Britney

The look on Sisquo’s face said it all when he recently suggested that reports of Britney’s virginity have been greatly exaggerated: “Man if she can dance like that, she ain’t no virgin.” Course, it’s none of our business whether Ms Spears is still intact or not, but one thing’s for sure, on Britney she’s presenting herself as ripe for the plucking.

I like Britney, and not in a so-bad-she’s-good kitsch way either. I like the way she casually batted away all that Lolita business with a toss of her cheerleader locks and a wide-eyed, “But we all dress like that down south!” shtick. I like the way she feigned complete indifference to the fact that she was giving grown men the worst case of the Humbert Humberts since Uma Thurman circa Dangerous Liaisons. And maybe most of all, I like her singles, thick caramel flavoured Sabrina-The-Teenage-Witch type pop epics like ‘Crazy’ and ‘I Was Born To Make You Happy’.

But this is the girl-growed-up album – it’s goodbye to all that soda-pop froth. Time to put childish things away. Sort of. Britney’s insistence that she’s a big girl now is backed up by the opening track and lead-off single ‘I’m A Slave 4 U’, a rewrite of Bowie’s ‘Fame’ and any number of Prince dry-humps all packed into one glorious PVC wedgie. “I know I may be young,” she breathes in your ear, “but I’ve got feelings too/And I need to do what I feel like doin’”. She’s talkin’ about dancing, but the inference is clear – just ask Sisquo. This tune was produced by hip-hop stylists The Neptunes, as was the equally hot under the collar ‘Boys’, and a whole album of such sordid stuff I could live with. Inevitably though, either the singer or her handlers have fought shy of a radical makeover, so we get a lot of pretty generic Spears-by-numbers tracks like ‘Overprotected’, ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Lonely’. Britney the face might be a Warholian Pop Art object, but the production line expertise of Max Martin and Remi is closer to that other Poptician Roy Lichtenstein. ‘Bombastic Love’ sounds exactly as you’d expect, all blaring reds and yellows, all Kapow! and Wham! and Shazam! Which is pretty groovy in controlled radio doses but on a full album wears thin after a while, like a laugh track turned up too loud, or someone using exclamation marks to denote humour.

But, but, but… there are enough deviations to make Britney more than bearable. Let’s skip over a disastrous cover of ‘I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll’ and concentrate instead on the Philly-disco pastiche of ‘Anticipating’ or ‘Let Me Be’ (both co-written by Spears) or the ballad ‘I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman’ (is that Dido I spy on the credits? Bizarre).

So, the snap, crackle and pop stuff is getting tired, but if Britney finds the confidence to ditch the production team and write some more songs the calibre of ‘That’s Where You Take Me’, she’ll make it to full blown womanhood intact. And I don’t mean hymenally.