In the Zone - Spears, Britney (CD 2003)

I m exhausted.

I just finished listening to Britney Spears fourth album In the Zone , and I think what I need right now is a scalding hot shower, a six-pack of Leinenkugel s, and a big, bearded, flannel-wearin , deer-huntin man.

I have to say that I ve been rootin for Britney all along. Of all the former Mouseketeers who saturated Top 40 radio as the 20th Century came to a close, she was the one I d hoped would last. She was cute. She was fun. I loved her. At the same time, I feel that as one of her fans, I may have driven her to an album like this, which, at the risk of sounding like a prude, is one of the more disturbing things I ve heard in awhile.

Let me be clear: It s okay by me if kids listen to Britney. I m not going to go all Tipper Gore on you folks. I don t think Britney should be censored. I don t think Britney should try to be a role model. I m okay with Britney making blatantly sexual music.

Or not.

The truth is that for me, In the Zone was a difficult listen. And it s not because it s Manufactured Pop Product (which is true, to a certain extent, but then so were all her previous albums, and I like those fine).

I mean, it starts out good enough. Her duet with Madonna on Me Against the Music is a pretty infectious pop single maybe not as cute as Baby One More Time was but, as far as bridges over generation gaps go, a girl could do worse. Most importantly, even as Madonna flirts openly with Britney (and Britney flirts back), it all seems like good clean (homoerotic) fun.

The same cannot be said of (I Got That) Boom Boom , a collaboration with the hip-hip production duo Ying Yang Twins. Lyrically speaking, Boom Boom is a song about having fun and hooking up at the club. Unfortunately, the song doesn t sound fun at all. It sounds something like the musical equivalent of a gang rape, and as such, it is absolutely unlistenable. Britney just sounds too vulnerable, too na ve to compete with the Ying Yang s lascivious hoots-n-holla s; like a Little Red Riding Hood fending off a couple of overly libinous, greedily salivating big bad wolves. Far from making me want to get up and dance, this song makes my Inner Protective Father Figure want to call the police.

But it got me to thinking. The whole Britney-as-the-new-Madonna is a load of bunk. First, let s just say for the purposes of argument that Britney has half the talent Madonna has. When Madonna was Britney s age, she was an unknown. She was in her mid-20 s when she got on American Bandstand and told Dick Clark she wanted to conquer the world. She was pushing 30 when she rolled around on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards to the strains of Like a Virgin. And she was in her mid-30 s when she released Erotica and its attendant coffee-table book Sex.

Only two years ago, Britney was clinging to her virginity and singing I m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman. Conversely, Madonna has never not been a woman to me. And a frankly sexual one to boot. And one who at least appeared to have a pretty good idea not only of what she was doing, but of the consequences and implications of what she was doing.

Not so with Britney. She may be ready to grow up, but that doesn t mean she has. To me she still sounds like a girl who s trying her darned-est to figure herself out, and that s why it makes me cringe a little to hear her panting from the speakers like a tricked-out daughter of Darth Vader.

Fortunately, (I Got That) Boom Boom is the only truly offensive song here. Everything else is mainly upbeat, well-constructed pop fodder, which keeps Britney from bogging down in Don t Let Me Be the Last to Know type melodrama. Well, okay, there is one horrible ballad called Shadow . And the album-closing Everytime is even worse. But if you ve made it that far into the CD, you re probably not really paying much attention anyway.

In fact, many of these songs sound great: Breathe On Me has a minimal, throbbing electropulse that Kylie Minogue would kill for, and Brave New Girl is an adorable ditty that could very well have been the number one song of 1986 in a parallel universe.

But mostly, this album just feels like it s trying too hard to prove a point that maybe isn t wholly valid. Britney may no longer be jailbait, but musical maturation shouldn t just be about wearing skimpier clothes, writing racier lyrics, and breathing heavier into the microphone. This may be Britney s raunchiest album yet, but that doesn t make it interesting. And it certainly doesn t make up for the general emptiness (or the joylessness) of the experience. It s pointlessly exhausting. Like mowing down a box of Twinkies after spending an hour on the treadmill.

I have a headache.

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In the Zone by Britney Spears
Jive Records
Released 11/18/03

Producers: Trixster, Roy "Royalty" Hamilton, Bloodshy & Avant, Mark Taylor, Moby, R. Kelly, Jimmy Harry & Shep Solomon, The Matrix, Brian & Josh, Guy Sigsworth
50 min.

SONGS: Me Against the Music - (I Got That) Boom Boom - Showdown - Breathe On Me - Early Mornin' - Toxic - Outrageous - Touch of my Hand - The Hook Up - Shadow - Brave New Girl - Everytime - Me Against the Music (Rishi Rich's Desi Kulcha Remix)