 U,” and also featured Spears classics like “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” and “Lonely.” Twenty years later, Spears was released from a nearly 14-year conservatorship under which her finances and career were out of her control. When the court-supervised arrangement ended, the pop star expressed a clear disinterest in stepping back into the music spotlight. “Not doing my music anymore is my way of saying ‘Fuck You,’ in a sense when it only actually benefits my family by ignoring my real work,” she said.
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In February, Spears sold the rights to her entire music catalog. Her ownership share now belongs to Primary Wave, including “… Baby One More Time,” “Oops! … I Did It Again,” “(You Drive Me) Crazy,” “I’m a Slave 4 U,” “Lucky,” “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,” among many others.
In a 2001 review of Britney, Rolling Stone wrote, “Britney just wants to be Britney, this self-reflexive CD reasons, even as everyone around her is feverishly constructing ‘Britney’ the product.”
