Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 01/12/08
Label: Sony

Even by "South Park"'s scabrous standards, its 2008 Britney episode was close to the bone. Starring the singer as a hounded freak who had (literally) lost her head in a botched suicide attempt, the episode reflected the public perception of Spears as a brainless, traumatised puppet while also firmly implicating the public in her meltdown. It also said aloud what many were thinking: She might not survive the pressure.

Which makes it all the more welcome that not only is Britney around to see in 2009, but she's clutching a new album which - for its first half at least - is probably the most vibrant and adventurous of her short but prolific career. Picking up on the nervy, hard-edged pop of "Blackout", but featuring a Spears who seems twice as engaged, "Circus" is as flamboyantly artificial, peculiar and entertaining as its title suggests.

By now you'll know the maddening electronic itch of "Womanizer", and either love it or want to hunt down its writers and torture them. Next single "Circus" swiftly follows, and is as intricate and unpredictable as "Womanizer" is brutally simple, though its chorus seizes your brain in the same ruthless grip. From here the album skips between bustling dance pop and a scattering of softer numbers, though even these often feature hectoring beats and a synthetic sheen.

Of the dance numbers, "Kill The Lights" has the same aggressive relentlessness as the Pussycats Dolls' "When I Grow Up" (and the same curdled attitude to fame), while "If You Seek Amy" survives its shoddy innuendo (say the title fast) thanks to its glam stomp and reptilian vocal. Most unexpectedly of all, Spears has finally recorded two ballads that don't make your stomach lurch for your throat. The gentle "Out From Under" boasts a pretty, bittersweet chorus, while "Unusual You" is genuinely moving, a heartbroken admission of vulnerability that rings rather truer than Britney's usual attempts to ape Madonna's attitude.

If "Circus" had ended at eight songs, it would be a curveball pop classic but sadly - as with recent Beyonce, Alesha Dixon and Pussycat Dolls releases - the album bloats to twice that length. Why do women who wouldn't tolerate a gram of fat on their bodies not see the flab on their records? The other songs you either forget fast ("Mannequin", "Rock Me In") or wish you could forget faster (the creepy paedo-pop of "Mmm Papi", the puddle of sentimentality that is "My Baby").

Still, that Britney Spears has recorded even a half excellent pop album during her personal chaos is surprise enough; imagine what she might do if she really did run the "tight ship" she claims to on the title track. The most heartening thing about "Circus" is that that no longer seems wholly impossible.

    by Jaime Gill