 ... Baby One More Time is the debut studio album by American recording artist Britney Spears . It was released on January 12 , 1999 , by JIVE Records . In June 1997 , while Spears negotiated with manager Lou Pearlman to join female pop group Innosense , her mother asked family friend and entertainment lawyer Larry Rudolph for his opinion and submitted a tape of Spears singing over a Whitney Houston karaoke song . Rudolph decided to pitch her to record labels , sending them a demo tape with an unused song from Toni Braxton . JIVE was interested and appointed the singer to work with producer Eric Foster White . After hearing the recorded material , JIVE signed Spears to a multi @-@ album deal . 
