sort of boy-worshipping dreck that even Tiffany would have sniffed at". Mike Ross of Edmond Sun said, as Spears emotes in the song, "the message behind the music is worse than mere sweet nothings. [...] So much for Girl Power". Amanda Murray of Sputnikmusic considered "Born to Make You Happy" a "proficient but entirely unrememberable song," while Andy Petch-Jex of musicOMH considered the song an "early classic". Christopher Rosa, from Glamour, deemed it Spears' tenth best song, calling it an "euphoric slice of late nineties bubblegum, featuring some of her fullest vocals and one of her most memorable bridges". Shannon Barbour from Cosmopolitan called it a "prime stare-out-the-widow-pretending-to-be-in-an-emotional-music-video song". Digital Spy's Alim Kheraj praised "Spears' pure vocals and the dreamlike production". For Alex Macpherson from The Guardian, it's one of the best examples of Spears' "distressing vulnerability" as well as her best song; "a determined erasure of the autonomous self [...] 'Born to Make You Happy' is horrifying as text and irresistible as pop, and the two are inextricable". While reviewing ...Baby One More Time on its 20th anniversary, Billboards Chuck Arnold felt that "the old-fashioned sentiment of this song - that a girl is born to please her guy - feels even more antiquated 20 years later. Still, this song is a teen-pop dream". For Daniel Megarry from Gay Times, it was one of the "standout tracks" from ...Baby One More Time and wrote that "it’s impossible not to feel nostalgia when the melancholic beats of 'Born To Make You Happy' grace your eardrums". Mayer Nissim pointed out that "on the surface the lyrics are more than a little limp and pathetic, but [...] the powerful pop backing and unbreaking vocals show that Britney will more than live to fight (and love) another day". Nicholas Hautman, from Us Weekly, said that the song "may not have aged well, but there is no question that it has some of Spears' best vocals". Commercial performance On January 29, 2000, "Born to Make You Happy" debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart becoming Spears' second UK number one. The song shipped over 400,000 copies in the United Kingdom, earning a gold certification by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in February 2021. It is her sixth best-selling single in the country. In Ireland, the song also entered the Irish Singles Chart at number one on January 20, 2000, while peaking at