Is Miley Cyrus the Britney Spears of our generation? Dedicated Britney fans would beg to differ, but let’s not underestimate Miley’s level of success just yet.
It’s time to compare and contrast the pop divas ranging back to the early 2000s, when then 20-year-old Britney was at her prime musically, to our current 20-year-old Miley, the pop rebel who seems to be on top of the world right now.
You were thinking it, so we compared it! Britney vs. Miley in 3..2..1:
Fresh off her debut album’s success, Baby One More Time (selling 13 million copes to date), Britney Spears releases Oops!… I Did It Again in May 2000. Her second studio album sold 1 million copies in its first week, setting a new record for single-week sales by a female artist, according to Billboard. The album boasted four hit singles including, “Oops!… I Did It Again,” “Lucky,” “Stronger,” and “Don’t Let Me Be the Last to Know,” pushing its sales the following year to an astonishing 9 million copies. Around the same time, the pop princess began a public relationship with N’Sync’s lead singer, Justin Timberlake.
By early 2003, the icon was preparing to release her fourth album, In The Zone, after a recent split from JT and alleged rumors that Britney cheated. It was then that Ms. Spears decided to kick her “goody two shoes” image to the curb during the VMAs, and Britney and Madonna shared the kiss heard round the world. The next day it was front page news. Britney B*tch was officially born!
Let’s take it to summer 2009. In the midst of starring in the successful Disney series, Hannah Montana, and with 2-platinum selling albums under her belt, Miley Cyrus releases the 6x platinum to date hit single, “Party In The USA,” off her EP The Time of Our Lives, which debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 100. Although the album itself debuted at number 3 on the Billboard charts, selling a mere 62,000 copies in its first week, it quickly rose to the top of the charts the following week, selling 153,000. During that same year, Miley met her future fiancé Liam Hemsworth on the set of Nicholas Sparks’ movie, The Last Song.
Fast-forward to earlier this year, a video of Miley Cyrus “twerkin” goes viral, thus introducing Miley 2.0. Shedding her Disney image, Miley soon makes history at the VMAs, performing her hit single, “We Can’t Stop” and sharing the stage with Robin Thicke for a scene that went on to produce 306,000 tweets per minute. Shortly after, Miley and Liam break off their engagement and go their separate ways.
Britney has sold 34 million records to date and was named the 8th top-selling female artist by the Recording Association of America. Meanwhile, Miley continues to break records, as her latest single, “Wrecking Ball” racked in 12.3 million views within 24 hours of its premiere.
It’s quite clear Miley Cyrus has a lot of catching up to do if she plans on competing with Britney Spears, but we are positive that she’ll be a pop icon one day. You heard it here first!
PHOTO CREDIT: Getty
