Album Review: Britney Spears – Femme Fatale

8 out of 10

Ah yes, a new Britney Spears album.  Growing up, I used to count down the days to the release of such classics like In The Zone and Britney in day planners (yes, I once used day planners).  I’ll be the first to admit, I was and still am a Britney fanatic.

Moving through high school and then college, I had to hide away my love for the pop star – loving Britney Spears was cool only if you loved her for her looks and not her music.  However, as her fanbase continued to grow up with her, the pop music she was making moved away from the Mickey Mouse Club-friendly lyrics and started to be more relatable in the sense of “yes, I also go out and get drunk and like to party.”  I mean, that’s fun music.

I’m not saying you should take Britney Spears seriously as some tour de force in the music as art world, but in the pop music world, Britney is queen, despite the Lady Gagas and Ke$has (I just had to type a dollar sign to substitute for the ‘s’ in that last one…no thanks).  And so, Femme Fatale, Britney’s seventh studio album, starts with a song written by…Ke$ha.

And therein lies the key to Femme Fatale.  Taking cues from 2007’s Blackout, Britney has left every vestige of sounding like an actual human and has instead surrounded herself with the best writers, beat and tastemakers that use her as a channel for some of the best pop music you will hear all year.

It might as well be an iMac propped up next to a microphone singing the stuttering chorus of “Till The World Ends,” the deliciously Euro-trash second single from the album.  Yet no other artist like Britney has been willing to let a producer contort, auto-tune and robotize vocals as much as Britney’s are throughout this album, and the result is pretty silly and a lot of fun. In the majority of Femme Fatale’s case, these producers include Britney’s longtime buddies Max Martin and Dr. Luke.

Moving past her Circus-era “I’m not crazy anymore and I will sing ballads about my baby” mentality, we finally get back to the wild, drunk and bitchy Britney, my personal favorite.  We even get a little electro R&B Britney with the excellent “Inside Out,” which probably would have better suited Ciara, yet the fact that it’s Britney singing about wanting to be turned inside out makes it that much better.  We are even rewarded with lyrics that nod at past smash singles (“Hit me one more time, it’s so amazing,” and “You’re the only one who ever drove me crazy”).

Not missing a beat, the album moves to “I Wanna Go,” a song with a chorus that encourages fist pumping out an open sunroof and has Britney giggling like a little girl after singing “Shame on me/to need release.”  We all secretly want the same release.

The rest of the album pretty much follows the mega beat with electronics formula, and although a few may seem forgettable after one spin, there are certain elements to songs like “Gasoline,” “Seal It With A Kiss” and “(Drop Dead) Beautiful” that keep you coming back for more, especially the latter’s lyric “You must be B.I.G. because you’ve got me hypnotized.”  Gimme gimme more.

Britney really takes it there with the Bloodshy produced “How I Roll.”  Riding on top of a beat built off of handclaps, synth and piano chords, the same team that wrote “Toxic” has penned the new going out anthem.  Remember the Gwen Stefani song “Bubble Pop Electric?”  This is what a song with that title should sound like.  Oh, and Britney sings the lyric “You can be my fuck tonight.”

Things get even weirder with “Big Fat Bass.”  Try to move past the fact that it includes will.i.am and sounds like a throwaway Black Eyed Peas song and embrace the other fact that you know how much fun this will be to drink and dance to.  I speak from experience.  When android Britney starts to warn us that “The bass is getting bigger,” I actually get a little scared and excited.  Like, how much bigger is the bass going to get, because I don’t know if my body can handle it.

“Trip To Your Heart” makes the listener feel like they are floating on top of a lazer and smoke filled dance floor, while “Trouble For Me” stands on its own.  “Blackjack, whiskey straight , every day changes your life.”  I’m cool with that.

The album closes with the very Madonna circa American Life sounding “Criminal.”  With a chord progression that takes us all the way back to the …Baby One More Time era, Britney sings to her mom, telling her that she’s in love with, well, a criminal.  A flute opens the song.  And it works.

Again, this is not Earth shattering music, although it has the potential to be if the bass gets any bigger.  But it does definitely deserve a listen if you want to know what pop music sounds like these days, how to do it right, and what computer software is capable of.  Aside from being Britney’s best album, it also proves that you don’t need to hatch out of an egg to create something that, in the end, just gets bodies moving.

Key Tracks:

Till The World Ends

I Wanna Go

How I Roll

Big Fat Bass

Also, check out the bonus tracks on the Deluxe version

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