Well, here we are. The finale of 2020, a year many would consider to be the worst of all time. The end felt like it may never come but alas, we have just a couple of short weeks left until it’s all over and 2021 cures the world of all its flaws. Or at least that’s what we keep telling ourselves.
So, in the interest of making the rest of December fly by even faster, let’s distract ourselves and escape for a little bit. And if we’re going to hop in a time machine and escape the absolute worst year ever, we might as well travel to one of the greatest years in the history of human life. You know, since we went to the trouble of copping a time machine and all.
The year is 1999, and literally everything is better. The biggest worry we all have is whether or not our computers will crash at the turn of the new Millenium. Besides that, life is pure bliss. Check your pockets, there should be some Pokemon cards in there, possibly even a pack of OG Sour Patch Kids that don’t have the stupid blue one. Oh, what are you reading there? The new Harry Potter, probably. You probably didn’t even hear anything I just said because you’re blasting your Discman so loud, bumping an unmarked CD-R full of Napster’s greatest hits.
Want to watch a movie? We have a lot to pick from because this is quite possibly the most magnificent year in the history of film. Titanic, Fight Club, The Sixth Sense, Office Space, Blair Witch, Toy Story 2, Any Given Sunday, American Pie, Talented Mr. Ripley, Austin Powers, 10 Things I Hate About You, Iron Giant, Big Daddy, Being John Malkovich, American Beauty, Eyes Wide Shut, THE MATRIX. And we can rent them all from Blockbuster. I’ll send you some money for the movies on this new website, PayPal.
Once we’re done with those, we can turn on the TV and watch this brand new show Spongebob Squarepants, but don’t forget we have to switch to MTV at 3:30 for TRL. Later, we can watch West Wing, Law and Order: SVU, and The Sopranos since they started this year, too.
I know, it’s overwhelming. It seems like all of the best things that ever happened were from 1999. The acronym ASL meant something completely different, the most popular piece of art was a singing fish, Tommy Chong got the first medical marijuana card in the US, Google was born and so was Panera, asking people if their responses were their final answer became a thing, and Woodstock came back, featuring performances from DMX, Limp Bizkit, and the naked Red Hot Chili Peppers.
But it didn’t take long after touching back down in 1999 to realize that all of these amazing things that happened that year were massively outshined by one person. And she was only 17.
It’s Britney, B*tch!
The pop icon was just getting her start as a solo artist in 1999, releasing her debut album …Baby One More Time in January of that year, marking the beginning of a truly epic career. Sure, kids who watched Mickey Mouse Club years earlier probably knew who Britney Spears was, but this was a different Britney. She was dominating the charts and the headlines. Britney was the biggest phenomenon we’d seen in music in years. Girls loved her, boys loved her, parents loved her, brands loved her. She was America’s Sweetheart and she hadn’t even really hit her stride yet, as we’d find out in the following years as even more mega-hits got added to her illustrious discography.
The year 1999 represents so many incredible Britney memories, from the “…Baby One More Time” video and the Rolling Stone cover story to the VMAs with N*SYNC and her first headlining tour. But her rookie year wasn’t all about just getting things started, Britney was rewriting the record books. Her debut album went on to sell 25 million copies and become one of the best-selling albums of all time. Britney came out the gates like a rocket, and her trajectory was unlike anything we’d ever seen before. Sure, there were other pop princesses clamoring for the spotlight, and some of them were very successful in their own right, but they weren’t in the same stratosphere as Britney.
She released four singles, hosted MTV Spring Break, and appeared on the 100th episode of All That. All in 1999. This was Britney’s world and we all just had the distinct privilege of getting to breathe the same oxygen. She couldn’t miss.
A lot has happened since that glorious year, some good and some bad. But we’ll always have Britney to put a smile on our faces and remind us of that beautiful moment in time. And thankfully, we have this time machine so we can ride out the rest of 2020 like it’s 1999.
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