Vanity Fair reviewed Glory

[sutramaya]

Britney Spears’s Glory: Oops, She’s Done It Again

The pop star’s ninth album is a delightful, odd triumph.

By Josh Duboff

 

After the music stops on “What You Need,” the 12th track on Britney Spears’s ninth album, Glory, she says, in that distinctive Spearsian purr, “That was fun.” And if there is any sort of thesis for the album as a whole, it’s probably that: Britney Spears is having fun.

Glory includes a track in which Spears sings wistfully about waiting for her “man on the moon,” lamenting that she can’t “compete with the stars in the sky”; in another, she asks a dude, repeatedly, if he “wants to come over” (“nobody should be alone if they don’t have to be,” she reasons). She sings a bit of Spanish (on “Change Your Mind (No Seas Cortes)”) and one song entirely in French (“Coupure Électrique”). Her voice flits about over the course of the 17 tracks, sounding more assured and carefree than it has in some time. There’s a bridge of sorts midway through the propulsive “Better” in which she essentially raps, twice through, the words: “So good, so good, so damn, so good / So damn, so good, so right, so good.” It’s possible to imagine her chanting this refrain in the car while waiting in the drive-through line, or on a swan float with her two sons, or on a plush lavender sofa in her Los Angeles manse as she sips an iced tea.

This album feels, as much as a Britney album can, through and through like her. It’s the musical equivalent of the singer’s delightful, strange Instagram account, in which she alternates between promotional materials, regrams of home-design accounts, and quirky, odd shots of flowers or sandwiches (a few weeks ago, she posted a photo of a generic coffee cup, and captioned it “Nice!”)

The lightness and glee of Glory serve as a marked contrast to Spears’s previous musical offering: 2013’s widely derided Britney Jean, which lacked some of the “soul” and nimbleness of this new collection. Most of these new songs would blend right into any bar playlist or Top 40 rotation, aligned with recent offerings from Selena Gomez or Ellie Goulding. “Slumber Party” is a slinky, catchy jam; “Just Luv Me” and “Love Me Down” are both the kind of songs that cause you to break out in a bit of a strut when they come on as you walk down the sidewalk; “Liar” could be a lesser pop star’s first single. (Curiously, aside from the sultry “Make Me . . .,” the four songs which were released prior to the release are among the less memorable offerings on Glory.)

With Spears—especially for a certain generational age bracket—it is sometimes hard to separate nostalgia for the height of her reign (the early 2000s, the T.R.L. years) from our feelings about her current musical output. When we hear “Do You Wanna Come Over?,” on Glory, we know we are technically listening to a 2016 Britney Spears song—but we are also, somehow simultaneously, hearing 2001’s “Overprotected” and 2003’s “Showdown” and 2007’s “Toy Soldier.” We’re holding flip phones and recording Friends episodes on VHS tapes and squealing to our friends about Freddie Prinze Jr.; her voice is able to take you to that place almost immediately. When I heard her sing the words “such a damn shame” at the beginning of Glory’s “Liar” for the first time, I was frankly startled at the sheer Britney-ness, that unmistakable verve and attitude of her delivery (and immediately typed “SUCH A DAMN SHAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!” into an iPhone note). In the way that a Whopper tastes the same at every Burger King, her voice manages to curl around the ends of a song in the same way every time.

Spears—perhaps because of her Las Vegas residency, or that we have known her for so long—is often perceived as someone nearing the “golden years” stage of her career (it is worth noting she is only a year older than Nicki Minaj and 3 years older than Katy Perry), but this album is as fresh and vibrant as most mainstream pop releases of 2016. The way her voice dips and escalates on “Private Show,” the way it lilts on “Invitation,” the way it chants in “Hard to Forget Ya”—there’s a hunger here. Britney Spears is having fun.

This is not a perfect album, and could probably have done with a bit of trimming in the middle (2007’s Blackout remains her most stellar, lean, consistent piece of work), but it’s an album that will delight Britney Spears fans, and very much please even those who wouldn’t describe themselves as such. Glory is an afternoon at the aquarium with three friends from childhood you haven’t seen in a while (the whole time, you all keep saying, “Wait, we’re at an aquarium!”). It’s three straight rounds of margaritas at after-work drinks with your favorite co-worker. It’s a solo train ride with an attractive stranger sitting across the aisle.

On the second-to-last track on Glory—the trippy, languid “If I’m Dancing”—she repeats, again and again, “If I’m dancing, I know the music’s good.” For another singer, this might come off as either cocky or silly. For Britney, it’s a declaration: we’re dancing; the music’s good.

[coo]

yes vanity yes

[Bayonetta]

Yass *****  

[f_rhythm]

 

yes vanity yes

I was thinking she should impersonate Harley on VMAs tbh and come in a cage and do some acrobatic moves just as in the movie and then untie her hair and dance her *** off ,that would be amazing and iconic

im giving you tips Brit  

[coo]

 

I was thinking she should impersonate Harley on VMAs tbh and come in a cage and do some acrobatic moves just as in the movie and then untie her hair and dance her *** off ,that would be amazing and iconic

im giving you tips Brit  

i'm so here for it but if she does that ppl will say "she has no originality", you know how haters are

but if you meant she should channel her inner MonaLisa then i'm down

[LanaBrit]

glory deserves everything 

 

[EarlyMorning]

We’re holding flip phones and recording Friends episodes on VHS tapes and squealing to our friends about Freddie Prinze Jr.; her voice is able to take you to that place almost immediately.