Britney Spears - The Singles Collection

Britney Spears’ supposed fall from innocence seems awfully imaginative. Even her first single in 1999, “...Baby One More Time,” presented the barely legal star in a fetishized school-girl fantasy. In 2009, she might be even more gratuitous—check “If U Seek Amy”—but the decade-long narrative has consistently been sex. Her newest offering, The Singles Collection, offers a fairly compelling retrospective of America’s favorite transgressive pop star.

By 2001, she dropped the last name for self-titled Britney, her weakest album. The record was still significant for its inclusion of “I’m a Slave 4 U,” produced by megastars the Neptunes. This production team would come to leave their mark on an insane number of chart-toppers, and the choice marked the 2000s’ zeitgeist of super-produced, hip-hop-inspired pop singles. 2003’s “Toxic” is the zenith of this trend. Her singing is inconsequential; rather, her role is offering sex appeal and star power to sell vocoded vocals, detuned synth blasts and that infectious violin sample.

The Singles Collection succeeds in sticking to what she does best—blessed few of her soul ballads are included. The exception is “Everytime,” the clear champion of this group. She doesn’t overextend her vocal ability here and sounds less cloying than usual, probably because her pained delivery actually feels authentic (the song was written soon after her breakup with Justin Timberlake).

Somehow, Britney managed to nail back-to-back post-traumatic stress releases: Blackout in 2007 and Circus in 2008. The six songs included from these albums hold their own against older work, propelled by club-ready production and more sex. “Piece of Me” even succeeds in straying from the lechery, instead taking jabs at the paparazzi, a topic she may well be the world authority on.

The sole new inclusion is “3,” a song that sells the virtues of threesomes in a “1-2-3” chorus. It’s already topped the charts. Britney’s “comeback,” expertly orchestrated by pop gurus like Max Martin, has validated this new compilation, and The Singles Collection is certainly more essential than 2004’s My Prerogative. In fact, it might be the only Britney Spears album you ever need.