Music: Britney Spears

In an episode of "The Simpsons," a freak thunderstorm animates a host of advertisements; foremost among them is the Lard Lad Donuts Boy. These attention-craving, marketing abominations then terrorize the whole of Springfield and are only defeated when the townspeople turn their backs on the walking billboards. My argument: Britney Jean Spears is the Lard Lad Donuts Boy.

As if she couldn't sell her fourth release, In The Zone, without wanton media coverage, Ms. Spears sniffed coke in the tabloids, smooched Madge on MTV, bared her top in Rolling Stone, her bottom in Esquire and "her soul" on ABC. A governor even threatened her life.

Indeed, Ms. Lard Lad received all the attention that she wanted. Never mind all that. The media show was only foreplay for her album, where Britney showcases her new meticulously engineered vocals, a sexed-up whisper and her new mantra: "I got that boom boom/ That you want." This is off the aptly labeled track "Boom Boom," where the most obnoxious rapper pairing ever, The Ying Yang Twins, guest and yell out phrases like "Shorty, we gonna go to the club and get crunk with Britney." This is definitely a new side of the former Mouseketeer.

In the end though, this new LP sounds like her last hit, "I'm A Slave 4 U," copied twelve times over. A lot of rehash and nothing much new, Britney sings that both her shopping sprees and sex drive are outrageous. In addition, she references Crazy Town's "Butterfly,"112's "Peaches and Cream" and a foxy surf-guitar riff stolen straight from under 007's nose. Pushing the sexual envelope again, Britney even includes a track on self love, except that's already been done by both Veruca Salt and Cyndi Lauper. More apparent is the fact that two tracks, "Breathe On Me" and "Brave New Girl," are blatant retreads of other songs: Kylie Minogue's "Breathe" and Madonna's "Material Girl."

Indeed, the similarities between the new Britney and her fellow dancepop divas run deep. De-emphasizing lyrics and over-emphasizing the rhythm, these women spin sonic gems and on this level, Britney matches them beat for beat. The woman who created the worst tracks ever to go radio ("I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman" and "Lucky") has instead returned with an album of club-jumping, beat-filled melodies. The syrupy ballads are gone; the mega-hit teeny-bop has vanished; no more filler, and all that remains is Ms. Spears and her digitally pulsing vampishness.

Courtesy of production work by R. Kelly, Moby and the Matrix among others, every song comes out sounding incredibly polished and jamming. The electronic manipulation is everywhere. On Moby's "Early Morning" Britney sings, "I was shaking my ass in the streets a-moanin'/ just walked in and it's early mornin'," and later, a couple of moans and yawns are strategically placed into the sonic landscape. It's a revelatory Britney track. This is what she can do. In the places where Britney's voice can't quite reach a note, well, her vocals are electronically altered; they're nearly unrecognizable on "The Hook Up" and "Showdown." The use of a singer's vocals as a musical weapon never sounded so good; now, Brit can sound drowsy, lovesick or in heat.

The most interesting facet of In The Zone has nothing to do with vocals, though; there are actual musical influences this time around, which include dancehall-reggae and Asian electro-pop. One track even features a banjo. Indeed, on her best album to date, Britney has finally matured as both an artist and a woman, or rather, she's just hired better producers.