Today marks the 14th year since the release of Britney’s version of, ‘I Love Rock ‘n Roll.’
The song was originally recorded by The Arrows in 1975 and was later made famous by previous ‘Runaways,’ band member Joan Jett and her band The Blackhearts.
When interviewed by The Rolling Stones magaizine, Britney was asked why she decided to cover the Joan Jett’s classic, she sarcastically replied with, ‘Because I love Pat Benatar,’ simply because she was so sick of being asked the same question over and over again. Most reporters missed the fact that Britney was joking, she had spoken about Joan Jett numerous times before this and the joke was in the fact that Joan Jett and Pat Benatar had a similar look.
Critics praised the remix version calling it fun and ‘surprisingly great,’ except for NME, who were the only ones to disagree. Most critics called this Britney’s best remake as of yet, where NME called it the worst of all time. Sorry NME, but your writer was clearly wrong!
The song was intended to feature on a ‘Crossroads,’ movie soundtrack as it features in a karaoke scene in the movie, however the decision to release a separate soundtrack for the movie was cancelled and instead it was mixed into Britney’s third studio album, ‘Britney.’ The song went on to become the albums fifth single (Overprotected counts twice as there were two separate versions of the track released).
The video directed by Chris Applebaum was voted the second best video of 2002 on MTV Latin America’s countdown. It was beaten by Avril Lavigne’s ‘Complicated.’
There is a version available of Britney licking oil off the floor. The version never made the final cut and does not feature in the DVD version of ‘Greatest Hits: My Prerogative.’
At the start of the video, Britney has ‘Ben’ and a telephone number written on her hand. The media went into some sort of crazy frenzy claiming that this was Britney’s way of saying that Britney and Ben Affleck had a fling, which was the reason for her break up with Justin Timberlake and Jlo’s break-up with Ben. Clearly they never did their research and were met with massive retaliation from fans. They clearly missed that the Anson Mount’s character in ‘Crossroads’ was named Ben.
The number on her hand references a song used in an advert in America, except the six and the seven were switched for obvious reasons. Remember the ad? ‘Can I get your number? I wanna give you mine – eight, six , seven, five, three, oh nine.’
The UK single version included postcard inserts:
The single cover for My Prerogative used a scene from the music video:
Have a look at the comparisons between all the available video versions:
Following a 14 break, Britney added the track to her Las Vegas residency much to fans delight!
Remember the brilliant performance from the ‘Dream Within A Dream’ tour?
Celebrate with us by watching the iconic music video today, which shockingly only has 17 million views! Barmy you have some work to do!
Happy Birthday, ‘I Love Rock And Roll.’
