Cover Story: The Marías Make a Relaxing Twist to Britney Spears’ Y2k, Bubblegum Pop Sound With Their Cover of “...Baby One More Time”
In a slower version of Britney Spears’ “...Baby One More Time,” The Marías set a melancholic tone.
Written by Maria Luevanos
Photos courtesy of Ashley Seryn and Larry Busacca
Britney Spears is an icon of the early 2000s, breaking records and releasing hit after hit. The sensual “...Baby One More Time” is one of Spears’ biggest claims to fame. Ten years after its original release, dream-pop band The Marías decided to make their own version of “...Baby One More Time.” They paired their laidback cover with a ’90s inspired music video that contrasts the original’s polarizing school girl aesthetic. While The Marías were influenced by the melody of the original, their rendition brings an unexplored intimacy to the pioneering “...Baby One More Time.”
With low-rise skirts and pants and ribbons in hair, Spears’ “...Baby One More Time” music video takes viewers back to the early aughts. The vibrant video is set in a high school, adding to the innocence and youth of the track’s narrative. For the majority of the song, the backup dancers move in sync with Spears as she asks a past lover for another chance. But at the end of the video, it's revealed that the whole performance was just her imagination. Everything viewers watched was simply a high schooler fantasizing about an elaborate gesture to apologize to her significant other and ask for a second chance.
In contrast, The Marías’ music video mainly centers around vocalist María Zardoya, who periodically finds herself in the presence of three men dressed in all black. The black clothing and Zardoya’s solitude throughout the video establish a more mature, dark narrative in comparison to Spears’ playful dream storyline. The men, who are the other members of The Marías, don’t sing along. Their looming presence is an eerie symbol of heartbreak and regret. The Marías conclude their video with the additional lyrics “I’m not that innocent.” This is a reference to another Spears classic, “Oops!...I Did It Again.” This shift from the original lyrics of the track confirms that, despite the singer’s pleas, she is knowingly at fault for the relationship's end.
Spears sings decisively and makes demands of her significant other. With drums and funky guitar strums, the pop sound allows her voice to move faster and more directly. She also features more prominent background vocals than The Marías do. The emotive voices overlap and match the domineering energy of the lead vocals, functioning almost as a support system. She knows she didn’t do anything wrong intentionally, so why not give her another chance? Spears belts out, “There's nothing that I wouldn’t do,” meaning she’ll do anything to get a second attempt at their relationship. Finally, she ends “...Baby One More Time” with a hopeful and pleading call: “I must confess / That my loneliness is killing me now / Don't you know I still believe / That you will be here / Just give me a sign.”
In their version, The Marías slow the story down while also cutting it short at just over two minutes. Yet so much differs throughout those 125 seconds. The “...Baby One More Time” cover welcomes listeners with a quiet and gentle guitar melody. Within seconds, Zardoya enters with a soft, raspy tone, pleading for one more chance. Softly layering her voice as the mesmerizing background vocal, there's a much more intimate feeling than the original. Within the first half minute, Zardoya sets a guilty tone as she sings, “I shouldn’t have let you go…” There’s a regretful implication as her voice quivers. Then, she declares, “There’s nothing that I shouldn’t do / It's not the way I planned it.” The subtle change from Spears’ more innocent “wouldn’t” to The Marías’ “shouldn’t” places the responsibility on the singer for her past mistakes in love. Zardoya is not pleading with the promise of doing whatever it takes to save the relationship; she understands she should be the one to make the effort to salvage it. Then, instead of singing “It's not the way I planned it,” Zardoya speaks this line with a disgruntled tone, as if she's tired of having to defend her intentions.
In both versions of “...Baby One More Time,” audiences hear the regretful pleas of two singers who want another chance at their previous relationship. While Britney Spears’ original version will undoubtedly always be a classic, The Marías give us another way to interpret Spears’ lyricism by subtly reinventing the track’s storyline and sound.