One day before her 27th birthday, and with a mere 16 years in show business behind her, Britney Spears releases her sixth studio album. Circus may not be as strange or disturbing as last year’s superb Blackout, but it knocks for six recent efforts by rivals such as Madonna and Beyoncé. In part, this is because Spears seems to collect around her collaborators who treat her albums as repositories for their wilder and weirder ideas, and hang the commercial consequences. But it is also because Spears herself represents so cruelly perfect and fascinating a picture of the price stardom exacts; complaining that she makes plasticised pop is surely missing the point. And songs here such as Circus, If U Seek Amy (try saying it very quickly) and Mannequin are far better than music by such a troubled and supposedly doomed veteran has any right to be.

Sony BMG 88697406982

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