Stronger

"Stronger" is a song recorded by American singer Britney Spears for her second studio album, Oops!... I Did It Again (2000). It was released on November 13, 2000, by Jive Records as the third single of the album. After meeting with producers Max Martin and Rami in Sweden, the singer recorded several songs for the album, including "Stronger". The teen pop and dance-pop song has self-empowerment lyrics about a girl who is tired of her cheating boyfriend and decides to live without him. It received acclaim from music critics, who described the song as both musically and lyrically innovative and considered it the best dance track from the album.
"Stronger" achieved commercial success worldwide, reaching the top five in Austria, Germany and Sweden, while reaching the top ten in Finland, Ireland, Switzerland and United Kingdom. "Stronger" peaked at number eleven in the United States' Billboard Hot 100, and was later certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for selling over 500,000 units of the single. An accompanying music video was directed by Joseph Kahn, who considered it as a thematic departure from Spears' previous music videos. The music video received a nomination on the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards for Best Pop Video.
Spears has performed "Stronger" in a number of live appearances, including at the Radio Music Awards of 2000, American Music Awards of 2001, a Fox special titled "Britney in Hawaii", and in two of her concert tours. It was first performed on the Oops!... I Did It Again World Tour (2000–2001), as the first song from the show and at the Dream Within a Dream Tour (2001–2002). Also, in 2013 Spears performed the song for the first time in eleven years on her Las Vegas residency concert Britney: Piece of Me. In 2010, "Stronger" was covered by actor Kevin McHale for an episode of TV series Glee titled "Britney/Brittany". The cover received positive reviews from contemporary music critics.
Background and composition
In 1999 Spears began work on her second studio album Oops!...I Did It Again (2000), in Sweden and Switzerland. After meeting with Max Martin and Rami Yacoub in Sweden, Spears recorded several songs for the album, including "Stronger", which was co-written and co-produced by Martin and Rami. Upon returning to the United States, the singer revealed in an interview with MTV News that: "I just got back from Sweden, and did half  the material  over there. I was really, really happy with the material, but we had  limited time to get so much done. So I've just really been in the studio nonstop, which is cool, though." Spears recorded her vocals for the song in November 1999 at Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden. "Stronger" was released on November 13, 2000 as the third single from the album.
"Stronger" is a teen pop and dance-pop song that features a heavy dance beat, and lasts 3 minutes and 23 seconds. According to the digital music sheet published at Musicnotes.com, the song is composed in the key of G-sharp minor and is set in time signature of common time with a tempo of 108 beats per minute, while Spears vocal range spans from C♯3 to C♯5. Music critics noticed the song as Spears' declaration of independence, which is perceived in self-empowerment lines such as "I'm not your property" and "I don't need nobody". Its lyrics also quote Spears' iconic debut hit "...Baby One More Time", which was also co-written and produced for Spears by Martin and Yacoub and released two years earlier; the latter's famous chorus, "My loneliness is killing me", is answered in "Stronger" with the lyric, "My loneliness ain't killin' me no more". Despite not being written by the singer, it was speculated that the song is directed to the singer's record label and her management. In a review for the album, David Browne of Entertainment Weekly noted that "Stronger" together with "Don't Go Knockin' on My Door" is reminiscent of the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time" (1965).