Britney Spears: 'Blackout'

The early signs are enough to make a pop fan weep. Blackout, Britney Spears' first album of all-new material in four years, drops as the former Mouseketeer is enduring the most tumultuous period of her life. As she acknowledges on 'Piece Of Me', Blackout's second track, "I'm Miss Bad Media Karma – another day, another drama". Holding it in your hand, it’s difficult to comprehend how Spears found time to record this album amidst the meetings with her divorce lawyers, the trudges in and out of rehab, the court appearances, the club dates with Paris Hilton and the jaunts to the barber shop. Does the woman never sleep? On second thoughts, don't answer that... Then you notice that Blackout lists Spears as its sole 'executive producer', and your heart plunges. Right now, only a fool would trust Spears to water his hydrangeas while he pops to the coast for the weekend; it's nigh on unfathomable that anyone would allow her to steer the make-or-break record of her career.

And yet, against all odds, Blackout is the most danceable, modern and thrilling album that Spears has ever made, the disc where she finally shakes off the last remnants of her Mickey Mouse Club image. There's not an 'I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman' in sight. The majority of the album is helmed by Nate 'Danja' Hills, the Timbaland protege who produced its triumphant lead single 'Gimme More', and Bloodshy & Avant, the Swedish hitmaking duo who reinvigorated Spears' career with 'Toxic'. All parties have conspired to turn Spears into a strutting, rutting, dry-humping-in-the-middle-of-the-club electro-diva.

They've pulled off this conceit by positioning Spears at the bleeding edge of contemporary pop music. 'Radar', a rave-tinged electro blipathon on which Spears is vocodered to the point of sounding extra-terrestrial, and 'Break The Ice', a booming slice of multi-layered electro R'n'B, are as avant-garde as pop gets in 2007. The self-mythologising 'Piece Of Me', meanwhile, is simply the most knowing song that Spears has ever recorded. (And, let's face it, 'Overprotected' and 'Stronger' weren't exactly the handiwork of an ingenuous naïf.) "I'm Mrs. Extra! Extra! This just in!," she croons in a girlish tone totally at odds with the media-savvy lyrics. "I'm Mrs. She's too big, now she's too thin."

Unsurprisingly for a woman whose virginity was the subject of years of gossip rag tittle tattle, Spears seems to equate rampant, crotch-thrusting sexuality with growing up and taking charge of her life. Blackout is as obsessed with sex as a 14-year-old boy who just bought his first copy of FHM. "If I get on top, you're gonna lose your mind," she pants on 'Get Naked (I Got A Plan)', before announcing on 'Freakshow' that she wants people to "clap while we perform". Only 'Heaven On Earth', a swooning pop song on which Spears gets all gushy over near-industrial beats and a quivering, 'I Feel Love'-style bassline, suggests that Spears might crave love more than sex.

Bold and bracing as Blackout is, there are times when Spears' personal problems manage to raise their bald, publicity-addled head. When she squeals "It feels like you got me going insane" on 'Break The Ice', the mind can't help but drift away from her music. Is Britney talking about the drop dead gorgeous guy she's just spotted at the bar? Or is she lambasting a particularly intrusive paparazzo? Hmm. Perhaps a strong-willed barber man has attracted her ire by telling her no, he's not handing over his electric razor?

As Spears croons a bitter kiss-off to K-Fed on Pharrell Williams' 'Why Should I Be Sad' - Blackout's final track and the only song here that even threatens to resemble a ballad – the missing piece of the Blackout jigsaw looms large. As confident, seductive and lust-fuelled as Spears sounds on this album, she never really seems happy. That, we can but hope, will follow very, very soon.