Britney Spears, from American Sweetheart to Dance Music Star?

I remember the first time I listened to Britney Spears. Okay, maybe not the first time I ever heard her but I do know that her debut album, Baby One More Time, was the first CD I ever owned. I was seven years old, and being that age I had no idea what any of her songs were about, but I fell in love with its good girl pop sound. I remember dancing in my bedroom with my friends from school using hairbrushes as microphones, singing at the top of our lungs to songs such as "Baby One More Time" and "Drive Me Crazy". Britney stayed with her pop image with following album, "Oops I Did it Again" which was the beginnning of her steer away from her innocent good girl image....lyrics in the actually hit single the ablum was named after state "...I'm not that innocent". Following that album was her third release of a self-titled album, Britney, which debuted her hit single "I'm a Slave 4 U" which most definitely made it clear, there was no more good girl. This album made it clear that the fresh-faced, breath of fresh air sweetheart had gone bad, and was determined to let everybody know. For a fourth grader (which I was at the time) however, it was difficult to listen to the new songs that she was coming out with, not understanding what she was talking about, and I think part of her forgot who her fan-base really was, 10-year-olds and that the image she was portraying was not the kind that a role model for little girls should be.
In the Zone was the fourth album released in 2003, and it continued on with Britney's bad girl theme with dirty dancing songs such as "Toxic", which was the most popular from what I can remember listening too. This CD was the first transtition for Brit into her dance music era and collaborations with other artists such as Madonna and the Ying Yang Twins. In this album she began to experiment with synthesizers and the idea of electronic music. This was when electronic music began to really start rolling along. Many music critics loved the album and congradulated Britney on her range of style, and her song-writing skills since she co-wrote many of the songs on the CD.
This is when things began to go downhill for dear old Britney. After the release of her fourth album, she married Kevin Federline, had two kids, and divorced Kevin Federline. This all happened in the time span of 3 years. She started writing for her fifth album in 2003 but with everything else going on in her life she was unable to start recording until 2006 and the album Blackout wasn't released until 2007, a 4 year gap between CDs. Blackout was the real beginning of Britney's dance music career. This album contains music styles such as dance-pop and the newest fad, dubstep which is almost completely electronic, with auto-tune and synthesizers. Songs such as "Gimme More" and "Pieces of Me" really got Brit back into the popular scene after taking such a long gap.
Taking a turn into dance music was probably one of the best moves she could have taken. When I was little, Britney was big, but as the years went on, she became less and less cool with her poppy love songs, but now that she is making dance music, young people love to dance to her music in clubs and social scenes. Britney has had lots of ups and downs in her life, and that's known by almost anyone who stands in your local grocery isle, from the magazines and tabloids, but I give Britney Spears my respect for continuing to be as successful as she is and to pull through.