10. “Overprotected”
Max Martin brings back the sonic formula that served Spears so well on “… Baby One More Time.” But two years older (and 20 years savvier), Spears squirms under the thumb of her responsibilities.
9. “Me Against the Music”
A combative track from Tricky Stewart that pits Brit against Madonna in a battle for dance-floor supremacy. Spoiler alert: They kiss and make up!
8. “Oops!… I Did It Again”
Some foolish soul left Britney lonely on “… Baby One More Time,” but this time she’s playing with some poor sap’s heart, twisting the knife with her ultimate reveal: “I’m not that innocent.”
7. “I Wanna Go”
Femme Fatale‘s second-best banger gives Spears a chance to send a not-so-subtle message to the executors of her conservatorship: She’d really, really like to take her freak out tonight. Maybe trade pants with a cocktail waitress, or just meet up with some paparazzi at a CVS after dark.
6. “3”
Peter, Paul, and Mary get name-checked in Spears’ peppy ode to threesomes.
5. “Everytime”
Spears’ only extraordinary ballad. “Everything” pairs a plunky piano with dramatic strings and Brit’s most anguished whisper-croon. A trite formula for sure, but there’s something genuinely haunting about this one, which Spears co-wrote after her breakup with Justin Timberlake.
4. “I’m a Slave 4 U”
A seemingly tuneless Neptunes track that slithered its way into our minds and wrapped its albino python around our hearts. All the moisture in the song’s insanely well choreographed video may have aided that process.
3. “Stronger”
Britney’s first self-empowerment anthem from Oops!… I Did It Again is still her best: a strutting finger-wagger that’s somehow also a fist-pumper. The empty beat before the synths return to smack you in the face at 2:40 is 2000’s best moment in pop.
2. “Till the World Ends”
With the combined songwriting genius of hitmakers Dr. Luke, Max Martin, and, ” yes, it’s true,” Ke$ha, Spears pulls together a bona fide dance-floor raver with genuine peaks and valleys. If you can’t pull together enough serotonin to feel the ecstasy of this tune’s last 30 seconds, you have made a wrong turn.
1. “Toxic”
The track that transformed Spears from a cutesy teen dream into an artist in her own zone. Producers Bloodshy & Avant dumped out their whole bag of tricks on this 2003 song, “keening strings, surf guitar, a melody that twists from major to minor,” and Spears held it all together with a curiously alluring vocal. The best pop stars know how to let themselves become artistic playthings; here Britney hits her marks perfectly without losing her natural charm. We’re hooked as badly as she is.
