Under no circumstances should you attempt to dissect any of the tracks that make up her sixth studio album. And don’t read the lyrics. You might end up thinking that the 1910 Fruitgum Company’s “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” is a work of deep meaning compared with the sometimes inane material that Spears spews out over a collection of modern dance beats and ballads.
Britney Spears
“Circus” (Jive) has been crafted as a major statement in the wake of her life as a tabloid train wreck, much like Michael Jackson’s songs such as “Leave Me Alone.” This is not a revelatory, strip-me-bare effort on the scale of Marvin Gaye’s “Here, My Dear” or even Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black.”
Rather, “Circus,” released today in the U.S., comes off as a shallow and calculated effort by the 27-year-old.
“Bitch, Bitch it’s Britney Bitch/Out and open, that’s alright/If it ain’t, don’t stop, just do it, do it/All night, alright, this way, kill-kill the lights,” she sings on “Kill The Lights,” which appears to be a commentary on her war with the paparazzi.
Her two children get a shout out in “My Baby,” a warbling ballad. John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)” this isn’t.
Britney Spears
The beats which form the backbone of “Circus” are urban, hip and clubby. “Rock Me In” is hooky and fun. The record will sell a couple of million copies, with the first single, “Womanizer,” having already hit no. 1 in Billboard.
Spears, who looks healthier and more alive on the cover of a recent Rolling Stone magazine than she has in a couple of years, will be greeted with sold-out audiences as she lip-syncs her way through “Circus.”
Britney Spears
She probably was aiming for greatness but seems to have only forged a new genre: paranoid disco.
Rating: *.
The album is priced about $18.98. Download fees vary across services.
Britney Spears
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