Songoftheday 3/15/22 - Never look back we said how was I to know I'd miss you so? Loneliness up ahead emptiness behind where do I go?

 

 

"From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart" - Britney Spears

from the album ...Baby One More Time (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #14 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 6

 

Today's song comes from Britney Spears, whose debut album had already spun off three pop hits in America with "(You Drive Me) Crazy", "Sometimes", and the #1 title track "...Baby One More Time".  The fourth single from the set here in the States was the break-up ballad "From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart". Written and produced by Eric Foster White, who helmed hits for R&B group Hi-Five in the early 1990s, the song has Britney trying to get over her first love. Equal parts bitterness over the guy not giving them a chance, to muted optimism realizing that she'll find love again, it's the perfectly nuanced track for her high-school-age audience target. The production is rather pedestrian late-90s pop diva/boyband fodder, but she tries to rise above it. The music video, shot by former porn director Gregory Dark, has the roles switched where she's the one that has to go, literally out of town...

"From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart" became the fourth top-40 pop hit from Britney's debut album in February of 2000. The song also climbed to #26 on Billboard magazine's Rhythmic radio chart, and #17 on their Mainstream Top-40 format list. Internationally, the single was a top-40 hit in New Zealand (#20), Canada (#25), and Australia (#37).

While this single was hitting the States, another track from Baby One More Time was released as a single in Europe. "Born To Make You Happy", written by producer Kristian Lundin and Andreas Carlsson, was a big international hit, becoming Britney's second #1 hit in the UK, topping the lists in Ireland and Denmark, and reaching the top ten in Sweden (#2), Germany (#3), Switzerland (#3), Norway (#3), Iceland (#3), Romania (#3), Belgium (#4W/#5F), Greece (#4), Finland (#5), the Netherlands (#6), Italy (#8), Austria (#8), and France (#9). Britney will return to the series.

(5/10)

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Here's Britney appearing on Good Morning America to promote the single...

And lastly, in concert in Hawaii...

Up tomorrow: The Material Girl takes a patriotic slice of rock and roll history.