The Daily Spin, November 11
Britney Spears | Blackout
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite songs from each album right here.
Album: Blackout (2007)
Artist: Britney Spears
Link:
Cobbled together as her life fell apart in the most public sense that anyone’s existence can collapse, Britney Spear’s smash hit Blackout hits everything that you want from an album from a starlet going supernova - distorted, unusual, sneering, and explosive in one compact package.
That isn’t to say it’s a perfect album by any means - this is a collection where it truly feels like everything was thrown at the wall just to see what stuck, and that means that total bangers like ‘Break the Ice’ are followed by tracks like ‘Heaven On Earth’ - indeed, most of the back half of the album rings pretty mediocre to me.
A supergroup of producers - too many names to throw out all together - all hit over their capacity on this one, especially with tracks like ‘Piece of Me’ and ‘Break the Ice’, tracks that are dark and unsteady, someone too many shots deep at a club. ‘Piece of Me’, in particular, shines in this regard - equal parts come-on and challenge, an anthem for someone demonstrating the adverse effects of constant media attention, a red towel to a bull for a media hungry for any and all of her tiniest mistakes.
It’s ahead of its time in so many ways, production that doesn’t always hit but whose through-lines you can still see in albums years later - this is Shock Value meets the queen of pop, and when it’s good, goddamn it hits.
Rating: 7.7/10
Best Tracks: Piece of Me; Break the Ice
Worst Tracks: Heaven On Earth