Britney Takes Charge

It is October, and Britney Spears is wearing a white peasant-style top that leaves her famous midriff bare and a pair of taupe terry-cloth pants — an outfit that is both practically suited for the dance rehearsal she is currently on lunch break from and aesthetically suited to her radiant, innocently shameless harem-girl-meets-hoofer appeal. She's in her dressing room at Florida's Lakeland Civic Center, where the final phase of tour preparation, complete with rotating stage, bungee action and eight backup dancers, has landed. Britney is sitting on a black leather sectional sofa, in the semitwilight of numerous candles and strings of white Christmas-tree lights, along with some draped lengths of dark fabric, some ostrich feathers arranged in vases and an entertainment console that has a picture of her boyfriend, 'NSync's Justin Timberlake, and a joke trophy naming her Most likely to get work when tour is over on top of it. All these things impart a general ambience that is in sync (as it were) with her ensemble: sort of like Delia's catalog meets I Dream of Jeannie.

Her new record, Britney, is a somewhat bumpier-and-grindier production than the two previous ones — a little heavier on the sexy-girl side of her image, a little lighter on the girl next door — and for the first time Britney shares writing credits with her producers, a mix of pop and hip-hop maestros ranging from Max Martin to Rodney Jerkins and the Neptunes. "I've been influenced by a lot of hip-hop and R&B recently, just because that's the kind of music I listen to," she says. "Jay-Z and Alicia Keys. And that's why I wanted to have a combination. So I just wanted to play around with it a little bit. And because I wrote some, it feels more personal, and it goes really good in my show also, because I've never had a song before that I wrote that I've been able to perform. So right now, when I'm doing rehearsals, it feels really cool."

In person, sweet, diminutive and speaking in the down-home singsong of her native Kentwood, Louisiana, she is — bare midriff not withstanding — much more the girl next door than the sexy girl. ("I was ready to die!" she'll say of a trip a few days earlier to a haunted house at the Universal Studios Hollywood Theme Park. "I was kickin' Justin in the back, sayin', 'Move!' and he was sayin', 'Baby, I can't — the line has stopped.' ") But as she points out, onstage is the place to express what you may not be in real life. "I like sad songs, too," she says. "But I'm not a sad person."

And with reason: Her first two records have sold a combined 40 million copies so far, and she has a multimillion-dollar contract with Pepsi. By the end of 2001, in addition to recording and releasing her third record, she will have turned twenty, filmed her first movie, Not a Girl, and performed live from Las Vegas for HBO. In short, she's got nothing to prove, except that hers is a star quality that is not, as Britney true-believers have always known it wasn't, dependent solely on the decisions of her handlers. "Seriously, this is the most control I've ever had over my life," she says. "And it was just a matter of me talking it out and getting my point across."

When you write a song, how does that start for you? With a word, or an emotion, or what?

Really, I get inspired by anything: It can be me riding on an airplane or just having a conversation with my mom. But mostly the whole recording process, for me, it was kind of up in the air, because it was new to me, so I didn't have a formula or anything. Mostly I would come up with the melody, and they would come up with the tracks. For "Anticipating," they came up with the melody and I came up with all the words. And for "Cinderella," the inspiration was just the beat of the song. It had such attitude, we thought that lyrically it should have a lot of attitude, too. And I thought of Cinderella, just because of girls having that label on them, of having to be Miss Cinderella, and in the song she's like, "No, I'm not gonna be that, I'm not gonna be your little doormat from now on."

And why did you decide to cover "I Love Rock N' Roll"?

There's a karaoke section in my movie. And I actually sing karaoke all the time, and when I do, I sing "I Love Rock N' Roll," so it just made sense. And actually, doing the show, it's one of the funnest songs for me to do, because it's such a girl-empowering song. It's a song for a woman to be very in charge and very sexy at the same time.

Where do you do karaoke?

Oh, in this hole-in-the-wall place in L.A. I have the funnest time when I go there, because the owner of the place will start serving us drinks, whatever we want to have, and he'll have these little homemade sandwiches — they're kind of ghetto, but they taste really good. And nobody there is looking at anybody. Everybody's just there to have a good time. Last time we went there, Olivia Newton-John was there. It was her kid's sixteenth birthday, and they were getting up and singing my songs, so I got up there and sang "You're the One That I Want." And Olivia Newton-John looks exactly the same as then. I mean, she's aged a little bit, but she looks gorgeous, absolutely stunning. And her daughter did "Hit Me Baby" and "Crazy" and stuff like that. It was very cute.

Now that you're writing lyrics, who are some lyricists you admire?

I love Eric Clapton. "Tears in Heaven" I think is brilliantly done. And Sting, he writes amazing stuff. "Fields of Gold" is one of my all-time favorites. But there are so many. Oh, my gosh! India Arie! Hello? What am I thinking? The way she writes songs is really heartfelt. I just love her stuff, and the positive message that she sends out there is very cool. And as far as fun stuff? Prince. I always want him to come out with another album.

What's your favorite Prince song?

"Raspberry Beret" . . . no, "Little Red Corvette."

Hmm. Well, that's also an excellent karaoke song. But kind of raunchy.

Yeah. But raunchy's not bad.

This was the year of mutual reciprocal T-shirt tribute between you and Madonna. How'd that come about?

I had on one of her shirts first, and I guess she saw it. So she wore one of my shirts. And I thought that was a joke at first, and I was like, Boohoo, waaah. But then she said in an interview that she thought I was really cool. Then I met her at one of her first shows, in Pittsburgh. First, her little girl walked in, Lola — oh, my God, so beautiful, the most beautiful, breathtaking, she's gonna be a heartbreaker. So she walks in in her cute little dress, and she's with her assistant or whatever. And Lola goes, "Will you tell her? Will you tell her? Will you just tell her?" And I was like, "Tell me what?" And she goes, "Just tell her that I have all her dolls, and all of her watches. " And I was just like, "Oh, my gosh, she is so cute!" Then, seriously, I meet celebrities all the time, and for the most part I'm really cool. But something came over me when I walked into Madonna's room. I was so nervous. I was really nervous. And I walked in, and oh, God, what I said was so stupid — I know she must have been like, "This country bumpkin has just come into my room," but I said, "I feel like I should hug you." And she was like, "Ooo-kay." So I gave her a really big hug.

Were you a Madonna fan when you were growing up?

Oh, yes, I was a real big Madonna fan. Oh, gosh. I remember listening to "Vogue" for the first time. It was such an inspiration. I was like, "I wanna be her." I thought she was brilliant. And Janet's video for "If." I saw that, and I admired it and wanted to be like her. They're such powerful role models. They so had their own identities, each in their own ways.

Do you feel like you should be a role model for powerful women?

Mm-mm. No. Because once you label yourself a role model, people start judging you, saying you should be this way or that way. And I do not like that at all. When I'm onstage? That's my time to shine and perform and go there. But when I'm offstage, I'm just like everybody else.