Greatest hits collections are interesting creations. Done well, they provide new material for fans while appealing to new people interested in their music. Done poorly, they simply redo what came before. The latter is the case with Britney: The Singles Collection, the second hits collection from Britney Spears.
Britney Spears released Greatest Hits: My Prerogative back in 2004. Since then she had an album more or less coinciding with her problems (Blackout) and a "comeback" album that got more critical acclaim (Circus).
Do two albums provide enough new material to justify a new collection? Not really. Nine of the songs on Britney: The Singles Collection were on My Prerogative (thankfully not her Bobby Brown cover), with two off Blackout and three from Circus. The only new song is the single "3" where Britney is trying to create controversy by singing about threesomes. (Lots of synthesizers, lots of bad lyrics -- she couldn't come up with a different rhyme for "three" than "Peter, Paul and Mary"? -- and lots of scantily-clad dancing in the video.)
I wonder who the audience is for Britney: The Singles Collection. Die-hard fans probably have her albums, folks who wanted one collection of hers probably got My Prerogative, and one new song isn't enough to warrant buying a whole album. If you find Britney Spears a guilty pleasure and didn't go with her first collection or get any of her albums, Britney: The Singles Collection may be good. Otherwise, this feels like a way to release a "new" album that's repackaged older material.
Overall grade: D
Reviewed by James Lynch
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