Also, as the person who has done most of the retrospective pieces for the site, I would definitely say there are no “rules” to this type of piece. You don’t have to “mention x number of songs” for it to be engaging.
If people ever woke up and collectively realized they had the option to just keep scrolling past content that didn't interest them instead of doing the other thing the internet would be a much less dumpster fire-y place.
I need to revisit this album. I realized I spend most of my life liking but underrating Britney Spears and after revisiting Oops!...I Did It Again it's one of my favorite pop albums. Gonna spend today relistening to ...Baby One More Time
Personally, I love these pieces that reflect on important albums/songs that marked a cultural shift in music regardless of genre. Sure, I’m not a Britney fan but I remember hearing that song for the first time, seeing/hearing it everywhere and the wave of similar artists/groups that followed. Now that I’m older and can understand how that song/album changed the game, it’s an interesting thing to talk about. Also, I’d be lying if I said I don’t think that the song “Baby One More Time” is a banger. Also, nu-metal was emerging on the scene around the same time and I’d personally rather talk about this than that.
You've got a pretty big blind spot in your "I've matured" shtick if you don't apply it retroactively to music you hated for dumb and bad reasons. This doesn't change the fact that they were on TRL too, and for more than the video making fun of boy bands.