Britney Spears's Blackout

I remember when Britney Spears dropped Blackout. I was in my early 20s, in law school. I followed celebrity gossip closely, though I tried to avoid Perez Hilton because I found his habit of drawing splooge on young women distasteful. There was no denying that Britney was a whole-ass mess, but the album she released in the midst of this turmoil became one of the most well-regarded of her career. In this edition of the ongoing 33 1/3 series, Natasha Lasky does a deep dive on the record, examining everything from the producers behind it, like Danja and Bloodshy & Avant, to the paparazzi culture of the time, which rewarded people like Perez and the photographers that would stop at nothing for a shot of one of the maligned, breathlessly covered out-of-control ingenues of Hollywood. A few songs (“Gimme More”, “Piece of Me”) see lots of focus, but I'd hoped for a more comprehensive look at the entire tracklist. Nevertheless, this is a very good read, especially for a pop-culture focused Elder Millennial like me.