Typically, whenever a self-titled album arrives fairly far into an artist's career it signifies a rebirth, a moment when the musician reconnects to what's real and true. That's the party line on
Britney Jean,
Britney Spears' eighth album (she already used
Britney as the title of her third album, way back in 2001). Prior to its December 2013 release,
Britney called
Britney Jean one of her most "personal" records, a term that carries a certain weight, suggesting that the brief album -- a mere ten songs and 36 minutes in its standard form and not much longer in its deluxe expansion -- would offer insight into the spectral pop star. As it turns out,
Britney Jean is a streamlined approximation of 2011's
Femme Fatale, which itself attempted to re-create the producer-driven magic of 2007's
Blackout, the album that seems destined to be the apex and turning point of
Spears' career.
Dr. Luke, the main producer behind
Femme Fatale's two big hits ("Till the World Ends" and "Hold It Against Me"), is absent, as is her longtime collaborator
Max Martin, who worked on those two
Dr. Luke-produced hits. In their place is
will.i.am, the
Black Eyed Peas leader who happened to be responsible for
Femme Fatale's "Big Fat Bass."
will.i.am sports producer credits on seven of the ten songs on
Britney Jean and is listed as executive producer, responsible for shaping the sound and direction of the album. Often, this means
Britney seems to be playing a role
will.i.am created just for her, a situation not unfamiliar to
Spears. The best moments arrive when she's forced to the front: she's the focus on the
Katy Perry co-written and
Diplo-produced "Passenger," the purest pop moment on the record that finds a counterpart in the album's best ballad, "Perfume"; her bizarre vocal affectations invigorate "Work Bitch" (it's hard to resist her faux British phrasing) and are mildly memorable on the
Jamie Lynn Spears duet "Chillin' with You." Elsewhere,
will.i.am, sometimes assisted by
David Guetta, puts
Britney through Euro-disco paces as she competes with synthesizers and bass;
William Orbit works a similar territory but achieves a melancholy grace on the album opener, "Alien." ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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