Britney Blossoms

Britney Spears is slumped in a backstage chair before a concert at Jones Beach Theater, midway through a three-night, sold-out engagement. She’s wearing a tight halter top, form-fitting, flared jeans with lace trim and a pair of tooled cowboy boots. A thin gold chain dangles from a piercing in her belly button.

She’s talking about sex.

More exactly, about how sexy she was in the video for “. . . Baby One More Time,” the 1998 clip that made Spears, now 18, a national pop sensation. Hundreds of thousands of little girls suddenly wanted to be her. Tens of thousands of boys and young men wanted to be with her.

In a few hours, Spears will be doing an oddly provocative pole dance onstage before 17,000 screaming fans, but she says she doesn’t know why the video started all this fuss about her supposedly overdeveloped adolescent sexuality.

After all, it was her idea to tie the shirt of her Catholic schoolgirl uniform up like that in the video. So what if she showed a little navel? Even though she came up with the concept of bored kids waiting for the school bell to ring, she now thinks that video was “really cheesy.”

“And then everyone was, ‘Oh my God. Oh, she’s so sexy,’ ” Spears recalls. “And I was like, ‘Oh, well thank you. Gosh.’ But you know that’s me being a performer. I don’t walk around in hot clothes at all.

“But I am a girl,” she says a moment later, almost whispering. “And I would be lying if I said I don’t want to feel sexy sometimes.”

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Spears--who opens a series of Southern California stops on Saturday at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, was just 16 when she began her ascent to teen iconhood. A former Disney Channel Mouseketeer from small-town Kentwood, La., she loved sleeping as much as she did gymnastics and theater.

Her debut album, 1999’s “. . . Baby One More Time,” sold more than 9 million copies, making it one of the most successful debuts in pop history.

And that success is widely viewed as a key volley in the teen-powered, bubble-gum pop revolution that spawned such acts as the Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync, Christina Aguilera, 98 Degrees, Mandy Moore and Jessica Simpson.

The polite question dogging Spears ever since that breakthrough is whether she--and the whole teen pop movement--has any staying power. The somewhat harsher question is whether she has any real talent.

Adding to the uncertainty surrounding Spears’ future was the success of all those other teen acts. Would she get lost in the shuffle?

The Backstreet Boys’ 1999 album, “Millennium,” outpaced “. . . Baby” by selling 11 million copies. ‘N Sync’s “No Strings Attached” has sold an estimated 7 million copies since March.

But the pop world learned there is still plenty of interest in Spears when her second album, “Oops! . . . I Did It Again,” was released in late May. The collection entered the national chart at No. 1 and has remained among the nation’s top three sellers ever since. Estimated sales to date: more than 4 million copies.

Spears’ North American tour has been equally successful. The 51-city trek is expected to attract half a million fans and generate around $15 million in ticket sales, according to Pollstar, a magazine that covers the concert industry. Other Southern California stops include the Great Western Forum on Sunday and Monday, the San Diego Sports Arena next Thursday and Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion on Aug. 5.

And the talent issue?

Reviews of the album have been mixed, but some critics suggest that Spears does have talent. Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield gave “Oops!” backhanded praise, describing it as “fantastic pop cheese.” But he also wrote that “under the cheese surface, Britney’s demand for satisfaction is complex, fierce and downright scary, making her a true child of rock and roll tradition.”

The Ultimate Goal Is Career Longevity

On the precipice between teenager and young woman, Spears is now focused on guiding her career to a place where it will continue to thrive when her current batch of squealing, 7- to 14-year-old fans has moved on to pop’s next favorite flavor.

She’s already made one of the year’s most successful television music specials (“Britney in Hawaii,” on Fox), co-written a book with her mother (“Britney Spears’ Heart to Heart,” published by a division of Random House) and has dozens of opportunities to start a film career.

But her grand ambition, she says, is “to do an album with all of my own songs on it.” So far, all of her songs but one have been written by others. The exception, “Dear Diary,” which she co-wrote, is about a secret crush on a cute boy. “I tried to smile, but I could hardly breathe,” she sings.

Like most of her songs, which are written by her producers and seasoned veterans such as Diane Warren and the team of Robert John “Mutt” Lange and Shania Twain, “Diary” is sugary and about as deep as a greeting card sentiment.

But there are those who see potential in what has so far been a fairly content-free Britney.

“I think it’s going to happen,” Tom Calderone, senior vice president of music and talent for MTV, says of Spears’ desire to become a self-sufficient artist. “She’s going to have so many life experiences. There’s a story in her head right now. And I think on the next album, you’re going to get more of it, absolutely.”

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While the pop industry debates Spears’ potential, there’s no doubt about her astounding work ethic.

It began when she was young, practicing dance and gymnastic routines. “When I get into my dance mode, nothing in the world can get me out of it,” she writes in “Heart to Heart.”

“I will practice and practice a move in front of a mirror, over and over again . . . 10, 20, 100 times until I’m happy with it. It’s something I’ve been doing since I was a little kid. I used to give myself dance report cards after a performance. I’m my own worst critic.”

An example of her zealous drive came while taping the video for “Oops!” a few months ago.

“I was lying down for an overhead shot and the camera went right on my head,” she recalls backstage, her voice sweeping into a high, squeaky pitch. “Of course that would happen to me. I went into the trailer and got stitches and everything. I was so embarrassed because it happened.

“But I was just, ‘I’m fine, don’t worry about it.’ But then all these people came around and they were all, ‘Oh, are you all right?’ And it just freaks me out. And I started crying and there were so many camera crews back there.”

She imitates herself sobbing.

“Because when I start crying I can’t stop and I was such a baby.”

Spears, however, chalked her tears up to typical teenage humiliation and got on with the shoot.

But why, after stitches and tears, didn’t she just postpone the session?

“Really, I had no choice,” she says. “The next day I had two more days left of rehearsals. I knew there was something else going on. I just had to do it. I was fine. It wasn’t that bad. It was a drama, that video shoot. Much drama.”

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All the success with the albums and the tour may be why everything looks peaceful in Spears’ world backstage.

Her mother, Lynne Spears, is sitting in one corner of the room. Britney’s tiny Yorkshire terrier, Baby, trots from one corner of the carpet to the next before settling into what looks like an oversized, zebra-print handbag. A sheaf of foil wrappers is piled on a nearby table for a pre-show hair coloring session.

Despite all the trappings of stardom, Spears does project an appealing naivete. She’s at her most animated when hugging little girls at her pre-show “meet and greet” or exclaiming over the tropical-flavored snow cones being served backstage.

“You’ve got to try one of these!” she shouts at me at the end of our interview. It’s the first and only time I see her express any genuine enthusiasm when not in the spotlight. While we talk, she seems uncomfortable, her arms locked across her chest, her voice detached. She answers questions dutifully but would clearly rather be just about anywhere else.

When Spears does finally get time to herself, she chooses to spend it with her hairdresser. “Right now, Britney’s getting her hair done and I tell you that is just the biggest moment of the day for her,” says Felicia Culotta, a family friend who has become Spears’ aide-de-camp and surrogate mother on tour. “Before the meet and greet, she told me, ‘We’ve got to get this done so I can get my hair done.’

“The 18-year-old comes out and you realize she’s just a little girl,” Culotta says. “Like if we’re walking around and she sees a store with an antique doll in the window, she just goes right back into being a kid again. It breaks your heart.”

Remembering what it’s like being a regular teenager, growing up in a small town and playing high school basketball is part of what inspired Spears to publish “Heart to Heart” with her mother and writer Sheryl Berk.

The book tells a condensed version of Spears’ life story and, along with Lynne Spears’ observations, offers the singer’s insights into religion, career goals, dealing with parents and difficult family times.

“I think that a lot of my friends don’t have good relationships with their families or good homes,” Spears says. “Or being able to talk to their mom or dad about everything, and it’s just that they’re troublesome and they’re bitter or angry.

“I have such a wonderful relationship with my mom, and with the book I was just trying to say it’s OK. And you go through a place where you’re 13 or 14 and everything your mom says is not cool. And I’ve been there, I already have. And it’s just turning it around and saying, it’s OK. Just talk to your mom and have that close bond again.”

Spears is the middle child of three, with an older brother, Bryan, and a younger sister, Jamie Lynn. Her parents and sister still live in a three-bedroom, two-bath ranch house in Kentwood. Lynne Spears continues to work as an elementary school teacher and Jamie Spears is a contractor, who frequently spends his workweek traveling to far-flung building sites. In addition to her mother and Culotta, Spears relies on her Baptist faith to carry her through the turmoil of a hectic schedule. (Her New York visit included an appearance on NBC’s “Today Show” in addition to her Long Island concerts.) She keeps a prayer diary and has been reading Neale Donald Walsch’s “Conversations With God” series. Spears doesn’t shy away from declarations of faith but tries not to make too much of it around her fans.

“Well, if they ask me, I’ll tell them about it, but God, I don’t want to be up there like some preacher,” she says. “It’s really just about doing what feels good for you. I was going through a stage about six months ago where I was so caught up with day-to-day things that I totally forgot about me.

“I was listening to my mind all the time and I forgot about my soul. I was trying so hard to please everybody. So I started saying this is the way I want things to be and I just found my peace again. And that’s really important to me.”

Staying centered is hard enough when you’re 18, without the pressures of a multimillion-dollar pop-music machine sprouting up around you. Spears concedes that most of the time she doesn’t even dare to consider how widespread her image and music have become.

Like contemplating a night sky filled with infinite stars, staring her fame straight in the eye is an overwhelming proposition.

“I try not to think about it,” she says. “Because if you think about it, it’s kind of a scary thing, knowing that there’s all these people counting on you. Every night, during some of the slow songs that I sing, I look out into the audience and it’s just a surreal moment. You’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, all these people are here for me.’ And it’s almost unbelievable. It’s so cool.”

BE THERE

Britney Spears, with Mikaila, the A*Teens and C-Note, Saturday at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, 8808 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine, 7:30 p.m. Sold out. (949) 855-2863. Also Sunday and Monday with Mikaila, A*Teens and Aaron Carter at the Great Western Forum, 3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood, 7:30 p.m. $30 to $49. (310) 419-3100; Aug. 3 with Mikaila and A*Teens at the San Diego Sports Arena, 3500 Sports Arena Blvd., San Diego, 7:30 p.m. Sold out. (619) 224-4176; Aug. 5 with Mikaila, A*Teens and Aaron Carter at Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion, 2575 Glen Helen Parkway, Devore, 7:30 p.m. $21.50 to $36.50. (909) 886-8742.

Sharing the Spotlight

* The Swedish foursome A*Teens, formed as a tribute to the band ABBA, will open for Britney Spears. Page 20.