Britney Spears Circus Review
Womanizer, Kills the Lights, If U Seek Amy Shine on Sixth Album
Dec 3, 2008
From the electrified intro to number one single, “Womanizer”, to the robotron woman scorned digital funk of "Shattered Glass", the new ring master tries hard to pull more than a rabbit out of her hat. On Circus, Britney Spear' sixth album for Jive, she brings the goods, the bad, while also bringing the weird.
“There are two types of people in the world – those that entertain and those that observe,” Britney Spears sings it clear with the opening line from “Circus” and if there’s any doubt on which side of the fence she sits, she spends the next hour entertaining her heart out.
Circus Mannequin
As far as pop albums go, Circus commands a huge space, however, after the Reality TV life that Spears has lead lately, it seems like the singer has now lived too much to continue to produce glossy Disney-friendly radio pop.
Britney Spears may not have the best voice in the biz, but matched with the right producers and songwriters she could have explored more – hell, she could have sung about toast and it still would have sold millions of copies of Circus.
The closest she comes to breaking the mold comes in the electro-inspired “Unusual You”, one of the album’s gems produced by Bloodshy & Avant who also produced her 2003 life-imitates-art track “Toxic”.
Kill the Lights
By comparison, Britney Spears’ mentor Madonna’s sixth album proper Bedtime Stories, showed her flirting with soul and electronica – it came after landmark albums Like a Prayer, True Blue and the difficult Erotica – Circus only seems to be an extension of 2007’s Blackout with little variation in style, theme or content.
The one exception, "If U Seek Amy", the most clever moment on Circus, contains the lyric "All the boys, and all the girls are begging to if you seek Amy," sung quickly it sounds quite different and pushes Britney beyond her now tired themes of bad boyfriends and life in the spotlight.
It’s easy to complain how difficult life can be speared in the press, as she does on “Kill the Lights”, but that was accomplished with greater success on “Piece of Me” – and why does Circus contain “Radar”, a track that also appears on Blackout?
Instead of easily digestible pop, this could have been Britney’s comeback album filled with reflection, some life lessons learned from good friend Dr. Phil or at least a sitar to sound deep.
Britney does contribute to the writing on this record - so where are the teary-eyed confessions from rehab or the courtyard-inspired journal entries? While “Out From Under” comes close to personal reflection, unfortunately the Guy Sigworth (Bjork, Alanis Morissette) –produced track sounds like it could have appeared in her Crossroads flick.
Mmm Papi, Ohh Britney
Of course with an album named Circus, it would be a shame not to have a few clowns. Luckily they’re here in full force in the form of sleazy clown “Mmm Papi”, creepy ‘I can’t remember a thing from last night’ clown “Blur” and saccharin sweet cotton candy clown “My Baby”.
Circus may not be the album it could have been, but taken out of the context of Britney Spears life and judged solely on its musical merits, it’s a great pop record that should feature prominently in the centre ring well into the new year.
Fans should splurge on the bonus edition of Circus that contains two of her best non-album tracks, "Phonography" and "Trouble".
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