Britney Spears' 'Circus': Cover Art Revealed!

A month before Britney Spears' sixth studio album, Circus, hits stores, it's now time for the big album art reveal! Spears' official site, Britney.com, has the exclusive on this one, but in case you're not refreshing the page as often as we are, here it is.

While we have yet to hear Circus in its entirety, those who have report that the album is Britney at her finest -- closer to her pop beginnings with Swedish song maestro Max Martin, but still edgy where it needs to be. If the chart-topping performance of "Womanizer" is any indication -- "It's cool!" Justin Timberlake recently told EW -- Circus could be a huge hit.

Source: Entertainment Weekly

Britney's New Album Confirmed!

The following italicized article is from www.x17online.com:

After all the intense speculation, Britney Spears' reps confirmed what we were all hoping for - a new Britney album's in the works!

“Britney Spears is spending her summer in the recording studio, working with a team of top-notch producers and songwriters," Jive Records and Britney's manager Larry Rudolph said in a statement released yesterday. "We’re very excited about what she’s accomplished so far.”

Sean Garret, one of the producers working with Britney, spoke briefly with Entertainment Weekly and promised to come up with "something crazy" for the pop princess. “We’re trying to take her stuff to the next level,” he says.

We'll be eager to hear how he plans to pull that off - after all, Blackout was so bonkers that we're still recovering from it!

Source: X17

Confirmed: Britney Spears working on new album

The following italicized article is from www.hollywoodinsider.ew.com:

Britney Spears is attempting yet another comeback: Reps have confirmed that she is at work on the follow-up to 2007’s Blackout.

A statement from Jive Records and Spears' manager Larry Rudolph says that “Britney Spears is spending her summer in the recording studio, working with a team of top-notch producers and songwriters.

We’re very excited about what she’s accomplished so far.” So is Sean Garrett, who happens to be one of those producers. “We’re trying to take her stuff to the next level,” he tells EW.com. “I’m going to come up with something crazy for her.”

Spears has sold 83 million albums worldwide in her career, but Blackout only went platinum in the U.S., likely due to declining CD sales and her status as last year’s most permanent tabloid fixture. But Garrett — who’s also worked with Usher, Beyoncé, and Chris Brown — welcomes the challenge. “I like to work on an artist when they count them out...and bring them back.”

Source: Entertainment Weekly

EW: 'Britney Is A Classic!'

97. Britney Britney Spears (2001)

Entertainment Weekly celebrates its 1000th issue (July 4, 2008) by listing "The EW 1000" - new classics from all fields of entertainment in the last 25 years. In the music category, Britney's self-titled album "Britney" is ranked at #97 on the Top 100 Best Albums list.

CONGRATULATIONS, BRITNEY!

Source: EW/Break The Ice

Update: Neil Patrick Harris clarifies his Britney Spears remarks, AP then clarifies its story

The following italicized article is from www.ew.com:

In an exclusive statement, Neil Patrick Harris responds to the Associated Press article that suggested he would like Britney Spears banned from the set of his CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother. "It seems that yesterday a writer took some quotes of mine and speculated an opinion about their intent. I write to you to set the record straight," the actor says. "Britney did a great job on the show. She really did. In fact, we are all hoping that she returns rather soon to reprise her role as Abby."

Spears guest starred as a lovestruck receptionist on the March 24 episode, which earned the series' highest ratings in the 18-49 demographic in its three seasons on the air. The appearance also garnered remarkably strong reviews for the troubled pop star. In the AP story, however, Harris was quoted as saying, "I'm in the minority that our show does not need stunt casting in order to succeed.... I worry that if they start Will & Grace-ing us too much, that the show will suffer." Now he tells EW.com that he would welcome Spears back — because he has "great faith" in the show's producers and writers. He also says, "My job description is to act, and I should really do just that."

At first, the AP stood by its story. "I respect his right to change his stance," said AP entertainment editor Jesse Washington, "but...Neil Patrick Harris told us unequivocally that he did not believe that Britney should be on the show." But by late Friday, April 11, the AP seemed to have changed its tune. "We're issuing a clarification to our story," Washington said in a statement. "Harris did not say that he opposed a return engagement for Spears, and our lede said that he did."

Harris' full statement here:

"It seems that yesterday a writer took some quotes of mine and speculated an opinion about their intent. I write to you to set the record straight.

"As I have said all along, Britney did a great job on the show. She really did. In fact, we are all hoping that she returns rather soon to reprise her role as Abby. Look, that episode garnered our highest ratings of the season — I would never ignore or disrespect that fact. I am just very protective of our show, and its content. I have a high standard of quality, and hope to maintain it on every level. Television is big business, I understand that. I have great faith in our casting department, as well as [Twentieth Century Fox Television] and CBS, to find the appropriate person for every role on our show. I was remiss in speculating otherwise. My job description is to act, and I should really do just that.

"Britney Spears fits into our make-believe world very well — if she chose to return I can only imagine that Carter [Bays], Craig [Thomas], and the rest of the writers would create a humdinger of a storyline for her. We should be so lucky."

Source: Entertainment Weekly

'HIMYM' exec producer shares the Britney experience

The following italicized article is from www.ew.com:

Given the relatively mind-blowing announcement Monday that Britney Spears would be taking a break from custody hearings and hospital visits to guest star on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, we, along with the rest of everyone, were curious as to how that all went down. Spears will appear March 24, in the comedy's post-strike season's second episode, as the receptionist for Ted's tattoo-removal doctor (and new love interest), Stella. HIMYM co-exec producer Craig Thomas was kind enough to give EW.com the scoop on how it all went down, describing the tabloid target as a low-key scene stealer who just wanted to do a good job.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You have Britney Spears on your television program.
CRAIG THOMAS: We do.

How did that happen? Did she really call you?
We were in the middle of a rewrite of the episode that’s shooting this week, and I kid you not when I tell you, the character we were writing a week ago today could not be, like, a nerdier, mousier, shier, sort of adorable little side character in the episode. Not the main character in the episode whatsoever. We were starting to audition people, didn’t find anyone perfect. And then we get a phone call, like Thursday, midday: “Britney Spears read the character breakdown and she likes the show and she wants to play the part.” When you’re writing that role and you’re describing it as a nerdy receptionist, Britney Spears is not the first name that comes up. But when we talked to her people, they were like, “Yeah, she just wants to do something small and funny and get to come in and play a character.” She wanted to act. And it all started to make more sense. They wanted to see a script right away, so like last Thursday evening -- we weren’t even done with our rewrite, and her people were gonna see her at like 6:30 for dinner. So we just sort of hit print and sent it over to her and figured she’d either like it or not. And turns out she thought it was really funny, and it was confirmed 24 hours later that Britney Spears was doing the show. It happened very quickly, and it was out of nowhere, and we did not seek it out at all. But ultimately, it has worked out rather nicely.

When you say “her people,” who are you talking about?
This was her acting agent. I think she was looking at a couple different shows, and ultimately she responded to this show the most.

There’s this perception that she’s not doing anything lucid, and so the notion that she’d have a master plan just seems incongruous.
I don’t know. She seemed to have a very clear idea of what she wanted to do.

You didn’t mind casting her sight unseen?
Greg Malins [a consulting producer on HIMYM] was at Will & Grace when she did an episode there. And from the moment he heard about this — I mean, we were literally sitting around the table in the writers’ room, rewriting the script, and our assistant Matt comes in and says, “You’re not gonna believe this, but they’re pitching Britney Spears for this role of Abby.” Malins, from moment one, was saying, “Just watch. She’s gonna be great. She’s gonna steal scenes.” He should have made some sort of bet on this. He would have made money.

Is Neil Patrick Harris [Barney] okay with that? He likes to be the one stealing the scenes.
He got the script Saturday, but he was promoting Harold and Kumar at South by Southwest. He read the script from afar and just texted Carter and I, like, “Please, please, please give me a scene with Britney!” He didn’t have one in the original script, but we came up with a tag at the end of the episode that’s just between him and Britney’s character, and sure enough, it’s hysterical. When you watch it you sort of feel like it leaves the door open for Britney’s character to come back, too.

How much focus is her being around stealing from the business of making the show? Has it been a zoo over there?
Not at all. It hasn’t felt like having one of the most famous people in the world on our set at all, because there’s no paparazzi on the lot, there’s no photographers, there’s no press. Her mom and dad stopped by for a few minutes and were really nice. She’s just been low-key and has wanted to do a good job. We all very quickly forgot that it was supposed to be this big huge deal. It sort of feels normal. Like, a guest actor coming into our show and doing a nice job and being cool about it. It had none of the Britney Spears that you see in the press, this experience.

Talk a bit about the episode itself.
It's a very sweet, romantic comedy episode. I think it’s maybe the best one of those we’ve ever done, actually. Josh Radnor [Ted]: very good at that stuff. This one may be the best episode of season 3, I think. And on top of that, it’s gonna get a lot of extra press, because Britney’s on the show.

But besides Britney’s cameo, you think the episode will make viewers hang around?
I think people will be surprised to see Britney playing this role, and I think people will enjoy that she’s really good in it. But aside from that, it just has to be a great How I Met Your Mother episode. Hopefully, extra people will watch, but we really want to make our fans happy, too.

You're still on the bubble for next season. If you can’t get the audience in with this carrot, is CBS going to think even harder about renewing the show?
Boy, that’s a tough question. Obviously, it would be great if more people watched and said, “Hey, that’s a great show!” But all we can do is make great episodes. So it’s hard to think about that. I think we’ve given a great episode for CBS to sell to people and, hopefully, bring extra folks in.
And have them stick around.Let’s hope.

Has the cast hazed Britney at all, or are they giving her a pretty wide berth?
Alyson [Hannigan, Lily] was really bummed out that she does not have a scene with her. Alyson really seemed to love Britney, and I think they hung out a bit on Monday and Tuesday, and then at the end of the day Tuesday, Alyson really wanted to become friends with Britney, but she was lamenting the fact that she doesn’t think she made quite enough inroads to do so. I think Britney felt comfortable here.

Yeah, but I was on-set the day Mandy Moore was there, and everyone was still sort of staring. Britney is Mandy Moore times a hundred. Everyone’s looking for signs of the crazy.
Yeah, I mean, it didn’t seem like that big a deal to our cast. They liked her and wanted to befriend her. The only sign that Britney Spears was on our set, the only thing that was a little odd was that there were helicopters flying over our soundstage. Thank god, not close enough or loud enough to affect filming. The paparazzi can’t come on the Fox lot, so the helicopters, I guess, were hoping to shoot her on the 10-foot walk from the door to her trailer -- because apparently, that would be a really great photo? So we joked that Jason Segel [Marshall] should just try to run up to her and kiss her as though they’re dating and see if it gets a $10-$15 million bump for Forgetting Sarah Marshall [which features Segel] when it opens in a few weeks.

So has your experience with this made you think that all this tabloid hoo-hah is being reported incorrectly, or that Britney’s just both of these people at once: the train wreck, and the competent comedic actress?
Boy, I feel like I don’t know her well enough to really comment on that. All I can say is that various friends and family have been emailing me, like, “What’s going on?? Has it been weird?” And it hasn’t been weird at all. It seems like she just wanted to come in and play a funny small part, and that’s just what she’s done. There’s been no real connection to the paparazzi part of her this week.

Craig, have you been hypnotized?
I swear to god! I see no evidence of that whatsoever. You do feel, though, when you realize there are literally helicopters following this girl around -- like, “What is WRONG with the people in those helicopters? Why can’t people leave this girl alone?” It seems pretty absurd. You can’t help but feel sympathy for how weird that must feel.

Source: Entertainment Weekly