Britney Spears is back with a vengeance, but this time it's legitimate news.
The fallen pop-starlet has finally released a fresh single, her first new work in almost two years.
The new dance track, entitled "Gimme More", leads off with the high-impact line ''It’s Britney, b****''.
The track made its official debut on New York radio station Z100 today and there’s been a cautiously positive response from fans and media.
Comments on Britney's MySpace site were overwhelmingly positive, with plenty of fans flocking to leave their thoughts.
''Britney I love the song so much, it's so hot babe, always going for the next level, love it,'' a user named Alfie said.
''Brit your new song rocks as I knew it would can't wait for the album. God I miss your great music, nice to have you back, love the new sound,'' another wrote.
Meanwhile Spears' former manager Larry Rudolph has been subpoenaed to appear in court over the child custody dispute with ex-husband Kevin 'K-Fed' Federline.
Rudolph was reportedly midway through a visit to a Los Angeles tanning salon when he was served the documents.
The documents reveal that K-Fed is receiving nearly $25,000 a month in ''spousal support'', but that will end on November 15.
Faded pop star Britney Spears has launched her highly-anticipated comeback at the MTV Video Music Awards, dressing up like a stripper to deliver a curious performance of her new single.
The 25-year-old singer, whose professional achievements have been overshadowed by her personal crises in recent years, sang "Gimme More" sporting a black sequined bikini and knee-high boots.
She moved slowly around the stage, often with the aid of her dancers.
She appeared to be miming to a backing track.
At one stage, the camera panned to rapper 50 Cent - sitting in the audience - who looked bewildered by the action on stage.
Spears, who was not nominated for any of MTV's statuettes, was easily the most anticipated performer of the two-hour Las Vegas show.
Not everyone was thrilled she had secured the plum opening slot.
Five-time nominee Kanye West, who releases his third album in North America on Tuesday, shared his displeasure during a concert the night before.
"I can't believe she would perform. She hasn't had a hit record in years," the outspoken hip-hop star improvised during his performance.
Spears released her last studio album in 2003, the commercial disappointment In the Zone. West has recorded three albums since then.
Spears has been working on a new album for more than a year, although it is not known when it will see the light of day.
R and B singer Mary J Blige was supportive, declaring that Spears was "smart ... she just went through a lot of things."
Such "things" included two marriages, two children and two rehab stints, not to mention countless displays of bizarre public behaviour, such as shaving her head in public.
How was In The Zone a commercial dissapointment? It has sold over 3 million copies in the US alone and had 3 number one singles in Australia and was the worlds 4th highest selling album in 2003 (with the top 3 all being released before July compared to ITZ in November). Sure, it didn't sell as well as her previous albums, but illegal downloads weren't as easily available back then (when her first two albums were released anyway). Her next album is being released November 12 (Nov 13 in the USA).
"Gimme More" Expected To Debut On iTunes October 2nd
"Gimme More" is getting ready to hit iTunes, and is expected to do very well. According to The New York Post, "industry experts expect it to climb fast when the digital version comes out Oct. 2." Billboard's Silvio Pietroluongo says the single is expected to debut in the top 20: "I guarantee you, when the song comes out on iTunes, it will probably make it into the top 20. It's also getting more and more radio play. All of her other songs have debuted in the lower half of the chart. Without a digital single, you can't debut much higher than she did." Keep requesting "Gimme More" at your local radio stations. Below are the current statistics according to Billboard for Britney's first single "Gimme More:"
The Billboard Hot 100: #85 Pop 100 Airplay: #25 Top 40 Mainstream: #25 Pop 100: #41 Hot 100 Airplay: #61 Canadian Hot 100: #53
Access Hollywood: The single has been the number 1, most added single for two weeks in a row on American radio stations. It has also been the greatest gainer at Top 40 radio for the two weeks it has been on the airwaves.
According to a release from Spears’ label Jive Records, “Gimme More,” has become the second highest Top 40 chart debut in the singer’s entire career. Over 90 Top 40 stations have the song at their #25 slot.
She wins some.. she loses others. Today I think she had somewhat of a win. I actually think she looks like a yummy mummy in one of the below pics. I love the grey sweater and jeans. The simple hair with glasses works for her.
Sadly, I know I've been here before with a comment like this only to be horrified by her next choice of *hmm*.. clothing.
You know, I just don't understand how she does not KNOW what works for her.. to simply choose a couple of nice outfits from her endless wardrobe for at least some of the week!
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Singer Britney Spears has been charged with hit-and-run and driving without a valid licence.
She is accused of hitting a parked car and driving away from a Los Angeles car park on 6 August, a spokesman for the city's attorney's office said.
The 25-year-old could face six months in jail and a $1,000 (£495) fine if convicted of the misdemeanour charges.
Ms Spears' representatives were not immediately available for comment, the Associated Press news agency said.
Drug tests
The owner of the car filed an accident report on 9 August at the North Hollywood Community Police Station.
The city attorney's office did not know whether Ms Spears' car had been damaged, nor did he know the extent of damage to the other car, spokesman Frank Mateljan said.
Ms Spears was notified of the charges by letter earlier this week.
A hearing, which Ms Spears does not have to attend because the charges are misdemeanours, has been set for 10 October.
The charges come just days after a judge ordered Ms Spears to undergo random drug and alcohol tests twice a week in her child custody dispute with former husband Kevin Federline.
Los Angeles Superior Court judge Scott M Gordon said Ms Spears, 25, showed "a habitual, frequent and continuous use of controlled substances and alcohol".
He also ordered Ms Spears and 29-year-old Mr Federline - who is seeking increased custody of their two young sons - to complete a parenting class.
Ms Spears, whose new album is set for release on 13 November, has also been dropped by her management firm, and her recent performance at this year's MTV Video Music Awards was widely panned.
Britney Spears loses custody of kids Posted 1 hour 1 minute ago
Pop star Britney Spears has temporarily lost custody of her two sons after a court battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline.
Federline "is to retain physical custody of the minor children on Wednesday October 3, 2007 at 12:00pm until further order of the court," the court documents said.
The divorce between Spears, 25, and Federline, 29, became final at the end of July, but their temporary shared custody arrangement for their sons began to unravel amid allegations from Federline's camp that Spears was an unfit mother.
A judge on September 18 ordered Spears to undergo random drug testing in the latest twist in the bitter custody battle over Sean Preston, two, and Jayden James, one.
Los Angeles Superior Court judge Scott Gordon said at the time that according to evidence presented in closed door hearings, Spears was a "habitual, frequent, and continuous" user of "controlled substances and alcohol."
Her drug and alcohol testing was to be "conducted twice per week on random dates and times."
Today's documents say the transcript of proceedings is "sealed" and gave no details about what led the court to change of custody order.
Earlier this month, a former Spears bodyguard lodged a statement with the court making allegations of nudity and drug use, and expressing concern about the welfare of the Spears's sons.
Reports have said Federline had been seeking a 70/30 arrangement in his favour instead of the 50/50 agreement the couple agreed to after separating.
Spears filed for divorce last year from Federline, a former back-up dancer and aspiring rap singer, and has rarely been out of the tabloid headlines since - especially following her downward spiral that landed her in a rehabilitation centre in February.
Her stint in rehab followed a series of lurid tabloid headlines chronicling her erratic lifestyle.
She was repeatedly photographed in nightspots wearing no underwear, and was also captured bizarrely shaving her head in a hair salon and attacking a photographer's car with an umbrella.
She reportedly has had fallings out with both of her parents.
Media reports also speculated that she might suffer from post-partum depression or another psychiatric condition.
The loss of custody is the latest blow to Spears's image as she attempts to rebuild her sagging career ahead of the release in November of her first album in four years.
Judge calls for Britney Spears to be booked By staff writers October 10, 2007 09:52am...
A JUDGE in the US has ordered troubled singer Britney Spears be booked over a hit and run incident in Los Angeles earlier this year.
At an arraignment overnight, Commissioner Rebecca Omens said the 25-year-old pop star must be fingerprinted and photographed before October 25, when she is required to appear in court, the Associated Press reported.
Spears was charged last month with hit and run and driving without a licence after she allegedly smashed her car into another in a car park in August.
Spears was not in court today but her lawyer Michael Flanagan said she "must go to any LA police station for fingerprints and mug shots.".
"She will do that, but I don't know when,'' Flanagan told the celebrity website CelebTV.com...
I came across her new video yesterday for gimme more... It actually was .. catchy. lol. I mean in one of those mock the song kind of ways. I dunno, she had me watching and thinking.. well, shes trying, I guess. However, I then noticed her decide to go the whole hog with her stripper crap and take off her top .. it was just all way to tacky - nothing a whole lot clever about the thing.
I think.. britney was once in her element and for that time in the music industry she fitted it all perfectly.. today, knowing the power of the music industry - the buttons they can push to change your voice.. That sex sells thing .. I dont think is fully true anymore. I think people want clever or sexy BUT clever.
I'm sure britney still has fans that cling onto the fact that - she WILL return one day but I really don't think so. I think she'll always be around - in the headlines shocking us with some kind of immaturity but that’s it.
^ I'm one of those fans that has clung on . But I don't really care if she dosn't comeback the way she did before, as long as she keeps making music I like.
Blackout is out this Saturday in Australia, it was brought forward because of internet leaks etc. Here is a review:
4 out of 5 stars.
Finally, a good week for Britney Spears? Just as we were getting to think that a lunar eclipse might come sooner, here’s some tentative cause for celebration.
In the space of 24 hours, the woman who yields roughly 82,000 results if you Google her name along with the phrase “troubled singer”, has been granted temporary visitation rights to her children and seen her new single Gimme More leap into the British chart's top three.
Now, if Britney’s record company is to be believed, a good week just got better. Apparently, “unprecedented popular demand” has prompted SonyBMG to bring the release date of her comeback album Blackout forward by three weeks.
Cynics might point out that, one way or another, they would have been compelled to do so. MP3s of songs from the album have been circulating among fans over the last few weeks. That they have been moved to do so, does at least, serve reminder of the very thing that is perhaps most easily forgotten among her recent roll-call of infamy.
She is first and foremost a pop star. In a life not exactly saturated with joy, she should take a certain amount of pleasure in the fact that Blackout coheres far better than sprawling recent sets by her fellow Mickey Mouse Club alumni Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera.
Far from apologising for a roll-call of adversity that takes in custody battles, hit-and-run offences, extreme hairdressing, sudden lingerie loss and umbrella-on-pap savagery – she comes out fighting on the utterly wonderful Piece Of Me.
“I’m Miss bad media karma/Another day another drama/Guess I can’t see no harm in working and being a mama,” she declaims over an adhesively catchy chorus.
Britney may have grown up in front of MTV, perfecting Madonna’s dance routines, but she isn’t the self-determining control-freak that her heroine turned into. Neither, it should be added, does she need to be. Her recent mishaps have only compounded her status as muse of choice to top-notch writer producers such as Swedish hitmakers Bloodshy & Avant, Timbaland protégé Danja and The Neptunes.
On the Pharrell Williams-written Why Should I Be Sad and, indeed, most of what precedes it, Britney is a strangely disembodied presence – her heavily treated voice suspended amid an icy fug of minor chords and brittle synthetic beats.
If truth be told, certain songs wouldn’t have sounded too different if her vocal were totally erased. On Get Naked (I Got A Plan) and Radar her voice is a piece that slots tidily into a finely sculpted piece of burnished future-pop.
But when the whole works so well, it makes no sense to mind. Perfect Lover and Toy Soldier are quite simply two of the most strangely wonderful tunes to emerge on any record this year – exercises in sonic risk-taking that, until this point, have never hitched themselves to a Britney Spears record.
So why now, then? Well, perhaps it was in the spirit of having nothing to lose that someone suggested Britney try her hand at a marching-pace sex-fantasy about a soldier which pitched itself somewhere between Prince’s female alter-ago Camille and the sensation of watching Full Metal Jacket as ten Glade Plug-Ins infuse the air with amyl nitrate. Who knows?
Furthermore, does this stuff work on any profound level? Well, ever since she appeared in 1999 with Hit Me Baby One More Time, Britney has enjoyed a certain status as metatextual plaything of Late Review guests and chin-stroking post-ironics (no mean feat, this – Kylie and Madonna had to ensure years of highbrow snobbery to get to the same point). When it comes down to it though, the answer is no, not really. A gaggle of schoolchildren exchanging ringtones on the top deck of the bus will just as easily tell you why these songs work. They tick almost every box in the checklist of great pop, period.
Perhaps that shouldn’t be so surprising. After all, Britney Spears learned to be a pop star way before she learned to be an adult. In a sense then, it’s fitting that her facility for great pop moments is the very last facet of her to shut down.
All the reviews I have read seem to be great. I wish it had a better cover though, I absolutely hate the cover art, it would have to be one of the worst album covers ever...
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. But I don't really care if she dosn't comeback the way she did before, as long as she keeps making music I like.
