The following italicized article is from www.hollywoodreporter.com:The big draw of Thursday's Hollywood Reporter/Billboard Film & TV Music Conference was undeniably producer Dr. Luke, who not only packed the afternoon Q&A session moderated by ASCAP's Randy Grimmett, but got bombarded by throngs of his own fans not a moment after the talk ended. It's a good thing he's spent so much time around megastars like Katy Perry, Ke$ha and Avril Lavigne because he handled the unruly bunch with aplomb, but coming up next is perhaps his most stressful gig yet: as co-executive producer on Britney Spears' forthcoming seventh studio album. Luke's partner? Swedish hitmaker Max Martin, who's been both a mentor and collaborator and has worked with Spears on and off since her 1999 Jive Records debut, ...Baby One More Time. Dr. Luke contributed several tracks to 2008's Circus.
A dream team, no doubt, but with Sony Music seeing a 10 percent drop in sales last quarter, and that's including Usher's platinum-plus Raymond v. Raymond under the LaFace banner, the pressure is most certainly on. "She's such an icon, I don't want to let anyone down," Dr. Luke told THR. "But most importantly, I want to make good music." The LA-based Luke, who's just coming off a repackage of Ke$ha's Animal, says he's just starting to wrap his head around the Britney album now. He anticipates it will be out in early 2011, while an insider tells THR, it will definitely hit stores before March 31, the end of Sony's fiscal year. A Jive Records rep would not comment on a release date or confirm a timeline. Other producer-songwriters said to be working on it include Darkchild and, according to Luke, Montreal newcomer Billboard (listen to a remix Billboard did of Britney's 2009 track "3" at his Myspace page).
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
