From “Blackout” mode to “Circus” flash lights!
“There are two types of people in this world, The ones that entertain and the ones that observe, well baby I’m a put on a show kind of girl” Britney Spears.
The past year has been a rollercoaster ride for Britney Spears, full of nasty divorce issues, child custody battles, hangover meltdowns, rehab memberships, nevertheless Britney managed to get her act together and celebrate the comeback of the year!
Her new release “Circus” already topped the charts and the Pop Queen is surely back to stay. She is starting over putting her scandalous profile behind her focusing on her business life and new love interest, her new boyfriend Indian choreographer, Sandip Soparkor. “She’s definitely ready, she identifies herself with her career in a lot of ways, and getting her career back is a great therapeutic thing for her, just like it would be for anyone”, her manager Larry Rudolf claims. Britney Spears is the first to admit she’s had a “crazy year” – and with her new album, “Circus,” it’s hardly over yet
“Circus” was released on her 27th birthday as she gave herself an exciting present by celebrating her both her birthday and success. “The whole year has been a hell of a year for me”, she said, adding that she “didn’t know exactly where” she stood with fans when it came time to return to the public eye.
“I have ‘come back’ so many times, people are just like, ‘Is this another one?’” she said. “It’s kind of like a joke to me now.” But if her big night at the MTV Music Awards earlier this year was any indication, people are ready for more Britney.
“When I received the awards and the audience stood for me, it showed me how much love is out there”, she said. She won three awards at the September ceremony, including Video of the Year for “Piece of Me,” from her last album, 2007’s “Blackout”. Britney’s had no problem finding praise overseas this week, turning in hot performances on the U.K.show “The X Factor” and the German Bambi Awards, where she picked up the trophy for Best International Pop Star. Her performance on The X Factor was watched by 12.8 million UK citizens, becoming the most viewed episode in the show’s history.
And fans flocked to her in London this past Saturday night as Britney celebrated her December 2nd birthday a little early at the club G-A-Y. In a video on her Web site, BritneySpears.com, the crowd chants “Britney! Britney!” as she waves and blows out her candles. Still, she said, she’d rather spend her nights at home.
“I don’t like going out,” she said. “I hate clubs. I hate being around too many people. I love my home and staying in bed and watching ‘Dancing with the Stars’ or reading a Danielle Steel novel. I’m kind of boring.”
And although she sounded excited for her new album, it’s her children that keep her upbeat. “You have to make sure you’re a happy mom so they can be happy,” she said, adding that she wants to find “a father figure” for sons Jayden James and Sean Preston. “In five years I would like to be married and have a father figure for my kids,” she said. “It’s hard doing it on your own”.
In ‘Circus’ Britney gives a reflection of her life through each track and displays how her life is being a ‘Circus’ as all eyes are focused on her without putting her privacy into consideration. The album’s first single “Womanizer” has made a record-breaking leap to top spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart in America as the song jumped from No.96 to No.1 in the past week and returned Spears to the top of the list for the first time since her 1999 debut single Baby One More Time.
Danja, Bloodshy and Avant who produced several tracks from “Blackout”, announced independently that they were recording with Spears again. Britney claimed that she wrote some of her new album’s singles. Spears revealed that she was working with Harvey Mason of The Underdogs. Spears commented, “I wanted to experiment with producers I haven’t worked with much before, like the Underdogs, who have a Timbaland kind of sound.” According to the Los Angeles Times, Guy Sigsworth, who previously produced the singles “Every time” and “Someday (I Will Understand)” and has spent time in the studio with Spears.Max Martin, who wrote Spears’s first hit, “Baby One More Time“, has produced, what he calls, his “best work ever”.Dr Luke, who actually often collaborates with Martin, has produced songs for the album including the title track. Nicole Morier, who co-wrote Blackout’s “Heaven on Earth”, wrote several songs with Britney in spring 2008, including “Mmm Papi” and “Rock Me In”.
The Sun newspaper in the U.K. had an exclusive preview of the album and was the first one to post the world’s first reviews of Circus, “A stomping pop number with clattering kettle drums and Brit being quite frank about the opinion she holds of herself”. “Kill the Lights” was described as “a brilliant disco banger” in which she describes how the paparazzi are chasing her intensively. Critical reviews expressed the opinion that the album had similarities to Madonna’s “Hard Candy”. Spears’s live comeback began on November 6, 2008 with a cameo appearance at the Dodger Stadium show of Madonna‘s Sticky & Sweet Tour midway through “Human Nature“, where Spears joined Madonna on stage.
It’s been ten years since the pop queen has released her first album “Baby One More Time” in 1999 when she grabbed global attention to her charismatic performance releasing albums, hitting the charts and making headlines gossip. Her first album was a mix of teenage feelings with adult effects as some of her singles like “Oops I did it again” and “Crazy” used to hit the charts for weeks, also the next album’s “Slave for You” was the hit of the year as it resembled a new development for the teenage girl’s performance and was an early phase of her sex appeal attitudes.
“Circus” made number-one on the US Billboard 200, moving over 505,000 units in its first week after moving 219,000 units in its first day of release, making it the sixth fastest-selling album of 2008. In the first four weeks of US release, the album had sold over 1.1 million copies. Hit us baby one more time!