Roll up for Britney Spears's Circus

Since Britney Spears's last UK concert in 2004, she has been married, had two children, got divorced, shaved off her hair, been admitted to hospital and taken her former manager and an ex-boyfriend to court.

Her recent TV appearances, including last year's X Factor performance, have seemed lacklustre and non-committal.

So the question on the opening night of her European tour was which Britney was going to turn up: the pop princess with the killer moves, or the disaster-struck diva in her slipped crown?
It was largely the former, "good" Britney. But it was a close call.

The theme for the night was the circus - a reference to the star's recent album, her fastest-seller in the UK to date.

Carnival rides had been erected outside the arena, while the daredevil acrobats of the Big Apple Circus provided the night's opening act.

Showgirl

When Britney appeared, descending from the ceiling, she was dressed in a red ringmaster's jacket, cracking a whip as she called her audience to attention.

"I'm a put-on-a-show kind of girl," she trilled in the opening song, and the girl didn't lie.

The concert was an unparalleled visual spectacle, full of magic tricks, gymnastics and costume changes (nine in all, including policewoman and burlesque dancer).

On stage were dozens of clowns, dancers, unicycles, acrobats, podiums, giant picture frames, period furniture and, at the centre of it all, the mistress of ceremonies herself.

But if Britney pulled out all the stops to divert people's eyes, it was only so they'd ignore their ears screaming, "she's miming!"

It's hard to be 100% sure, of course, but it wouldn't come as a complete surprise to learn that much of the 19-song set was lip-synced.

The band's contribution was hard to gauge too, tucked away as they were off the main stage, providing near-identical renditions of Britney's superlative robo-pop.

But does any of this really matter?

Not really. The audience weren't there to judge a music grade examination, they just wanted to witness the phenomenon.

Here was a girl they'd watched grow up, identified with, idolised and then prayed for as her life fell spectacularly apart.

At the O2, they were willing her on, hoping for a fairytale ending to that tragic story. And she did her best to oblige.

Blindfold

Britney was focused and engaged. The dancing sizzled and the 27-year-old's moves had regained their former snap and punch.

One early highlight was her two-finger salute to the tabloids, Piece Of Me ("I'm Miss bad media karma, another day another drama").

Britney started the song in a gilded cage, trapped like a performing circus animal. By the end, she'd broken free and taken control of her former masters. Subtle? No. But a great piece of theatre.

When, during Touch Of My Hand, she spun into the air, blindfolded and suspended from the arm of a dancer in bondage gear, the flash of camera bulbs could have lit the Grand Canyon during a solar eclipse.

Elsewhere, Britney borrowed from Bollywood on a colourful Me Against The Music, and was sawn in half during Ooh Ooh Baby.

It wasn't until the halfway point, however, that the star remembered to address the audience.

It was profound, too. "What's up London?" she shouted, before launching into the night's sole ballad, Everytime, which she sang perched on the handle of a huge floating umbrella. Seriously.

If there was a fault to the set, it was the decision to focus on material from Britney's two most recent records at the expense of classics like Oops! I Did It Again.

As a result, the crowd never rose to its feet en masse until the show's closing one-two-three sucker punch of Toxic, ...Baby One More Time and Womanizer.

Meanwhile, the choreography - so tight and intricate at the beginning - began to drift into aimless posing and hip-swivelling.

Britney was a particular culprit here, strutting across the stage while her dancers put in the hard work around her.

So, in the end, she didn't quite give it her all.

But maybe it's a good thing that Britney has finally learned to hold something back for herself.

Source: BBC

Review - Britney Spears - 'If You Seek Amy'

The following italicized article is from www.bbc.co.uk:

Forgive me for taking the obvious, rather tabloidy approach to this review, but: oops! She did it again. Dame Britney, of course, has been courting controversy with this song and its suggestive lyrics. My job, however, is to strip away the controversy around this song and work out whether it is actually any good.

Except you can't, not really. Because the whole point of this song is to be cheeky, titillating and blatant. I can't imagine the impression was ever for anyone to not guess the 'hidden' meaning in the lyrics (though a few notable commentators were convinced that the song was about Amy Winehouse at first) - essentially, Britney and Max Martin are playing a little game with us. Kind of "I know what I'm saying, and you know what I'm saying - d'you wanna make something of it?"

It's quite a juvenile sentiment, and therefore the melody is appropriately juvenile too - from the playground-style taunting of "na na na na na na na na" at the beginning, which basically underneath the majority of the song mixed with a thumping bit of synth, to the couldn't-be-bothered-to-think-of-any-lyrics-to-go-here build to the chorus of "ha ha hee hee ha ha ho".

That's just part of it, though - structurally the song is very interesting, because the verses, despite the chanting undercurrent, are rather soft and pleading. Britney's vocals sound as unnatural as ever, but once the chorus hits, it's like being hit by a double decker bus loaded with sass, as Brit thumbs her nose at her critics with a "love me, hate me, say what you want about me" refrain.

Once the middle eight hits, however, things get very subdued again - it's a nice counterpart to the brash, narcissistic chorus, maybe even a suggestion that through the numerous tabloid reports we've devoured over the years we've seen many different Britneys, all of whom are probably equally real - just like here, there's the domineering, aggressive Britney and the quieter, more vulnerable Britney.

Which leads nicely onto the video (there are clean versions out there, if you look hard enough), with its risqué sequences of Britney dressed in not-very-much and clearly up to sordid shenanigans in a house with lots of similarly-attired friends - until the point two thirds in where she slips on a twinset, bouffants her hair like she's about to timetravel back to the 1950s, and walks outside to greet the paparazzi with her picture-perfect husband and kids.

At once it's a wry dig at the way people have questioned Britney's lifestyle, as well as also suggesting that those who race to criticise her are probably not so squeaky-clean themselves. The fact that it's bookended with mock news reports based on real 'outraged parent' items from US news channels is the cherry on the cake.

So what we have here is essentially something far cleverer than the initial cheap innuendo would have us believe. Either that or I've read far too much into it and it's exactly that - a cheap innuendo with one heck of an earworm of a melody built around it. And even if that's true, what's wrong with that?

Source: BBC

Britney Confirms UK Concert Dates

The following italicized article is from www.bbc.co.uk:

US singer Britney Spears is to play two concerts at the O2 arena in London next June - the only European shows on her forthcoming world tour.

Tickets for the dates on 3 and 4 June will go on general sale on 5 December - although fans who register with her website can buy them 24 hours earlier.

"It's going to be very special," said Rob Hallett of tour promoter AEG.

The concert, he said, would take its theme from her latest album The Circus, which is released next week.

"We're creating a musical circus," he said. "Expect to see jugglers, dancers, tattooed ladies and acrobats."

According to the promoter, the concerts will be Spears' only dates in Europe "for the foreseeable future".

Spears last performed in the UK in 2004 when her Onyx Hotel tour visited Birmingham, Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester and Wembley Arena in London.

'Radiant'

The 26-year-old will be in the capital this weekend to appear on ITV1 talent show The X Factor.

Before that she will travel to Germany to attend the annual Bambi entertainment awards in Dusseldorf.

The singer will be named best international pop star after achieving what organisers have called a "stunning comeback from an absolute low point".

"Britney Spears is back," said host Hubert Burda. "Radiant and better than ever, the erstwhile idol has reclaimed her throne."

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, the performer admitted she felt "like an old person" now her much-documented troubles are behind her.

"I go to bed at, like, 9.30 every night and I don't go out or anything," she is quoted as saying. "I just feel like an old fart."

Spears' mother Lynne, meanwhile, has been telling the BBC how happy she is that her daughter has got her life back on track.

"Britney wants to do it right," she told Radio 5 Live's Colin Paterson, attributing her recent turnaround to having "good people around her" and "lots and lots of prayer".

Source: BBC

Spears To Perform On The X Factor

The following italicized article is from www.news.bbc.co.uk:

US pop star Britney Spears will perform on The X Factor, a spokeswoman for the ITV show has confirmed.

"She will be appearing on the show as a special guest, but we're not confirming the date yet," she said.

The 26-year-old singer is planning another comeback as she prepares to release her new album in December.

Spice Girl Emma Bunton, Kimberley Walsh from Girls Aloud, former pop star Sinitta and Westlife's Shane Filan will appear as X Factor judge mentors.

Source: BBC

Madonna: Don't Blame Britney!

quote:

"I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that she was never allowed to have a childhood. She didn't get to grow up and make mistakes privately and try things out and just be a kid and be innocent. She's been watched, judged and been under a microscope since she's been a teenager. It's hard to evolve that way."

- Madonna's response when asked about Britney's troubles while living in the lime-light in an interview with BBC that aired today via People.com

Source: Breathe Heavy

Britney #1 Artist On The Internet

According to bbc.co.uk and their new music scanning system, Britney has ranked #1 as the most listened to artist on the Internet. "The Sound Index is a massive index of the hottest bands and tracks that are being talked about on the internet right now. Every six hours the Sound Index crawls some of the biggest music sites on the internet – Bebo, MySpace, Last.FM, iTunes, Google and YouTube – to find out what people are writing about, listening to, watching, downloading and logging on to. It then counts and analyses this data to make an instant list of the most popular 1000 artists and tracks on the web. The more blog mentions, comments, plays, downloads and profile views an artist or track has, the higher up the Sound Index they are. The Sound Index is a music buzz index controlled entirely by the public." So keep hittin up Brit. Makes the world a better place!

Source: Breathe Heavy