Gimme More - 10/10 LOVE IT!! I think it's my new favourite Britney song

Piece of Me - 5/10 I think that I like it better than the first time that I heard it, but it still gives me a headache

Radar - 4/10 I have been singing the chorus in my head today but the song does nothing for me

Break The Ice - 6/10

Heaven On Earth - 6/10 Drags on too long for me

Get Naked (I Got A Plan) 8/10 HATED the man's voice at first, but now I actually like it. It sounds different.

Freakshow - 2/10. Average song/Filler/Sounds like Fergie

Toy Soldier - 1/10

Hot As Ice - 9/10 I'm torn between this and Cold as fire. I think I'm starting to accept this one

Ooh Ooh Baby - 8/10

Perfect Lover - 1/10 Just her panting and trying to sound sexy instead of singing

Why Should I Be Sad - 0/10 Hate it. Plus I wouldn't give that twirp Fed any time of day whatsoever, unless I had to, so definitely not on my album

Review from USA Today:

 

Spears is less than electrifying on 'Blackout', Album Review

Britney Spears hasn't been able to lose the paparazzi in recent months, but she does joyously lose herself in music on her new Blackout(* * ½ out of four), out Tuesday. The notorious party girl's first studio album in four years is wall-to-wall club-bangers, thanks to the pulsating beats and production board wizardry of Timbaland protégé Nate "Danja" Hills and her Toxic collaborators Bloodshy & Avant. Spears does her part by brashly slinking over the rhythms with sexy promises to "turn the heat up."

 

Though her voice is mostly awash in synthesizers and vocoders, her sass and attitude are the driving force. She sets the tone by declaring, "It's Britney, b**ch!" at the beginning of album opener and lead single Gimme More, and she shows that she isn't sweating people's opinions. But songs like that also show how hard it is to separate Britney the singer from Britney the celebrity.

 

She fires back at the media for its fascination with her life's minutiae on Piece of Me. Spears derides the press for putting "pictures of my derriere in the magazine" and portraying her as "Mrs. Oh My God That Britney's Shameless." Elsewhere, she takes any guy she sees as a Toy Soldier, though a turned-on Spears wants things "hot, hot, hot" on Break the Ice.

 

Spears needs to keep it grimy, because the alternative is a numbing blandness that makes you think too long about head-scratcher lines such as Heaven on Earth's "I fall off the edge of my mind." She comes off much better when she's in lust than in love.

 

She takes her time venting about ex-husband Kevin Federline on the midtempo, Neptunes-produced Why Should I Be Sad. The two obviously have plenty to work out in court, but she seems determined to live on her own terms. "It's time for me to move along," she sings. "I'm tired of singing sad songs."

 

The best thing about Blackout is that it makes no pretense about showcasing her vocal prowess with warbled ballads. For Britney, hitting the high notes means getting you into the groove so you can get into her. You can move your feet or just move on.

favourable review from People magazine:

 

(3 Stars)

 

Her personal life may be a hot mess, but there is plenty of hot music for dancing one's troubles away on Britney Spears's new album, Blackout, her first studio CD since 2003's pre-K-Fed In the Zone. (Hey, maybe she was actually researching beats on the party-girl circuit.)

 

"Gimme More," the panting first single, was just a tease, because there are better – if not exactly bolder – tracks, like "Toy Soldier," with its fun simulated snare drums, and the cool, T-Pain-assisted "Hot as Ice" (one of five cuts produced by Timbaland protégé Nate "Danja" Hills).

 

Only two songs, though, really offer any insight into her well-documented struggles: the media-blasting "Piece of Me" and the K-Fed kiss-off "Why Should I Be Sad," which, after 11 cuts of nonstop partying, leaves you facing the melancholy morning after. Her personal life may be a hot mess, but there is plenty of hot music for dancing one's troubles away on Britney Spears's new album, Blackout, her first studio CD since 2003's pre-K-Fed In the Zone. (Hey, maybe she was actually researching beats on the party-girl circuit.)

 

"Gimme More," the panting first single, was just a tease, because there are better – if not exactly bolder – tracks, like "Toy Soldier," with its fun simulated snare drums, and the cool, T-Pain-assisted "Hot as Ice" (one of five cuts produced by Timbaland protégé Nate "Danja" Hills).

 

Only two songs, though, really offer any insight into her well-documented struggles: the media-blasting "Piece of Me" and the K-Fed kiss-off "Why Should I Be Sad," which, after 11 cuts of nonstop partying, leaves you facing the melancholy morning after.

favourable review from Boston Herald:

 

Grade: B

 

Britney may be picking up the pieces in her personal life, but her music career is apparently back on track with “Blackout.” Initially slated to drop in mid-November, its release date was moved up to Tuesday - and you don’t have to wait even that long to hear it: Brit’s record label has the entire CD streaming for free through The Leak at MTV.com, VH1.com and LOGOonline.com.

 

Charged with reprising her role as a sexy, scantily clad pop siren amid legal and drug issues, the ex-Mrs. Federline rises to the occasion and fills her fifth studio album with breezy, breathless tales of seduction and club escapades, sounding as if she’s spent the last two years on vacation. Mostly, it works.

 

Reality check: If “Blackout” depended on the pop tart’s vocal power, it would flounder. But as on previous albums, Brit’s combination of whispers, breathy come-ons, baby girl coos and electronically manipulated vocals are propped up by top-shelf producers.

 

This time around, Spears enlists Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes on the marginally deep “Why Should I Be Sad” and Timbaland sidekick Danja (who produced much of Justin Timberlake’s “FutureSex/LoveSounds”) on several tracks, including lead single “Gimme More” and “Get Naked (I Got a Plan).”

 

Like the album’s cover, the package is potentially tacky yet oddly alluring. The synth-heavy, tribal beats carry a strong late-’70s/early ’80s influence: “Radar” reworks “Tainted Love” and “Heaven on Earth” borrows from Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.” The missteps - such as “Freakshow” and portions of “Toy Soldier” - aren’t so much horrible as annoying.

 

Older if not wiser than when she made her debut at 17, the 25-year-old Spears still has the uncanny ability to infuse her songs with just the right amount of meaninglessness. Despite a hiatus rife with pour-your-heart-out material, she continues to leave listeners with little idea of who she is outside her pop superstar role.

 

She does fire back at her detractors on “Piece of Me,” but the majority of “Blackout” is uncomplicated party fun, sexy and steamy without going off the deep end. At this point in Britney’s career you’d hope for signs of growth, but what you get is more from the same template she built her empire on.

Overall I think this album is getting really good reviews!

Horrendous review from Newsday (one of the worst, most biased, most stupid reviews I've ever read):

 

Britney Spears' new CD? Save your money

 

The new Britney Spears album "Blackout" (Jive) is terrible. But how could it not be?

 

After all, music was never really the strongest part of the Britney Spears package in the first place. She was more about, well, packaging - the look, the videos, the personal life, everything that surrounded the music.

 

So now, in the midst of all of her personal turmoil - the custody battle, the substance abuse allegations, the wobbly public performances - did anyone really expect "Blackout" to be some sort of artistic leap forward? Of course not.

 

Like much of the pre-fab dance beats and the robotic, studio-enhanced vocals that fill it, "Blackout" is simply the next, predictably pre-ordained step in "The Britney Spears Story," which also doubles as her life. It's the point in the story where the commercial failure of her album finally makes her realize that she needs help. It will be followed, of course, by rehab - both image and otherwise - and the inevitable comeback featuring songs about empowerment and making it through the rain and stuff, tentatively titled "The Emancipation of BritBrit."

 

It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

 

What makes "Blackout" so over-the-top-bad isn't Spears, however. Her seemingly minimal involvement is pretty obvious and her over-processed, faux-electro vocals could basically be dropped into any setting or re-processed to fit any situation.

 

The real failure is in the ridiculous things that the songwriters give her to sing and the uninspired musical backdrops that the producers provide her that make it so tedious.

 

The album's best song, "Heaven on Earth," a cross between Donna Summer's Giorgio Moroder days and latter-day Kylie Minogue, could be a hit for anyone. Spears' blank delivery doesn't sink it, but it doesn't really help it any either. There was a time when getting Spears to do one of your songs was a coup. But now that her involvement is arguably a liability, you have to wonder why songwriter Kara DioGuardi would hand the song over to Spears instead of one of her many other superstar clients or even holding onto it herself.

 

For some, it's a way of boasting, which Danjahandz does in the hammy ending to "Gimme More" and which Sean Garrett does on the Missy Elliott rip-off "Toy Soldier," saying "Smash on the radio, bet I penned it."

 

At other times, it seems like her handlers are pulling pranks, like big brothers getting their little siblings to say crazy stuff that they don't understand. ("What I gotta do to get you to want my body?" she asks in "Get Naked." "Won't you warm up to me, baby? I can make you feel hot, hot, hot," she sings in "Break the Ice.")

 

Heck, even the title seems like a joke, considering the substance abuse allegations, even if her team tries to explain it away as a reference to "blocking out negativity and embracing life fully."

 

Most of these dance tracks are benign enough, even if they sound like rejects from the Nicole Scherzinger album or the bland backing tracks of some cruise ship diva.

 

However, on "Piece of Me," a Spears protest song of sorts against people's judgments and celebrity culture written by the Swedish duo Bloodshy & Avant, her woe-is-me attitude becomes ridiculous.

 

She runs through a list of judgments - "Oh my god, that Britney's shameless" and "She's too big, now she's too thin" - that she believes are specific to her, even though judging and getting judged on the basis of looks and actions is unfortunately part of life for everyone, famous or not.

 

She runs through a list of complaints about the paparazzi and the tabloids, saying, "Don't matter if I step on the scene or slink away to the Philippines, they still gonna put pictures of my derriere in the magazine."

 

Well, actually, it does matter. While personal responsibility may be a hard concept to grasp, especially when work essentially crafted by others, like "Blackout," appears with your name on it, nevertheless it's a reality.

 

And the faster Spears recognizes that, the quicker we can move on to the next chapter in "The Britney Spears Story." The current one, you see, has grown increasingly tedious. ("Blackout," in stores Tuesday; Grade: D)

Edited October 26, 200717 yr by lotsofsnails

favourable review from British newspaper The Guardian:

 

http://image.guardian.co.uk/stars/guardian4.gif

 

If you believe Brendan Behan's line about all publicity being good publicity, then Britney Spears' fifth album may well be the best-promoted release in pop history. By contrast with poor old Britney, everything in Amy Winehouse's world is going just swimmingly. We'll be here all day if we go into detail, but suffice to say the salient points involve three visits to rehab in the space of five weeks, shaving her head, losing custody of her children, being ordered to undergo twice-weekly random drug testing, a disastrous comeback appearance at the MTV Awards, a raft of motoring offences and being voted the World's Worst Celebrity Role Model Parent.

 

Faced with a public image in freefall, an artist has two options. One involves making music that harks back to your golden, pre-tailspin days with lyrics underlining your complete normality: the hope is that the public will fall for the ruse that nothing is actually wrong. The other is to throw caution to the wind: given your waning fortunes, what's the harm in taking a few musical risks? Happily, Blackout - an unfortunate choice of title, given the nature of Spears' recent travails - opts for the latter course, unleashing a torrent of ferociously distorted synthesizers, electronically treated vocals, snapping drum samples and bovver-booted glam rock beats. The results are largely fantastic.

Single Gimme More is futuristic and thrilling, while the sound adds a genuine sense of simmering fury to Piece of Me, which rails against Spears' various detractors. With its toothsome chorus gradually smothered by waves of corrosive, atonal electronics. Heaven on Earth sounds, not inappropriately, like a school uniform-era Spears track that has spiralled completely out of control. Even when there's not much of a song on offer, there's usually some sonic trickery that snares your attention. Freakshow manipulates Spears' voice until she sounds like a man. Get Naked (I Got a Plan) features a backing vocal that wails off key, gradually slowing down as if someone has turned off the power. Only once does it all get a bit much: with its skipping beat, agonisingly squeaky call-and-response vocals and repetitive nursery-rhyme melody, Radar seems to be bending over backwards to annoy the listener. Perhaps it's a last desperate tactic to win back some privacy: she's trying to get people to leave her alone by making as irritating a noise as possible.

 

Aside from Piece of Me, and a kiss off to ex-husband Kevin Federline called Why Should I Be Sad? - a funny thing to sing when you've lost custody of your children and have to undergo random twice-weekly drug testing - the lyrics opt to ignore recent events in favour of relentless crotch-level bombardment. It's testament to how all-pervading her former image as the world's most famous virgin was that, even today, after two marriages, two kids and innumerable knickerless pap shots, it's faintly shocking to hear Britney Spears use the word "f***". But use it she does. "Tick-tock, tick-tock, can you f*** me while I'm hot?" she husks on Perfect Lover, provoking a startled double take, as if you'd turned on Songs of Praise to find Aled Jones exposing his genitals to the congregation of St Bartholomew's. Clearly someone within Britney's organisation felt the same way: the volume on the track suddenly dips to preserve her modesty.

 

The overall lyrical bent proves something of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, an album full of songs like Piece of Me - on which Britney Spears comes to the faintly disingenuous conclusion that her spate of bad publicity is down to a global media conspiracy against working mothers - would have been hard to stomach. On the other, the songwriters might have thought twice about the vast number of lyrical references to being crazed with lust. These days, when you hear Britney Spears singing about going insane or feeling her brain spin like a hurricane, what you picture is not a woman delirious in the midst of coital ecstasy, but those photos of her, freshly scalped, attacking a paparazzo's car with an umbrella and looking as disturbed as it's possible for a human being to look without actually being strapped into a straitjacket. "I'm falling off the edge of my mind," she pants, and it's hard to stop yourself thinking: yes, so it would appear. Now put that brolly down.

 

And that, ultimately, may prove Blackout's big problem. It arrives alongside the latest Britney updates in the celebrity mags, variously claiming that the singer has applied for a job as a night manager in a hotel bar, been spotted "ranting incoherently" and singing Santa Claus Is Coming to Town to a dog dressed in a Christmas outfit, and been subject to an intervention by her family. It's a bold, exciting album: the question is whether anyone will be able to hear its contents over the deafening roar of tittle-tattle.

All Music Guide review:

 

Public image is vital to pop stars, but few stars have been so inextricably tied to their image as Britney Spears. Think back to “…Baby One More Time” — it has an indelible hook but what leaps to mind is not the sound of the single, but how Britney looked in the video, as she pouted and preened in a schoolgirl’s uniform, an image as iconic as Madonna’s exposed navel. Every one of Britney’s hits had an accompanying image, as she relied on her carefully sculpted sexpot-next-door persona as much as she did on her records, but what happens when the image turns sour, as it certainly did for Britney in the years following the release of In the Zone? When that album hit the stores in 2003, Britney had yet to marry, had yet to give birth, had yet to even meet professional layabout Kevin Federline — she had yet to trash her girl-next-door fantasy by turning into white trash. Some blamed Federline for her rapid downward spiral, but she continued to descend after splitting with K-Fed in the fall of 2006, as each month brought a new tabloid sensation from Britney, a situation that was all the more alarming when contrasted to how tightly controlled her public image used to be. The shift in her persona came into sharp relief at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards, as she sleepwalked through a disastrous lip-synch of her comeback single “Gimme More,” a disaster by any measure but when it was compared to such previous meticulously staged VMA appearances as her make-out with Madonna in 2003, it made Britney seem like a lost cause and fallen star.

 

All this toil and turmoil set the stage for her ‘07 comeback Blackout to be a flat-out train wreck, which it decidedly is not… but that doesn’t mean it’s a triumph, either. Blackout is an easy album to overpraise based on the lowered expectations Britney’s behavior has set for her audience, as none of her antics suggested that she’d be able to deliver something coherent and entertaining, two things that Blackout is. As an album, it holds together better than any of her other records, echoing the sleek club-centric feel of In the Zone but it’s heavier on hedonism than its predecessor, stripped of any ballads or sensitivity and just reveling in dirty good times. So, Blackout acts as a soundtrack for Britney’s hazy, drunken days, reflecting the excess that’s splashed all over the tabloids, but it has a coherence that the public Britney lacks. This may initially seem like an odd dissociation but, in a way, it makes sense: how responsible is Britney for her music, anyway? At the peak of her popularity, she never seemed to be dictating the direction of her music, so it only stands to reason that when her personal life has gotten too hectic, she’s simply decided to let the professional producers create their tracks and then she’ll just drop in the vocals at her convenience. Even the one song that plays like autobiography –- “Piece of Me,” where she calls herself “Miss American dream since I was 17″ and “I’m Miss Bad Media Karma/another day another drama,” complaining “they stick all the pictures of my derriere in the magazines,” as if she wasn’t posing provocatively for Rolling Stone as soon as Baby broke big — was outsourced to “Toxic” producer/writers Bloodshy & Avant who try desperately to craft a defiant anthem for this tabloid fixture, as she couldn’t be bothered to write one on her own. Instead, she busies herself with writing the album’s two strip-club anthems, “Freakshow” and the brilliantly titled “Get Naked (I Got a Plan)” (surely the successor to such trash-classics as Soundmaster T’s “2 Much Booty [in da Pants]” and Samantha Fox’s timeless pair of “Touch Me [i Want Your Body]” and “[Hurt Me! Hurt Me!] But the Pants Stay On”). Every piece of gossip in the four years separating In the Zone and Blackout suggests that her head is in the clubs, yet it’s still a bit disarming to realize that this is all that she has to say.

 

Britney may not have much on her mind but at least she has pockets so deep she can buy the best producers, hiring Bloodshy & Avant, the Clutch, and the Neptunes, among others, to help craft an album that cribs from Rihanna’s sleek, sexy Good Girl Gone Bad and the chilly robo-R&B of Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds. Emotionally, this isn’t a progression from In the Zone, but it is a cannily contemporary dance album, sounding nearly as fresh as Rihanna and JT, even if it’s hardly as trend-setting as either. Then again, Britney hasn’t set the pace for the sound of dance-pop since her first two Max Martin-driven productions, and her skill — conscious or not, it doesn’t really matter — has always been to get the right producers at the right moment, which she surely does here. Those producers turn Blackout into a sleek, shiny collection of 12 guiltily addictive dance tracks where the only weak link is Britney herself. Never the greatest vocalist, her thin squawk could be dismissed early in her career as an adolescence learning the ropes, but nearly a decade later her singing hasn’t gotten any better, even if the studio tools to masquerade her weaknesses have. Strangely enough, the computer corrections either emphasize her irritating strangled delivery — nowhere more so than on “Piece of Me,” where she’s sharp, flattened and clipped, the vocoder stabbing at the ears like a pick — or she disappears into the track entirely, just another part of the electronic tapestry. Naturally, the latter cuts are more appealing, as they really show off the skills of the producers, particularly the Clutch’s lead single “Gimme More,” Bloodshy & Avant’s relentless “Radar,” the new wave shimmer of “Heaven on Earth,” the stuttering electro-clip of “Break the Ice,” or the spare, silly chant of “Hot as Ice.” When Britney is pushed to the forefront, she garners too much attention, as she tries too hard to be sexy — a move she could pull off before, when carefully-controlled pictures of Britney in schoolgirl uniforms, catsuits, and tight jeans filled in the blanks her voice left behind. Now, those images are replaced by images of Britney beating cars up with umbrellas, wiping her greasy fingers on designer dresses, and nodding off on stage, each new disaster stripping away any residual sexiness in her public image, so when she tries to purr and tease on Blackout she repels instead of seduces. That’s the new Britney, and as she’s always been an artist who relies on image, her tarnished persona does taint the ultimate effect of her music, as knowledge of her ceaseless partying turns these anthems a bit weary and sad. But if you block that image out — always hard to do with Britney, but easier to do here since the tracks sound so good — Blackout is state-of-the-art dance-pop, a testament to the skills of the producers and perhaps even Britney being somehow cognizant enough to realize she should hire the best, even if she’s not at her best.

Coming back looking delicious, Yes I know they wanna kiss me, Now I hold them at attention, Cuz NEW BRITNEY'S on a mission... :wub: :cheer:

 

 

 

 

No one expected Britney’s new LP ‘Blackout’ to be one of the best of the career. One would think through an ongoing custody battle, drug accusations, and the paparazzi constantly hounding her that her new album just wouldn’t deliver. All those presumptions are wrong. Britney not only manages to deliver a fantastic pop album, but easily the best release of her career thus far.

 

The album begins with the extremely popular “It’s Britney, b**ch”, and this is the attitude that prevails throughout most of the songs on the album. ‘Blackout’ is pretty much a huge ‘f*** you’ to everyone who has criticized her in the past. Piece of Me, following the smash hit Gimme More, doesn’t fail to disappoint. It actually makes Gimme More pale in comparison. It is perhaps one of her most personal songs, with an electrifying beat all leading up to the insanely catchy chorus.

 

Britney has never been much of an album artist. She would never fail to deliver catchy singles, but her albums were always hit and miss. You would either like a song or you didn’t. This is the first Britney release I’ve been able to listen to the entire way through, with only a couple of duds. Britney tries her hand at some R&B with the Pharrell produced ‘Why Should I Be Sad?’ which ultimately fails, perhaps in part because of the very poor production of Pharrell. ‘Heaven on Earth’ is also a fairly mediocre song that is not all the catchy with fairly poor lyrics.

Only two tracks skipped is not bad at all for Britney, though. The rest Blackout is clearly going to be one of the defining albums of 2007, and I have no doubt that it will greatly shape the sound of pop music to come in 2008. Perhaps one of the most hard-hitting and electrifying song is Toy Soldier. It’s completely different from anything done; I’d even go as far to say it’s unlike anything every artist alive has ever done. Britney is nearly rapping throughout most of the song. And you know what? It’s f***ing brilliant. When the soldier-esque beat kick in, the song easily becomes one of the best, if not the best, on the album.

 

Break the Ice, the second single, is another standout song from the album that should do Britney well. The song is again unlike anything she has ever done, with Danja’s beats completing the song. It’s clear that the future of pop music is being shaped by Timbaland and Danja, but looking at Danja’s work on Blackout, it’s clear that he is overtaking his mentor. Another ‘ice song’, Hot As Ice, also delivers. The overlapping vocals add a whole new dimension to the song, though the chorus feels slightly lacking to me.

 

Britney’s overly synthesized voice is very bittersweet. They compliment the instrumentation extremely well, but it is a shame to hear a voice so edited. I hope that good vocals will still be valued in pop music to come. This is most clearly shown on the track Radar, a very danceable with radar-esque sounds adding to the theme of the song. It’s a good song, but I feel this is the point where the vocals are much too synthesized.

The highlight of Blackout is how consistent it is. Before her albums were always mixed with great dance tracks and slow, low temp, R&B like duds. Britney and her record company have finally realized to stick with Britney’s strong point: dance. And that’s what Blackout such a brilliant album. The production is flawless and brilliant; the lyrics better than ever before. This is the new Britney, b**ch. And if you don’t like, it’s clear that she doesn’t give a $h!t. And I can hardly see anyone hating this who never liked it before.

 

Overall: 8.5/10

 

(my review :P)

very posotive review from MSN:

 

Surprise! Britney's New CD a Triumph

 

Just when it seemed safe to write off Britney Spears as a punch line only capable of entertaining people through tabloid escapades, she goes and gets all musically relevant on us.

 

"Blackout," her first studio album in four years, is not only a very good album, it's her best work ever — a triumph, with not a bad song to be found on the 12 tracks.

 

Granted, a Spears rave should be put in its proper context — it's not like we're talking Bob Dylan here. Spears is a lightweight singer who only flourishes when she has great songs and great producers to supplement her minimal vocal talent.

 

But when she has that help, she's fierce. And she gets that boost on every single track on "Blackout," a sizzling, well-crafted, electro-pop dancefest that should return her to pop's elite.

 

This is a shocker, given all the lowlights Spears has given us this year. From her embarrassing MTV Video Music Awards performance to her bizarre public antics to allegations that she's an irresponsible parent, Spears has been a walking disaster. It seems amazing that she even found her way to a recording studio, let alone did anything of value while in it.

 

But Spears emerges on "Blackout" as the antithesis of her tabloid persona — confident, sensual, and in control.

 

"I got my eye on you," she coos on one of the album's best tracks, "Radar," a sexy techno groove that you can't help but bounce to — a feeling that permeates all of "Blackout's" tracks.

 

You won't find any saccharine ballads or fluffy pop on this disc — it's all about generating heat on the dance floor (and if Spears has shown us anything in the last year, it's that she knows how to party).

 

On the aptly titled "Freakshow," produced by Danja (who worked on Justin Timberlake's "FutureSex/LoveSounds"), Spears gets voyeuristic with a tantalizing promise to get wild in the club. The hypnotic "Get Naked (I Got A Plan)," also produced by Danja, features Spears breathlessly asking, "What I gotta do to make you move my body" before demanding, "take it off, take it off, take it off."

 

It's not all about grinding to the music, though. On rock-tinged "Piece of Me," produced by Bloodshy & Avant, she defiantly address her critics: "I'm Mrs. Bad Media Karma, another day another drama ... I'm Mrs. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, I'm Mrs. 'Oh My God That Britney's Shameless.'" And on the slow-burn, Neptunes-produced "Why Should I Be Sad," the album's last track, she cops to heartbreak but refuses to let it get her down, a rare vulnerable moment.

 

Listening to "Blackout" is not only an energetic release, it's also a relief: No, Spears hasn't completely lost it, and yes, her career has a flicker of fire left — actually much, much more. But with all the damage Spears has done and continues to do to her public image, will anyone outside her core fan base (and who knows what that consists of these days) care anymore?

 

This album is the first, great step in making that happen.

 

 

 

I love your review Ben! And I love msn's review as well! I really can't wait to read Rolling Stones and Blender's review :D

favourable review from Channel 4 (UK):

 

Britney Spears is probably as surprised as anyone to learn that she has an album out.

 

She hasn't had the best of years, but Britney's fifth studio album, 'Blackout', sees her end 2007 on a high.

 

Here is the 4Music verdict on 'Blackout', the year's most unexpectedly amazing pop record...

 

Gimme More

You know this. You have probably already bought it, and despite our reservations over the entire existence of this album and Britney's suitability to working in any capacity right now (imagine if she had to operate heavy machinery - OMG lol etc) 'Gimme More' is a rather wonderful piece of work.

8/10

 

 

Piece Of Me

You won't know this but you will be familiar with seeing Britney's wobbly bottom in the newspapers and gossip magazines, and 'Piece Of Me' deals with that. The track is proof that Britney has more to say with her new music than 'everything is nice, lets go for a little dance'. A robotic anthem which serves as a great big 'f*** off' to everyone picking holes in her life - it's quite brilliant. The best on the album.

10/10

 

 

Radar

A song about a boy she likes. She lists the things that she likes in men as follows: "confidence is a must/cockiness is a plus/edginess is a rush" but forgets to mention she likes ratty little dancers who would quite like to be rappers but would be happy to live of her earnings instead. A less-is-more bleeping electronic track from a woman usually prone to excess.

 

7/10

 

Break The Ice

A lot of saucy huffing and puffing over some Justin-esque beat boxing, a robotic choir and a big quiet bit in the middle which Britney introduces with a "I like this part". Presumably so she can go and get a latte and have a sit down.

7/10

 

 

Heaven On Earth

A big wistful electro-track which, despite some nice production tweaks here and there is essentially a bit of a non-event. It's about how much in love she is with someone, but since we know everything there is to know about Britney from the papers, we'd know if she was currently dating. Our tabloid sources tell us she is currently single.

6/10

 

 

Get Naked (I Got A Plan)

Britney has definitely had sex because she ended up with two children out of it. She would evidently like some more sex, although she's probably not in the market for any more offspring at this point in time. Produced by Danja, who worked on 'Gimme More', this sounds similar - only more rude.

6/10

 

 

Freakshow

Filler. Next please.

4/10

 

 

Toy Soldier

A marching, beat driven and downright bizarre dance track which with the right video treatment (no messing around with poles) could be another 'Toxic' for Britney. Silly fun for grown-ups.

8/10

 

 

Hot As Ice

Oh Britney that doesn't mean anything! As well as being as hot as ice, Britney is likewise cold as fire - which we imagine leaves her in the same position as the track itself, somewhat tepid. More filler.

5/10

 

 

Ooh Ooh Baby

A grown up nursery rhyme which perfectly suits Britney's childlike and remarkably innocent-still vocals, bouncy and fun, despite the fact she is still going on about how much she enjoys having sex. We get the point.

7/10

 

 

Perfect Lover

A Timbaland soundalike which wouldn't have sounded out of place on Nelly Furtado's 'Loose' album. Smooth and seductive, 'Perfect Lover' is simple, speedy and short. At just three minutes long it's over before it's begun, but perhaps that's Britney's idea of a perfect lover. Bish bosh, job done.

6/10

 

 

Why Should I Be Sad

The closest thing to a ballad on the album, 'Why Should I Be Sad' is certainly no 'Everytime' and to be brutally honest, it's not even a 'Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know'. However, unlike the endless warbling about sex, this is one of the tracks that actually deals with what happens in the day to day life of Britney Spears and has an admirable dose of honesty: "It's time for me to get along/I'm tired of singing sad songs" she sings, and while there aren't many moments of melancholy on the album, it's a thoughtful way to end a record surprising for how good it is considering how little time or inclination she seemed to have to work on it. Good on ya, Britney.

7/10

 

Overall - 7/10

THEY SAID COLD AS FIRE WAS BAD :o

 

BITCHES! :arrr:

Telegraph UK Reviews "Blackout"

 

"I need to make mistakes just to learn who I am/And I don't wanna be so damn protected." It's more than five years since Britney Spears emoted these prophetic lines in Overprotected, so the increasingly stark exposure of her chaotic personal life should hardly be surprising.

 

But Spears hasn't used this turmoil to seize artistic control of her fifth album. If anything, there is less of the self-penned piano-ballad warbling she paused her career with. Now, she is more than happy, like her idol Madonna, to play muse to pop's hottest producers.

 

In fact, there less of Spears here than ever before. Her voice is disembodied, warped and stretched through vocoders while the beats party beneath her. As the production duties are mostly shared between Timbaland's protage Danja and the Swedish hit-makers Bloodshy and Avant, the sound veers between the hard, R&B crunch of her current single, Gimme More, and the hi-NRG disco of Heaven on Earth and the fabulous Toy Soldier, likely to be the biggest single from the album.

 

Spears has her "j'accuse" moment in Piece of Me but largely what she is bringing to the dancefloor are her naked body and insatiable desires. This relentless exhibitionism is about as erotic as listening to the neighbors having sex and it feels emotionally as, indeed, the album title suggests a dark, loveless affair.

 

What is lost in Spears's adults-only bump and grind is the surreal cartoon drama and strange use of the English language that made Hit Me Baby One More Time and Oops! I Did It Again such heady pop epics. Which is exactly what the aspiring Romanian pop princess Miss Platnum is exporting to the world.

 

Born in the same year as Spears, Ruth Renner has a pop persona that is just as artificial as the image that Spears is currently trying to escape, but Miss Platnum is an invention designed to bring some fun back to music. Styled in fake furs and plastic tiaras, Miss Platnum sings lyrics about the Romanian woman's desire for a husband, food (there's a whole song about butter) and her own Mercedes-Benz. The outlook may be Eastern bloc but the beats are shiny Western R&B.

 

In the end, it makes you dance and smile a combination that Britney Spears could do with, perhaps.

Could anyone send me a link for this? O=

 

I downloaded, but it seems to have none of the songs your are reviewing =/

Could anyone send me a link for this? O=

 

I downloaded, but it seems to have none of the songs your are reviewing =/

 

I would send but I haven't downloaded because I am waiting to buy at the store. But almost everyone else on this forum does :lol:

I was pretty skeptical when I bought this album but I was pleasantly surprised with this offering. Over 1/2 the album appealed to me instantly and they're still growing.

It is a shame with "Freakshow" I had some expectations with the song but was let down; "Get Back" or "Everybody" could've easily replaced it. I totally love "Piece of Me" it should be a single, next to "Break the Ice", "Heaven on Earth" and "Radar" :D

 

01. Gimme More [8.5/10]

02. Piece of Me [10/10]

03. Radar [9/10]

04. Break the Ice [8.5/10]

05. Heaven on Earth [8/10]

06. Get Naked (I Got a Plan) [7.5/10]

07. Freakshow [6/10]

08. Toy Soldier [8/10]

09. Hot as Ice [9/10]

10. Ooh Ooh Baby [7.5/10]

11. Perfect Lover [7/10]

12. Why Should I Be Sad [7/10]

 

Bonus Tracks

13. Outta this World (Bonus) [6/10]

14. Everybody (Bonus) [10/10]

15. Get Back (Bonus) [9/10]

 

OVERALL: 8/10

 

Bold - Favourite Tracks

Edited October 29, 200717 yr by JammerD

I have'nt heard outta this world, its not on itunes.

oh yeh i haven't reviewed the bonus tracks -

 

Outta This World - it doesn't really wow me, but it's quite pleasant, nice. - 7/10

Get Back - I LOVE this, great production, makes you wanna dance - 9/10

Everybody - it probably wouldn't be much without the Eurythmics sample, but still good, great beats, very enjoyable - 8/10

Gimme More (Paul Oakenfold Remix) - great club mix - 7/10

Gimme More (Junkie XL Dub) - 2/10 - awful, one of the worst remixes I've ever heard. I can't understand how anyone could like this. Found it hard to listen to was so bad.

Gimme More (Stonebridge Dub Mix) - not heard yet...

Edited October 29, 200717 yr by lotsofsnails