It’s not often that a singer’s first release is incredible. Often, careers build over the years, starting small and gaining traction as they go. Sometimes, though, an artist is so talented, so undeniable, that they get it right, right out of the gate. That’s true for the three singers below, all of whom wowed with their debut singles.
Videos by American Songwriter
“… Baby One More Time” Britney Spears
When she was just 16, Britney Spears put out an incredible debut single with “… Baby One More Time.” Released in 1998, Spears instantly knew the track would be a hit the first time she heard it. Backstreet Boys and TLC couldn’t say the same, as they both rejected the song before it was offered to Spears.
“I had been in studio for about six months listening and recording material, but I hadn’t really heard a hit yet,” she told Billboard following the song’s release. “When I started working with Max Martin in Sweden, he played the demo for ‘Baby One More Time’ for me, and I knew from the start it [was one] of those songs you want to hear again and again. It just felt really right.”
After it came out, the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks. The track, which was nominated for a GRAMMY, is one of the best-selling singles of all time.
“Mr. Brightside” by The Killers
Penned by Brandon Flowers and Dave Keuning, “Mr. Brightside” is one of the first songs that The Killers’ co-founders ever penned.
“It came from this cassette of ideas that Dave gave me, and one of them was the ‘Mr. Brightside’ riff,” Flowers told NME in 2012. “I was able to slap a chorus and some lyrics onto it, and I knew I liked it. But it wasn’t until we first tried it out with a drummer that I knew it was special.”
The lyrics Flowers added to the track were “about an odd girlfriend” he had.
“All the emotions in the song are real. When I was writing the lyrics, my wounds from it were still fresh,” Flowers aid. “I am Mr. Brightside!”
As for why the 2003 song managed to become a hit that people still sing today, Flowers said believes it’s “because it’s real.”
“People pick up on those things,” he said. “And that goes all the way down to the production; we recorded it in a couple of hours, but it just sounds right, you know?”
The GRAMMY-nominated and Guinness World Records-winning song is the biggest-ever single in the U.K. that never went to No. 1 (it peaked at No. 10). The track has the longest stay on the singles survey by a group and the most cumulative weeks on the U.K. tally for one song, Billboard reported.
“Pon de Replay” by Rihanna
“Pon de Replay” was the first song Rihanna ever put out, and it became one of her best known tracks ever. With the help of producer Evan Rogers, Rihanna, who was 17 at the time, recorded a demo to be shopped to labels. One of the songs on the demo was the single in question.
JAY-Z at Def Jam Recordings responded to Rihanna’s voice and had her audition. While there, Rihanna performed several songs, including “Pon de Replay,” for JAY-Z and L.A. Reid.
“The audition definitely went well,’ Rihanna told The Guardian. ‘They locked me into the office – till 3am. And JAY-Z said, ‘There’s only two ways out. Out the door after you sign this deal. Or through this window…’ And we were on the 29th floor. Very flattering.”
As for what the song means, Rihanna told Kidzworld, “It’s just language that we speak in Barbados. “It’s broken English. Pon is on, De means the, so it’s just basically telling the DJ to put my song on the replay.”
The song, which was released in 2005, peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed inside the chart’s Top 10 for 12 weeks.
Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images
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