{"id":807915,"date":"2020-05-29T09:32:29","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T15:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=1006562"},"modified":"2020-05-29T09:32:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T15:32:29","slug":"did-britney-spears-see-the-future-with-e-mail-my-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/did-britney-spears-see-the-future-with-e-mail-my-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Britney Spears See the Future With \u2018E-Mail My Heart\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you didn\u2019t parade around your room in 1999 wearing blue eyeshadow while blasting \u201c\u2026 Baby One More Time\u201d<\/span> on your stereo, you missed out. It was a golden age for girl groups and boy bands, a time when pop stars flourished and tabloids knew no bounds. The Internet was growing popular, and the fear of Y2K came with it. Oh, and Britney Spears<\/a> prophesied the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been 21 years since a girl from small-town Louisiana became the biggest pop star of her moment. Teenagers all across the world sang along to her debut album then, and people of all ages are still singing along now to the addictive chorus of its title song and the giddy, love-struck lyrics of \u201c(You Drive Me) Crazy.\u201d Under all the \u201coh bay-by bay-by\u2019s,\u201d though, there lies a forgotten love ballad: \u201cE-Mail My Heart.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This particular song is not the best of Britney\u2019s pop anthems; any serious ranking of her discography would have to put it lower than \u201cSoda Pop.\u201d When the song came up on a 2018 episode of<\/span> Rolling Stone\u2019s<\/span> Music Now<\/span><\/em> podcast<\/span><\/a>, writers Rob Sheffield and Brittany Spanos said they loved it, to which host Brian Hiatt interjected, \u201cYou do<\/span> not<\/span><\/em> love that song.\u201d Somehow, they are all right. We might hate \u201cE-Mail My Heart,\u201d but we love it, too. Even as we\u2019re put off by its over-the-top Nineties production, we love the way it predicted our digitally-dependent existence. Yes, it\u2019s the most ridiculous track on her debut album, but its relevance cannot be denied. Now more than ever, this cheesy ballad about love and email is the Britney song we need most.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd all I do is check the screen\/To see if you\u2019re okay\/You don\u2019t answer when I phone\/Guess you want to be left alone,\u201d Britney sings. How many of us find ourselves in this very same position today? (Follow-up question: Did Britney invent \u201csliding into the DMs\u201d?) Here we are, two decades later,<\/span> still<\/span><\/em> waiting for that response, even more so now that we are all hunkering down in separate locations. We can talk to our loved ones, as long as we\u2019re six feet or more apart, but we can\u2019t get any closer. Videos are being passed around on social media of kids visiting their sick grandparents outside windows, unable to hug them goodbye because of the COVID-19 pandemic. An email to your heart goes a long way, these days.<\/span><\/p>\n