Pop Goes Britney

Britney Spears Femme Fatale will have you dancing to its meaningless lines

Pop icon Britney Spears tends to be in the media spotlight more for her lifestyle choices than for the talent of her vocals. Her selection of romances,a 55-hour-long marriage,her uncontrolled outbursts leading to the loss of custody of her children Spears has kept herself in the news over the last two decades. She also sells music.

With her seventh studio album,which came out last weekend,she adds another vacuous album to her forte. Femme Fatale,a kitschy mash of looped samples and electronic vocals,barely holds together the 12 tracks (16 in the deluxe edition),and hardly contains much musical substance. But its also safe to assume that Americas sweetheart will get away with this and might even be commended for it. In fact,who knows,Femme Fatale might end up being called the best pop album of the summer.

Auto-tuned rhythms completely sabotage vocals in this album. There are several tracks,like How I roll,I wanna go and the pre-released Hold it against me,that have the potential of being summer hits,using the done-to-death formula of dance-inducing dubstep beats. But dont pay too much attention to the lyrics: I wanna go back down town,where my posses at,because I got nine lives like a kitty cat from How I roll is one example of meaningless sentences,which fill this album. Its Britney it doesnt have to make sense. But it will stick in your head and echo through nightclubs this season.

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Spears is trying hard to compete with the partying ways of her younger contemporaries like Ke$ha and Katy Perry. Till the world ends is a blatant imitation of Ke$has Blow,in style and fickleness. If you ignore the whining and moaning vocals,the beats of Gasoline and Trip to your heart could be aptly used for college dance classes full of energy as they are. Inside outs lyrics seem strangely applicable to Spears: Gotta look my best if were gonna break up.

You have to hand it to her for being cheeky and immature at the same time.

Big fat bass,featuring rapper Will.i.am,sounds more like a Black Eyed Peas song than a Britney Spears number and you find yourself anticipating Fergies entry.

Drenched in mixed sound effects,Femme Fatale is ready to be played in clubs,with its thinly veiled lyrics about boys,parties and fun. Of course,it is going to be a hit.