Christina Aguilera — Genie in a Bottle
The summer song of 1999, a three-minute explosion of vocal runs and pop perfection that launched a teenager into superstardom. "Rub me the right way" sent pearl-clutchers to their fainting couches while every radio station played it anyway. The second best-selling single of the year, triple Platinum, and famous enough that Blink-182 parodied it months later.
"Genie in a Bottle" was written by David Frank, Steve Kipner, and Pamela Sheyne, and produced by Frank and Kipner at Image Recording in Los Angeles. When Christina Aguilera first heard the demo, she "wasn't too crazy" about it—it was positioned as a sugar-candy hook to launch her as a manufactured pop star. But co-writer Steve Kipner heard something else in her voice: the soul of Chaka Khan, the grit of Etta James, the technical mastery of Mariah Carey — an 18-year-old layering complex R&B runs over a pop demo until the song became hers.
RCA executive Ron Fair saw the potential immediately: this was the strategic No. 1 single that would introduce the world to an 18-year-old ex-Mouseketeer with the chops to back up the pretty face. When the song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 31, 1999, it was already clear it would own the summer. It stayed at the top for five consecutive weeks—the biggest summer song of 1999, topping charts in 21 countries, and the second best-selling single of the year with 1,360,000 units sold. The RIAA certified it triple Platinum. A Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance followed in 2000.
The song's cheeky come-ons—capped by the infamous "rub me the right way" chorus that had parents scandalized—gave it a wink and a shrug alongside the undeniable musicality. The music video became iconic enough that when Blink-182 made "All the Small Things" just months later, they parodied it directly. "Genie in a Bottle" was the moment a teenage girl with a serious voice proved she wasn't a one-hit wonder waiting to happen; she was the real thing.
Similar items
Christina Aguilera
The Mickey Mouse Club grad who became the 2000s' designated voice—every critic conceded she could really sing, which was the whole point of the rivalry with Britney Spears. She went from a 1999 debut that shipped ten million records to the leather-chaps reinvention of Stripped, proving she was more than a pretty face with pipes.
Britney Spears
A former Mickey Mouse Club kid whose debut single '...Baby One More Time' (September 1998) and January 1999 album catapulted her to megastardom as the defining pop voice of the millennium. TRL countdown staple, Rolling Stone covers, Pepsi deals, and cultural omnipresence through the early 2000s with 'Oops!... I Did It Again' (2000) and 'Toxic' (2003–04).
Blink-182 — All the Small Things
The perfect parody disguised as a perfect pop song. Blink-182 conquered TRL and the Billboard Hot 100 by mocking the very boy-band videos they shared the countdown with, with a "na-na-na-na" hook so contagious it rewired a million brains. Won Best Group Video at the 2000 MTV VMAs and became the guitar riff every beginner learned.
NSYNC — "It's Gonna Be Me"
NSYNC's only Billboard Hot 100 number one—a fact that still surprises people because "Bye Bye Bye" felt bigger. Released May 2000 as the second single from No Strings Attached, it rode the Cheiron formula to the top for two weeks that summer, then spawned one of the most baffling memes of the 2010s when "It's Gonna Be May" took over the internet every April 30.