Britney Spears

Our gal Brit Brit—Britney Spears to her momma and her extensive kin folk— has selected an appropriate title for her latest and greatest album. The pop tart's life has devolved into a can't-look-away-from-the-train-wreck, tried and true media Circus. Let's face it: for the past two years, her life has been a spectacle and a mess. At least we know Brit, who has never exactly been celebrated for her savvy, is gaining some perspective about her life by the way she named her album. One can't help but wonder when the hell she had time to record the music contained on Circus, since she spent 2007 and 2008 in the hospital and/or rehab, losing custody of her two young sons and landing under the conservatorship of her father. They say that trauma, drama and strife are the most fertile sources for an artist's musical catharsis. Brit has apparently funneled all the shit that's happened to her in the unfortunate past two years into Circus.

Her breathy yet thin voice erupts into full-on, sex kitten mode on dance romps like the choppy yet charming hit "Womanizer," while the title track and "If You Seek Amy" are clubby tunes written for the express purpose of all-night dance marathons. The ballad "Out From Under," which is backed by a heady beat, reveals Britney at her softest and most mature, where she drops the overly libidinous vocal delivery in favor of a vulnerable and grownup approach. It's the sonic equivalent of abandoning her up-to-here cut offs and commando moments for a classy black dress and demure pumps. That said, there's plenty of booty bumpers on Circus, such as "Kill the Lights" and "Shattered Glass." The album truly is Brit's artistic triumph, cycling through a range of sample-heavy styles without solely relying on her sex appeal, which has been battered thanks to a barrage of unflattering paparazzi photos that fill supermarket tabloids on a weekly basis. When she purs, "How the hell do I get my head on right?" on the trippy "Blur," the tender, sober side of Brit rises to the surface. "Mmm Papi" tickles the ears with its ethnic flair, and you can hear Britney having fun while she delivers her silly lyrics. "Mannequin" is another beat-centric, flirty song driven by Britney's suggestive exhales. "Lace and Leather" comes late in the disc and it's a surprise, thanks to its '80s-inspired groove, which recalls the subtle sexification of Prince's "Kiss."

Go ahead, call Circus a comeback. With her cleaned up image, her shift from sloppy to stylish (at least she was at this year's VMA's) and the fact that deep down, the public continues to root for this country girl from Louisiana, Britney comes out swinging, singing and dancing on Circus.

— Amy Sciarretto
12.02.08

With its title, Circus nods knowingly at the madhouse that is Britney Spears' life, acknowledging that things got a little rough after the release of 2007's Blackout. It's no secret that Blackout's launch didn't go as planned: the furor surrounding her stumbling VMA lip-sync of "Gimme More" was eclipsed by her institutionalization -- a drama played out live on TV, as so much of her life is -- and the loss of custody of her two young boys to ex-husband Kevin Federline, all of which pushed Blackout far, far to the background. Britney herself didn't exactly seem engaged on Blackout -- it was a club album, a producer's showcase, so it didn't matter if Spears didn't give herself over completely as the behind-the-boards team carried her through. That distance combined with her troubles did give Britney the appearance of losing control completely, and the best way for a pop star to right herself is through image -- hence Circus, a friendly remake of the hedonistic Blackout that posits that all is better with Brit-Brit now, thank you. If Blackout was a producers' album, Circus is a handlers' album, intent on sweeping away any recent unpleasantness -- the only acknowledgement is that title -- and acting like nothing ever happened, imagining that this is still a world where Britney remains envied and desired, where she can be dolled up as a gauzy Farrah Fawcett pinup on her album cover, where she can sing a drippy ballad about "My Baby" and have nobody raise an eyebrow. She can get away with the former with a bit more ease than the latter if only because all the time, effort, and money is poured into the club tracks, such as the thumping, stuttering first single "Womanizer" and its better, the relentless "Kill the Lights," so sleek and sexy it winds up diminishing the rest of the record.

"Kill the Lights" may be exceptional, one of Britney's best-ever singles, but it also doesn't have much competition here: it's one of a handful of tracks that follow through on Blackout, while the rest of Circus plays it safe, never hitting the beats hard enough to alienate a pop audience but perhaps layering on a bit too much saccharine for dance fans. It's careful and considered, right down to the single-entendre "If U Seek Amy," a Katy Perry-styled exercise in crass commercial carnality that is at once the best and worst song here. Best because Max Martin once again works his undeniable pop magic, turning this into a trashy stomper that feels inevitable and eternal, working against any sense of taste or decorum, something that the lyrics work overtime to undercut as they insist that all the boys and all the girls still want to F, U...well, spell it and you'll get the picture, and if you don't, Britney's elocution will paint it for you. This sexy strut doesn't work not because Spears' desirability took a nosedive in the five years since In the Zone -- although it did -- but because Britney's sexiness never was this explicit; she teased and hinted, at least in her music, and it feels wrong to have her be so nakedly vulgar here. Still, it was a necessary move, a way to stir up headlines and perhaps snatch the tabloid tiara from Katy's head, but the rest of the record doesn't follow through as it resorts Spears' standard formula: a couple of great dance singles, a couple of pretty good chill-out cuts (best being Bloodshy & Avant's "Unusual You"), a couple of not-good-at-all ballads, and a whole bunch of stuff in the middle. If she feels marginally more connected here than she did on Blackout, it's a Pyrrhic victory, as Circus never feels as sleek or addictive as its predecessor. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide