WTF: Music exec lusted over 15-year-old Britney Spears
https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/wtf-music-exec-lusted-over-15-year-old-britney-spears.2747478/
https://www.businessinsider.com/britney-spears-audition-2016-1share
According to Steve Lunt, an A&R executive for Jive, Spears' demo was accompanied with photos showing a "cute all-American teen in pigtails, sitting on a ramshackle wooden porch in Kentwood [Louisiana], and playing with her dog on the lawn.
"I said, 'This is something we should look at seriously," Lunt recalled.
Spears, wearing a mid-thigh sundress, sang two Whitney Houston songs a cappella for the entire Jive A&R department and Clive Calder, who had recently expanded Jive's success by signing teen-pop boy bands Backstreet Boys and NSYNC.
"Her eyes were rolling back in her head as she was singing and I remember thinking to myself, 'That is really weird but it's going to look great on video,'" Lunt said.
"It was old-school church meets modern-day sex."
As Seabrook notes, Spears' sexy eye roll was simply due to the fact that she was insanely nervous during her audition.
Spears, who was eager and inexpensive to sign, scored a Jive contract that came with a "get-out" clause, meaning the record label could drop her within 90 days.
Spears was immediately relocated to New York City, housed in a Jive penthouse, and groomed to become the American version of Robyn (the Swedish teen-pop queen, who has since redefined herself as a more adult pop singer).
In order to give Spears some direction, Lunt showed her Robyn's music videos, to which Spears responded, "The record is really good, but the video is all wrong. It's in boring black-and-white and no one is dancing.
"If it were me I'd be wearing a miniskirt and I'd be dancing," Spears continued.
As it turns out, Robyn would turn down the opportunity to sing Swedish music producer and songwriter Max Martin's "Hit Me Baby," which was later tweaked to "...Baby One More Time," Spears' debut single that made her an instant superstar.
Spears took initiative in conceiving the video for what would become her big breakout.
According to Seabrook, Spears told veteran video director Nigel Dick, "Let's do a video where I'm a girl in school looking at lots of hot boys."
One of the "hot boys" played Spears' love interest in the video and was actually her cousin and then-Abercrombie & Fitch model Chad Spears.
Britney would also suggest that the girls in the video should wear Catholic-schoolgirl uniforms.
"The outfits looked kind of dorky," Spears remarked. "Let's tie up our shirts and be cute."