Updated (With Video NOW!): 11/23/07 Hey guys, I've compiled all the reviews out for Blackout so far only stating the best parts and of course, on some, the rating or grade. I hope you guys enjoy this short and sweet version!
Also, do what I did and flood your myspace bulletins with these reviews! Let the people know our girl is back!
For those half-assed fans, people who are interested but are in denial, or anyone who likes dance music.. Feeling doubtful about buying it?
Read The Blackout Reviews:
(So Far, So Very good.)
Entertainment Weekly (EW.com)
"The nasty custody battle. The hair-razing meltdown. The trips to rehab. The abysmal VMAs performance. Shall we go on? All of 25-year-old Britney Spears' recent setbacks suggest that her fifth CD, ominously titled Blackout, would fan the flames of her hot mess of a year. Well, brace yourself for the biggest shock yet: Blackout — a collection of well-produced, thoroughly enjoyable dance songs — may just put this once-celebrated pop star back on top."
"..there is something delightfully escapist about Blackout, a perfectly serviceable dance album abundant in the kind of bouncy electro elements that buttressed her hottest hits (''I'm a Slave 4 U,'' ''Toxic''). Say what you will about Spears' personal life, but there's no denying that the girl knows how to have a good time."
Grade: B+
E! Online
"Blackout Drunk: We Binge on New Britney!"
"Let's be clear: We've always been big Britney fans.
We were there for her first Disney concert, saw Crossroads in the theater (twice) and even loved In the Zone. So, we're going to try and give Blackout a fair review, even if that means purging our brains of several years' worth of Britney antics. Or trying to.
Let's start with the positive: Blackout is much better than its awful cover. Almost every song is danceable, and there’s no cheesy “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” ballad.
So, there's that."
US Magazine
"While her personal life may be in ruins, the CD shows that, overall, Spears still has sparks in the recording studio."
3 out of 4 Stars
About.com (Top 40)
"Despite all of the odds against it, Blackout amounts to a logical extension of Britney Spears' musical career last visited on 2003's In the Zone. The new album, just like her last, is fueled by electronic dance beats and bleeps...Far from being an audio train wreck, this is a strong dance-pop collection with some true pleasures"
4 out of 5 Stars
4Music - Channel 4
"She hasn't had the best of years, but Britney's fifth studio album, 'Blackout', sees her end 2007 on a high.
Here is the 4Music verdict on 'Blackout', the year's most unexpectedly amazing pop record..."
Overall score: 7 Stars!? LOL.
Boston Herald
"Britney may be picking up the pieces in her personal life, but her music career is apparently back on track with Blackout."
Grade: B
The Associated Press, MSN.com
"Just when it seemed safe to write off Britney Spears as a punch line only capable of entertaining people through tabloid escapades, she goes and gets all musically relevant on us.
Blackout, her first studio album in four years, is not only a very good album, it's her best work ever — a triumph, with not a bad song to be found on the 12 tracks."
Times Online
"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."
"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."
4 Stars
Stuff.co.nz
"You want it to be bad. You want it to be really, really bad. You want it to be so eye-squintingly awful this train wreck called Britney Spears disappears from our lives forever.
Unfortunately, it's not that bad. In fact, it's nowhere near as bad as it deserves to be.
From the opening tones of Gimme More to the closing Pharrell Williams-produced ballad Why Should I Be So Sad, Britney proves she can leave her chaotic personal life at the door to produce the goods in the studio."
"You'll always be a freak show, Britney. But as long as you keep churning out albums as good as Blackout, we won't stop watching."
4 Stars
MediaGuardian.co.uk
"It's a bold, exciting album"
4 Stars
Iba Buzz
"Blackout is the best album of Britney’s career... The 25-year-old Louisiana native has never recorded a thoroughly great album."
Grade: B+
San Jose Mercury News
"STUNNER! Britney's new CD is good!"
"Those looking for new insight into the dizzy world of Britney Spears won't find it on Blackout..it's pretty clear that Blackout is Britney's finest album to date."
Grade: B+
People Magazine
"Gimme More, the panting first single, was just a tease, because there are better – if not exactly bolder – tracks, like "Toy Soldier," with its fun simulated snare drums, and the cool, T-Pain-assisted "Hot as Ice" (one of five cuts produced by Timbaland protégé Nate "Danja" Hills)."
3 Stars
Los Angeles Valley Star
"It would seem as if Britney's career might not be as dead as the press would have predicted with her recent MTV fiasco. She probably won't win any "Mother of the Year" awards but her album is hot.
In a business full of Fergies, Rihannas, and Gwens there is still only one Britney and that is more than enough."
Daily Star
"BRITNEY Spears may be struggling in her personal life but professionally she is 100% back on track. I’m the first journalist in the WORLD to hear her comeback album Blackout, out October 29, in full finished form, and it’s a belter."
Verdicts for each song:
GIMME MORE - 9/10
PIECE OF ME - 10/10
RADAR - 9/10
BREAK THE ICE - 9/10
HEAVEN ON EARTH - 8/10
GET NAKED (I GOT A PLAN) - 6/10
FREAKSHOW - 6/10
TOY SOLDIER - 7/10
HOT AS ICE - 8/10
OOH OOH BABY - 9/10
PERFECT LOVER: - 6/10
WHY SHOULD I BE SAD - 7/10
Pink Is The New Blog
"I have been able to preview the album for the past few days and I am just loving every track on it. It just pains me to think how much of a mega-smash hit the album might be if there wasn't all the extraneous personal drama leeching away the excitement from the album's release. It is clear that many, many people have been turned off by Britney's antics in recent weeks, months and years and may stay away from this album altogether. I must urge fans to check it out and hear for themselves how amazing it is. Overall, I still think that Britney is my fave album of hers but this one deffo comes in at #2. Y'all have a week to listen to the album in its entirety before you can buy it in stores. I understand the iTunes version will come with 3 extra tracks ... so save those pennies and make sure you get your copy when Blackout gets released a week from today!"
Philadelphia Inquirer
"If popular culture, like life, is about managing expectations, then Britney Spears must be a genius."
"...just when you thought that Blackout was going to cut the power on Spears' pop stardom for good, it turns out that it's not so bad after all. With expectations as low as they could go, Blackout overshoots them with ease."
New York Times
"(About the song, Piece of Me) 'I’m Miss Bad-Media-Karma, another day another drama/Guess I can’t see the harm in working and being a mama.' Over and over comes a refrain — 'You want a piece of me' — that could be an accusation or an invitation or a threat. Together they evoke the horror, the exhilaration and (finally) the boredom of the overexamined life. It’s brilliant. Some of the other songs are nearly as good. "
Daily Free Press
"Surprisingly, the album proves to be a cohesive, urban-electro-pop affair... It's as if Spears' year long bout of insanity inspired Blackout's slew of A-list writers and producers to come up with some of the best pop anthems of 2007."
USA Today
"Though her voice is mostly awash in synthesizers and vocoders, her sass and attitude are the driving force."
Rolling Stone Exectutive Editor, Joe Levy says:
"One of the problems for Britney right now is the public is more focused on her personal life than her music. This record is an opportunity to change that" [The album] is "state of the art... This is a rebirth. It's a new musical chapter for her."
Official Rolling Stone Magazine Review
"..what's notable is that Blackout is the first time in her career that she's voiced any real thoughts about her life. The old provocation game is still afoot, but Britney's stubbornly holding on to her freakness — it's the only form of rebellion she's got left."
"When she's not gearing up for a meltdown, Britney's wielding more melting-ice imagery than An Inconvenient Truth ..she's gonna crank the best pop booty jams until a social worker cuts off her supply of hits."
3.5 Stars
Signonsandiego.com
"..'New Britney's on a mission,' Britney Spears sings in the estrogen-empowered dance track 'Toy Soldier.' That mission? Spears doesn't really say. However, this entire album would imply that it's a smart one."
"[Blackout] is addictive. Just as fast as it ends, you'll be ready to hit "play" again.."
Grade: B
LA Times
"Its dazzling studio effects, rhythmic reconstructions and vocal shape-shifting drag the listener in, as each song elaborates on the power of desire and desirability. It's hard to resist."
BBC Review
"There’s much to love on this action-packed feast of an album... After a year that she’d surely rather forget, Blackout marks a cool and calculated return for Britney. "
Mirror UK
"Spears has blow-torched Madonna's Confesions On A Dance Floor to bits and passed the shards through a shredder.."
"This is the record she needed."
5 Stars
All Music Guide
"All this toil and turmoil set the stage for her 2007 comeback Blackout to be a flat-out train wreck, which it decidedly is not...As an album, it holds together better than any of her other records."
3.5 Stars
Slant Magazine
"On a hit-to-miss scale, Blackout scores well, and its hotness quotient is remarkably high."
3.5 Stars
Virgin Media
"That said, as a piece of facelessly collaborative, ultra-modern synth-pop, Blackout is undoubtedly a success...Most gratifyingly, it all feels like a cohesive whole, avoiding the compilation feel of most multi-producer pop albums."
3.5 Stars
Blender Magazine
"Spears’s fifth studio album is her most consistent, a seamlessly entertaining collection of bright, brash electropop.. Amid the heavily tweaked beats, Spears sounds both more knowing and more sympathetic than she ever has. That’s good for Britney the train wreck. And it might not be bad for Britney the pop star."
3.5 Stars
Blackout is #1 in 21 countries on iTunes:
#1 USA
#1 UK
#1 Sweden
#1 Norway
#1 New Zealand
#1 Ireland
#1 Greece
#1 France
#1 Germany
#1 Denmark
#1 Canada
#1 Belgium
#1 Austria
#1 Holland
#1 Spain
#1 Finland
#1 Japan
#1 Luxemboug
#1 Italy
#1 Switzerland
#1 Austria
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