I need time... love... I need... space... I need... me

would buy Ms Spears' third album (she actually lasted that long???) the day it was released - bang bang - the bullets would have gone off. If you had told me I would want to write a thesis on this 'fascinating' celebrity... I wouldn't have had to grab the gun, I would have choked on the very air I was inhaling.

The love song of Miss Rachel and Britney J. Spears is more in the vein of a melodramatic Italian opera than one of the songs sung by Britney herself. It all began, obviously, with the release of Britney's debut single - need I name it? - Baby One More Time. Miss Rachel quite liked this song, thought it was kinda funky, and found that, lo-and-behold, it actually coincided with circumstances in her life at that particular time. She was given to replacing the word 'baby' with a certain two-syllable name belonging to someone she had recently 'given up'. In fact, even as recently as the past month, she has found the song a bit useful for mourning. It's just so versatile. Miss Rachel was also, truth be told, a little jealous of Britney J Spears, and would oft complain about how pretty BJS was, and how Miss Rachel would like to look like her.

But I digress. I remember a conversation Carmen and I had one day in year 12 maths, shortly after Britney's arrival on the scene. Baby One More Time was a good song, we agreed, and thank god it hadn't been given to the Backstreet Boys, who would surely have massacured it, and could you believe she was only 17? Go Britney!

Sometimes was a cool song too, and also quite nicely coincided with events in my life at the time. Sadly enough, it still does. ;)

July 2001
Rachel: I'm just like Britney Spears in Sometimes!
Kate: You so are!

applied to that whore!

I wanted to be a singer, to go spend Christmas with... well... but none of that was happening for me. It was all happening for... Britney Spears. Stupid bitch. She was so talentless, singing with that nasal voice, those stupid songs written for her by 30 year old Swedish men. How on earth was she supposed to communicate the feelings of teenage girls when she was just singing stupid love songs written by old men?

She was nothing but a whore.

Carmen agreed, saying: "Like Britney Spears is not a slut!"

Nonetheless, I think we must all agree we were somewhat fascinated by it all. We all watched Britney on Sabrina, we all admitted to liking some of her songs... and I eventually bought the first (rather poor) album - but only the cheaper, imported-from-Indonesia version so none of my money would go to her.

What sort of guys liked her anyway? Stupid horny ones with no taste. The most important quality a guy could have - in my humble opinion - was a hatred of Britney Spears.

Surprisingly, this lasted until mid-2000, despite the fact that I bought the Oops! I Did It Again! single - because, once again, it reminded me of something that was happening in my life at that particular point in time. (Self-obsessed, I know ;)) In fact, one of the 'exciting' things I had in common with my first love was that we both hated Britney Spears.

Until... somehow... it all stopped. What can I blame this on? My course? Being trained to break down the divisions of high and low culture? My immaturity? Relating to songs written for 15 year olds? Kitsch value taken just that little bit too far?

I don't know - but it happened some time between Lucky and Stronger. Maybe when my sister bought the album and I found that I... really really liked it.

By the end of 2000, I had friends calling me Britney, Very Britney, and other variations of the name - not because we were alike in appearance or even behaviour, but because I, unlike most, was able to admit to my fascination with her.

As I near the end of 2001, I find that Britney is doing more for me than ever before - her new songs actually providing some sort of solace in times of difficulty. I've said before that Britney Spears' career is marked by a progression from a girl trapped and sombered by the limitations of traditional modes of feminity, to a girl who complains about being trapped, and eventually to a girl who says "screw you" to the things who trap her and overthrows them.

But I guess that to say that Britney herself - or her listeners - have done a full 180 in personality is a bit stupid. I can't help but get the feeling that even thought she claims "this girl don't need no man saying what she can do or she can't" (and I whole heartedly agree with her there), there's still, somewhere lurking inside Britney, that girl who sobs on her bed because the boy she'd give the world to has dumped her. And then, after a couple of days, weeks, months if she really loved him... she'll get up, say "screw you" and actually mean it.

Because Britney, like me, and like all girls, is all of the above. The girl who cries, the girl who says it isn't fair that she should cry, that it isn't fair that people feel they have the power to boss her around, and the girl who decides not to cry anymore, and that she's finally going to live for herself. She might cry again eventually, but it won't be for as long as in the days of Email My Heart.

Unlike Christina Aguilera, who never seemed to go through all that adolescent frustration, or Mandy Moore, who still doesn't really kick any ass (Jessica Simpson? don't even go there...), Britney may be blonde and tanned with abs of steel and jutting hip bones, but she's still at heart, a girl just like you and me. Yep, she subscribes to the ideology of stardom - that one must be simultaneously ordinary and attainable, and still that little bit better than their fans.

Only she tends to come across as a bit... thick... so the last part doesn't really work.

Really, in the end, I think they said it best on MTV's Top 100 Pop Songs of All Time - we should all thank Britney Spears for coming into our lives. Because love her, hate her, or maybe a bit of both - you have to admit she's made your life just that little bit more interesting.

And so the love song of Miss Rachel and Britney J Spears ends on a happy note of simultaneous domestic bliss and post-structuralist enquiry. Hmmm... sound like any marriage we know? ;)