Burke was born in Hartford, Connecticut and raised in Tucson, Arizona, with French, Chinese, Irish, and Portuguese heritage. She is the 4th of 7 children. She studied broadcast journalism at UCLA, but was quickly signed to top agencies, including the renowned Ford. She did prominent television commercials for Bally Fitness clubs, Coca-Cola, and Discover Card.

Spears' success has rested on a mixed fanbase. Millions of girls became enthusiasts for her work, adopting her as an idol. It also appears that many young adult males are also fans. Spears also has a significant gay male fanbase. Writers on popular music for the mainstream press, however, have generally been dismissive of Spears' music, considering it to be commercial and shallow.

The iPod has also been criticized as inferior to other players from rivals like Creative Labs, Rio, iRiver, and others. Common arguments are that, compared with other digital audio players, the iPod has lower sound quality, shorter battery life (which was improved in 4G iPod), and a lack of features such as support for UMS and for the Ogg Vorbis encoding format.