Songfacts®:

• Teen pop was big in 1999, led by Britney Spears, Brandy and Christina Aguilera. A tier down was Jessica Simpson, who released her first single that year, "I Wanna Love You Forever." Simpson was 19 at the time and signed to Columbia Records, which paired her with a team of writers and producers for her debut album, Sweet Kisses. "I Wanna Love You Forever" was written and produced by Sam Watters and Louis Biancaniello, who also wrote "Remember When" for Color Me Badd and Simpson's duet with Nick Lachey, "Where You Are." They also wrote "I Believe," a #1 hit in 2004 for Fantasia.
• This big ballad was our introduction to Jessica Simpson, showcasing her vocal talents. It was a pretty big hit, going to #3 in the US and helping the Sweet Kisses album sell over 2 million copies.
  
  Simpson became better known as a reality TV star when her MTV series Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica (with her new husband, Nick Lachey) debuted in 2002. The series helped boost sales of her 2003 album In This Skin to over 3 million. In 2005 she launched an acting career starting with the movie The Dukes Of Hazzard, where she played Daisy Duke.
• Simpson later admitted that her songs from this time were all chosen for her and her image carefully crafted. She says she was basically a "show pony."
  
  She took some creative control of her music in 2003 with her In This Skin album, writing lyrics for some of the tracks. She did more songwriting over the years, often getting very personal.
• Her reality show Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica made her a major presence on MTV in 2002, but her early music videos didn't get all that much airplay, probably because they weren't very exciting. The "I Wanna Love You Forever" video just shows Simpson at a photo shoot with scenes of her singing on a soundstage. Her fellow pop stars were making more memorable visuals.