Archive for the ‘reviews’ Category

Lets start by getting one thing straight. Rebekah Devlin, who started what quickly developed into Britney-gate this week in Australia, clearly got it very, very wrong. At the Britney Spears show tonight at Rod Laver Arena, there were no mass walk-outs, there were no disgruntled fans and the audience was genuinely entertained.

Just for the record, I am not a Britney fan but ‘Circus’ is a very good show. Forget the “but she mimes” argument. It is irrelevant for Britney. She is a popstar. She has never pretended to be a serious musical act like Radiohead. She is what she is and has never denied it.

Keep in mind at parts of their shows, Cher has lip-synched, Madonna lip-synchs, even Roger Waters did it. So lets just eliminate that from the scorecard and score the Britney show for what it is … a very entertaining show aimed at her core fans.

If you are a Britney fan, you are going to love ‘Circus’. It is over two hours of escapism and yes it is a real circus. Actually, if Ms. Devlin focused on the freak show featuring the midget or an amputee on a trampoline she might have been able to beat-up a better story. Did she even notice that? Not that it mattered. It was visually compelling.

Yes, a Circus it truly is, with magicians, acrobats, a tightrope and … was that Perez Hilton dressed up as The Queen?

The costume changes are covered up with musical segways. One featured Marilyn Manson ‘Sweet Dreams’ and another Michael Jackson ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Something’.

Lets give a special shout-out to the two kids in the front row. Britney’s children Sean and Jayden watched what Mom did for a living with Mom’s new beau Jason Trawick . For the record Ms Devlin, Jayden left earlier so your headline tomorrow should read “Even Britney’s Kid Can’t Stand Her”. Sean left before the encore, so you can beat that up into a headline as well.

In Vegas, this show would be up for “show of the year”. In Perth, based on a one-woman jury, it doesn’t rate at all. Melbourne, the home of Australian theatre, accepted another good show.

Britney is more than 90 shows into a world tour with Circus. How funny that Ms Devlin wasted her 15 minutes of fame on something that has never pretended to be anything more than a pop show.

-Paul Cashmere

Source: UnderCover.Au

After teasing fans with 15-second clips on herTwitter yesterday, Britney Spears finally revealed the video for her Hot 100-topping single “3,” the new track that will feature on her upcoming The Singles Collection. You’d expect the video for a song about threesomes to be Rated-X, but Spears keeps things borderline tasteful with the “3″ vid, busting out some suggestive dance moves that are nowhere near as racy as the lyrics to “If U Seek Amy.” Instead, Spears and her cadre of dancers go the “Single Ladies” route by scaling back on sets and simply dancing in front of white and gray backgrounds. It’s not Britney’s best (it’s nowhere near her “Slave 4 U” clip), but we haven’t seen her dancing with this much conviction since the In the Zone era.

Considering that today marks the two-year anniversary of Blackout, as Spears’ official Website points out, it’s clear Britney’s dance skills are getting back on track. (We’d love to forget her stripper pole-hugging performance in the “Gimme More” video — as well as her half-hearted moves on her recent Circus tour.) And this makes it a perfect time to look back at theBlackout album covers we’d like to see.

As Rolling Stone previously reported, Spears’ The Singles Collection will be released on November 24th, joining a release week that also features Adam Lambert’s For Your Entertainment, Rihanna’s Rated R, Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster and 50 Cent’s Before I Self Destruct.

Source: RollingStone

At this point, the formula for a Britney Spears hit has been nailed a dozen times over. The proof will be in large supply on November’s “Britney Spears Singles Collection,” and “3″-the lone new song on this greatest-hits set-has all the right ingredients, too. The Max Martin- and Shellback-produced track opens with sputtering synths and builds to a climax of wildly pulsing bass that summons fans to the dancefloor. She teasingly sings about threesomes with her signature coy delivery, asking her partner if he’s game for some “love in the extreme” while evoking numerology and references to Peter, Paul and Mary. The metaphor-and Spears’ vocals -may be as thin as ever, but if the past decade is any evidence, “3″ will be another notch in this pop provocateur’s belt. –Monica Herrera

The single will be released on iTunes on October 6th

HQ “3″ Single Cover Photo

Click to Enlarge

Reviews:

Rolling Stone:

Britney Spears’ new single “3″ — the sole fresh song off her upcoming best-of compilation The Singles Collection — debuted this morning on New York Top 40 station Z100, and yes, the song is about having a threesome. Spears has never been shy about courting controversy, and this song will likely receive plenty of it. “3″ is yet another product from of producer Max Martin, the Swedish pop savant who also gave the world Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” and Spears’ “If U Seek Amy,” so a track about ménage à trois would be the feasible next step in his repertoire.

The music itself seems to borrow from the Flo Rida playbook, as “3″ is more of a surefire dance-floor stomper than anything Brit loaded onto Blackout or Circus. “Merrier the more, triple fun that way,” Spears sings in one of the many, many innuendo-packed lyrics that seem like they were spawned from Prince’s Dirty Mind-era brain. There’s also “Three is a charm, two is not the same. I don’t see the harm, so are you game?” and “If you don’t like the company, let’s just do it you and me. You and me… Or three… Or four…” The song also boasts the strangest Peter, Paul and Mary reference we’ve ever heard.

As Rolling Stone previously reported, The Singles Collection is due out November 24th, just in time for Black Friday. Singles will be Brit’s third greatest hits compilation in four years, following 2005’s My Prerogative and 2006’s B in the Mix: The Remixes.

Billboard:

Britney Spears is making the most of her sex symbol status, again. This morning (Sept. 29), the one-time Disney Channel child star whose personal life has at times eclipsed her musical output, premiered “3,” a new single about the pleasures of polyamory, on New York radio station Z-100. The song goes to radio everywhere today and is part of “Britney Sears The Singles Collection,” a hits compilation due Nov. 24 on Jive.

Produced by Swedish hitmaker Max Martin (Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson), “3″ finds Spears singing about the racy subject of a ménage a trios with her signature coy delivery. “Three is a charm, two is not the same,” Spears coos seductively on the verse. “I don’t see the harm, so are you game?”

“Britney Spears The Singles Collection” marks 10 years since Spears released her breakthrough debut album, “…Baby One More Time,” which spent 103 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart and has sold 10,554,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Two versions of “The Singles Collection” will be released: a standard one featuring 17 of Spears’ biggest hits along with “3,” and an “ultimate fan box set” with all 29 of her singles, a DVD of her music videos, and a booklet featuring classic images.

Spears wrapped the second North American leg of her “Circus” tour on Sept. 27 in Las Vegas.