Prepare to feel old, 90s millennials: Britney Spears' Baby One More Time is 20-years-old. Here's her post

Years before Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Beyonce and others, arrived on the scene, it was Britney Spears who ruled the roost as the pre-eminent female artist in the world. Before Anaconda, California Girls, Bad Blood and Single Ladies, came Baby One More Time. That was 20 years ago!

Millennials, then school kids, will remember the album -- Britney's first -- and filled with a very large number of fairly iconic songs. She was also in her teens then and the song was filmed in high school, seemingly taking place during a daydream during the last few stretchy minutes before the bell rang.

It's hard to encapsulate just how popular the song got. It came at a time when interactive TV was available in at least a few cities, when a viewer called up using a phone and traversed long menus within a limited amount of time to pick a song and a video that they wanted to watch. If you were to watch late at night, there'd be a good chance that someone who has 'cracked' the system is playing their choice song on loop, and on every other day, it would be Baby One More Time.

Britney Spears was the herald of the teen pop generation. There were others who followed as well -- Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, Avril Lavigne, and more, but Britney was arguably more popular than the rest all put together. Baby One More Time was followed by Oops!... I did it again, which was also a hit. 

By this time, however, controversy was already hot on Britney's heels. Subsequent albums were more provocative, such as Toxic, and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it marriage to Kevin Federline didn't help. Years in the wilderness would await Spears, as she missed the sensational about- 10-year period when collaboration (so-and-so feat. so-and-so) became the norm. But there's little doubt that an entire generation played 'Baby One More Time' in their heads wishing school was just a bit more.

Here's Britney Spears' post on the video's 20th anniversary: