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Album Reviews
Album Review: Britney Spears – Circus (SonyBMG/Jive)
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 1 December 2008
Unless you’ve been hiding under a table with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears for the last twelve months, you can’t have failed to notice that Britney Spears has had a bit of a rough year. But amidst all the time spent in hospital, in court, in cars being chased by paparazzo and under the watchful eye of her dad/legal owner, she has found the time to record a new album, which she is releasing on her 27th birthday. Now, I don’t want to knock someone while they’re down, but she really doesn’t make it easy. Opening with the first single from the album, ‘Womanizer’, she sets the tone for what is about to come by singing in the most jarring, unpleasant tone she can muster. She does this at strategic points throughout the album, to remind you that she’s still there – as it’s quite easy to forget the album is on, thanks to the amount of bland filler on offer. ‘Shattered Glass’, ‘Mmm Papi’ and ‘Amnesia’, which closes the album, and ‘Radar’, which also appeared on Spears’ previous comeback album, ’Blackout’, all have a strange ability to make you stop what you’re doing and seek an escape route. 14 tracks and not one to rival ‘Toxic’? Something tells me Britney should have taken a bit longer to recover before heading back into the studio. And at a time when she’s not in charge of her own affairs, you have to wonder if the reason for this album is just someone else trying to exploit all that negative press coverage to its fullest. AHM
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