Britney Spears – In the Zone

By Sterling Wong . UrbanWire
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Oops! She did it again! Get herself splashed all over front pages of tabloids round the world, that is. From her latest Las Vegas New Year marriage fiasco, to that lip lock with Madonna at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, to the drawn-out and very public breakup with first love, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears has so become the queen of controversy we almost forgot she’s supposed to be a singer!

And quite prolific a singer she is too with In The Zone her 4th studio album in 5 years. After multi-platinum smashes ‘…Baby, One More Time and Oops!... I Did It Again, her third album, 2001’s Britney, saw a steep decline in sales, prompting rife speculation of her early demise. Her subsequent announcement of a year-long break didn’t help matters.

This time around, the stakes surrounding In the Zone are upped, with the pop princess’s wounded pride on the line. Britney and her team have spared no expenses, assembling a phalanx of top-notch producers and writers, from the likes of Redzone (Mya, Blu Cantrell), Guy Sigworth (Madonna, Robbie Williams), Cathy Dennis (Kylie Minogue, Celine Dion), Moby, the Matrix (Avril Lavigne, Jason Mraz) and the Yin Yang Twins, to ensure In The Zone is all hits and no misses.

Touted as Britney’s most mature work to date, In the Zone features sexually suggestive adult lyrics, including an ode to masturbation, as Britney shows the world once and for all that she’s not a girl, but all woman. By now, you’ve probably heard the first single, “Me Against the Music”, a traditional dance floor stomper featuring Britney’s kabbalah buddy, Madonna, on guest vocals. If you think the lesbian-chic scenes in its accompanying music video were risqué, they serve only as a taste of things to come.

“Breathe On Me” is all heavy thumps and airy moans, the Cathy Dennis production bringing forth the best of disco-Kylie in Britney. “I don’t mean to be a tease, but would you undo my zipper please?” she coos on “Showdown”, as if listeners needed any encouragement. Then, of course, there’s the much-talked about paean to self-pleasure, one of the 8 songs that Britney co-wrote on the album. Taboo subjects aside, “Touch Of My Hand” is actually a lush, string-laden mid-tempo ballad, with vocoder effects thrown in for good measure.

There’s more to In The Zone than just sex, though. On “Everytime”, Britney’s reply to ex-beau Justin’s “Cry Me A River”, she offers, “My weakness caused you pain, and this song’s my sorry.” Telling indeed. The song also happens to be Britney’s most sincere delivery of a ballad to date.

As with every Britney release, there are always a couple of clunkers. The R. Kelly-produced “Outrageous”, with its pseudo-middle eastern flavour and annoyingly repetitive chorus, is a poor man’s “I’m A Slave 4 U”. Another by-the-numbers R&B track by P. Diddy, “The Answer”, is 4 minutes of pure filler.

That said, it is noteworthy to point out that In The Zone is by far Britney’s most consistent piece of work yet. For once, even though they’re there, she doesn’t need the tabloid stories and racy imagery to help sell her album. The music speaks for itself. Of course, the music industry doesn’t work that way. So, expect to see more of Britney’s trademark glossy and sexually-charged music videos gracing the screens of MTV. But, hey, at least this time, you won’t have to mute the sound.

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