Every Britney Spears album ranked in order of greatness
Pop Goddess Britney Spears across the years. (Getty/Canva)
Every once in a generation, a culture-shifting pop star like Britney Spears comes along, and today is a truly important occasion: her birthday.
Today (2 December), the woman who brought us a lifetime’s worth of pop magic, from “…Baby One More Time” to “Make Me…” turns 43.
In celebration, here are all nine of her iconic albums ranked, from great to greatest of all time (not you, Britney Jean).
9. Britney Jean
The silver lining in the cloud that is Britney Jean is that its conception will one day make for a phenomenal documentary. Arriving at the height of Britney’s conservatorship and a point where her creative control was entirely removed, the largely dismal Britney Jean is without doubt the lowest point in her discography – if you can even consider it to be one of her albums.
At the time of its release and in the decade that has followed, the album has been mired with fan allegations that the majority of the lead vocals aren’t even Britney’s, rather that of her backing singer, Myah Marie. Marie has never confirmed the rumour, and Britney’s team have denied it, but others who worked on the album have heavily implied the fan theories to be true.
Britney Jean lore aside, the album is just, well, bad. The overbaked, robotic EDM of “It Should Be Easy”, “Tik Tik Boom” and “‘Til It’s Gone” could’ve been released by any generic pop singer, and while Will.I.Am was left in charge as an executive producer, it sounds more like AI held the reins on these tracks.
The more “emotive” songs on the record – Britney once said, likely not by choice, that Britney Jean was her most “personal” album to date – drown in their own soupy sentimentality. The cloying “Hold on Tight” is more acid reflux than heartbreak, while “Perfume” – admittedly one of the better songs on the record – is let down by the clanger of a lyric: “I’m gonna mark my territory.”
The highlights are very few and far between, but they do exist. “Work Bitch” is Britney’s most eccentric lead single to-date, and it feels impossible that it was created for any reason other than to dominate queer club playlists for years to come. ‘Passenger”, written by Katy Perry and Sia, appears to have an ounce of authentic emotion in the vocal delivery (be it Britney’s or Myah Marie’s), while “Alien” has become something of a fan favourite.
8. …Baby One More Time
As the home to debut single “…Baby One More Time”, it’s impossible not to give the eponymous debut album respect where it’s due. More than 25 years on, and there is yet to be a first single as formative as this one, both in terms of the popstar it helped to create and the way it informed the pop landscape for years to come.
Thankfully for Britney, the follow up singles also had their moment in the sun, particularly “(You Drive Me) Crazy”, a balls to the wall melodrama featuring a thundering electric guitar, a chaotic cowbell, and a chorus that plays as though it’s being chanted by the cast of Glee. It’s wild, but it works.
The above singles are …Baby One More Time at its fiercest; much of the rest of the record is sugary, adolescent pining that, while extremely of the late ‘90s era and still extremely charming, doesn’t translate as well 25 years on. The very best of the bunch is obedience ode “Born To Make You Happy”, an ethereal mid-tempo number that exposed Britney’s vulnerable side for the first time.
Britney’s distinct vocals carry the middling second half, though even her signature purr isn’t enough to salvage the record at its most antiquated, i.e. “Email My Heart”.
7. Britney
She said it best herself: on Britney, she’s not a girl, not yet a woman. Her third album sits comfortably between the pop hits made by a teenage superstar on Oops!… I Did It Again (“Lucky”, “Stronger”) and the sensual erotica of In The Zone’s “Breathe On Me” and “Touch of My Hand”.
Lead, sweat-soaked single “I’m a Slave 4 U”, written and produced by Pharrel Williams and Chad Hugo duo The Neptunes, is the emblem of a teen starlet coming of age and realising that which has been used against her – her sex appeal – can also become part of her pop star power. Similarly, “Boys” sees Britney swap playground crushes for dance floor dalliances. It’s our first glimmer of the Britney Spears we know today.
The candyfloss pop of her first two records is still present on Britney, though production-wise it’s more knowing and purposeful. Britney’s vocals fizz on “Anticipating”, a Control-era Janet Jackson meets S Club 7 bop that injects a shot endorphins right in the record’s middle, while “That’s Where You Take Me” is a rush of youthful naivety that reminds listeners that she was still just 20-years-old when the album was released.
The record’s nucleus though is the prophetic and often overlooked “Overprotected”, a thumping pop track that writhes with frustration. “I’m so fed up with people telling me to be someone else but me,” she growls, eerily foreshadowing quite how much her own narrative would be stolen and manipulated as her career grew.
6. Femme Fatale
The Femme Fatale era was a mixed bag, to say the least. There were extreme highs: Kesha-penned hit “‘Til The World Ends” remains, more than ten years on, a near perfect pop song and one of the most euphoric moments in Britney’s discography. The Maya Doomsday Calendar predicted the world would end in 2012, but after hearing this nihilistic bop, Mother Nature decided to hold on for a few more decades.
The rest of the EDM-heavy record has many moments that, if not equally as strong as “‘Til The World Ends”, are close. The record brims with sexual tension, with a number of the tracks, including sun-baked oddity “How I Roll”, the fizzy “Inside Out”, and dubstep earworm “Trouble For Me”, landing as some of the coolest Britney has ever released. The production, while very early-2010s, is led by some of the gamechangers of pop: Max Martin; Shellback; Rodney Jenkins; Stargate. There’s a lot to love.
It’s not all good, though. The generic “Trip to Your Heart” should have been left on the computer, while the Will.I.Am-assisted “Big Fat Bass” is almost comically bad – though Will.I.Am isn’t exactly known for having done wonders for Britney’s albums. The record’s lowest point, though? Sabi’s penmanship on “(Drop Dead) Beautiful”, which features this stinker: “Got me kind of hot, but I ain’t sweatin’ you. Steamin’ like a pot full of vegetables.”
Plus, there’s an undercurrent of sadness listening back to Femme Fatale. Released in 2011, it falls within a period defined by Britney stans as the “Robotney era” – where Britney, evidently depleted of energy by her ongoing conservatorship, appeared entirely vacant during interviews and in performances. In an advert for a Good Morning America appearance, she appears lifeless as she, ironically, says how excited she is to perform on the show. The clip frequently goes viral because of how uncomfortable it is.
When it comes to the music, Femme Fatale gets a solid B. Yet the vibes? Very, very off.
5. Oops!… I Did It Again
There is something so deliciously apt about the title of Britney’s sophomore album, considering the pressure on her to replicate the success of her debut was so astronomically high. It was a ballsy move to proclaim she “did it again” before the album had even been released, but she had every right to be confident: it went on to chart at number one in two-dozen countries.
The songs on Oops! are ballsier, too. The lead single and title track take the adolescent yearning of her debut single “…Baby One More Time” and flip it on its head, as she steps brazenly into the role of the femme fatale. Max Martin’s jittering early noughties production envelopes much of the record, but with more grit than was evident on her debut. Lyrically, too, Oops! has more fight than …Baby One More Time, with third single “Stronger” arguably becoming the song to define her bouncing back from her darker, later years.
There are still moments of innocence littered throughout, with the likes of “Dear Diary” and “When Your Eyes Say It” being saccharine, tweeny psalms about first love, carried by pillowy production. But it’s fan-favourite “Lucky” – a story about a Hollywood starlet being quietly crushed under the weight of her own fame – that proves that even then, at age 19, Britney was far more knowing about her superstar status than she let on.
4. Glory
Despite being over eight-years-old, Glory is Britney’s most recent album. It’s a sad reality due to her highly-publicised battle for freedom from her conservatorship, though there is a plus side: if Glory is her last music release, at least she bowed out on a career high.
It would be understatement to say that Britney fans were concerned about Glory ahead of its release, considering it was following the panned Britney Jean and, ahead of its release, rumours swirled about Britney’s creative vision being tampered with (lead single “Make Me…’ had its original music video scrapped, and the album’s cover was changed last minute – though a new version was issued in 2020). Yet their worries were unnecessary, as Glory is Britney’s freshest work since Circus.
Glory benefited greatly from the introduction of new collaborators, including prolific singer-songwriter Julia Michaels and Spice Girls songwriter Mischke Butler, who seemed to align with Britney’s creative vision. “Make Me…” has the breathy sensuality fans knew and loved, without it sounding contrived at that point in her career. “Do You Wanna Come Over?” is one of her most bombastic songs to-date, embellished with terse guitar strums, a call and response chorus and, brilliantly, the sound of a can tab being cracked. “Better” is a sun-soaked, could’ve-been summer hit, and “Just Luv Me” is a moody R&B that wouldn’t be entirely out of place on Blackout. Even the bonus tracks are – mostly – bangers: the zippy and frankly strange “If I’m Dancing” is an oddball highlight.
Glory is varied in sound, style and direction, putting it way out there as one of the more experimental records in Britney’s discography. There are a few lacklustre results though, including the ironically forgettable “Hard To Forget You”, boring French-language closer “Coupure Électrique”, and the irritatingly jazzy “What You Need”.
3. In The Zone
In The Zone is effectively a highlight reel of Britney’s career. “Me Against The Music”, featuring Madonna, is the blueprint for pop diva collaborations – there would be no Shakira and Rihanna or Gaga and Beyoncé without it (ironically, “Telephone” was actually written for Britney). Few artists have had a chance to collaborate with the Queen of Pop Madonna, and virtually none have done so just five years into their career. Yet every Queen needs a Princess.
“Everytime” is a crushing outlier in Britney’s supercharged discography, exposing her vulnerability – and impeccable yet undervalued songwriting skill – in a despairing four-minute plea for a broken heart to mend. Then there’s “Toxic”, a song so instantly recognisable that those contorted Bollywood strings in the intro act as a call-to-arms for gay men internationally. It’s the jewel in her crown of hits, and the very best of her out-and-out pop songs.
Yet In The Zone is made by the slinky, sultry duo “Breathe On Me” and “Touch of My Hand”, which heralded in Britney’s following era, Blackout. Never have Britney’s vocals been so breathy, so silky, so intimate, and her lyrics been so effortlessly and authentically risqué. She’s got a song about threesomes (2009’s “3”), yet nothing comes close to the sexy simplicity of: “We don’t need to touch, just breathe on me.”
While some of the record’s tracks aren’t quite as good as the others – “(I Got That) Boom Boom” and “The Hook Up” feel particularly out of place – In The Zone is one of few albums that feels almost completely within Britney’s creative control.
2. Circus
Sixteen years on, and it’s a wonder how Circus was ever made at all, let alone made to such a high standard. It was recorded during the fallout and recovery of her depressingly public breakdown in 2007, and released as a supposed “comeback” – yet Britney was still ensnared by her conservatorship and being hounded by the public and press. Following her performance of “Womanizer” on The X Factor UK, the show’s broadcaster ITV would go on to mock the star as a “baldy” who was “away with the fairies” on its show Harry Hill’s TV Burp. Effectively, she was set up to fail before the album was even released.
Yet fail she did not. Circus not only bagged the top spot on the Billboard top 100, but it housed some of Britney’s most eclectic work to date. The woozy “Blur”, trippy “Mannequin” and uber-horny “Lace and Leather” course from funk to trip-hop, R&B to straight up dance pop with ease, while the dewy ballad “Unusual You” is an unexpected highlight.
That’s without mentioning its biggest hits: “Womanzier” is almost hypnotically catchy, “Circus” is the album’s dizzying centrepiece, and the punchy “If U Seek Amy” is so unabashedly debauched that it had housewives globally clutching their pearls – always a win for pop music. The album’s ring leader-themed carnality also paved the way for the best album cover, tour, and music videos of Britney’s career.
It’s a mammoth shame that the record’s most gut-wrenching song, the Lady Gaga-penned “Quicksand”, was relegated to bonus track status though, while the inclusion of Blackout song ‘Radar”, included on the track list as a contractual obligation yet shockingly released as a single, is a small stain on the Circus legacy.
1. Blackout
“It’s Britney B**ch” declares Britney on “Gimme More”, the sweltering opening track of her fifth, and best, album Blackout. The rest is pop culture history.
It’s difficult to overstate how much Blackout has come to define the pop music of today, but it’s easy to hear it. The rattling, woozy synths of “Piece of Me” would go on to pave the way for Gaga’s Born This Way era goth-pop, while its lyrics – about press intrusion, body image, and commercial success – are arguably the blueprint for Charli XCX’s 2024-defining Brat.
The aforementioned “Britney B**ch” branding exercise undeniably led to Kim Petras’s “Woo, Ah!” Tove Lo’s “Oh Oh”, and Gaga’s use of her own name in several of her songs’ hooks. It’s no wonder so many of today’s pop stars – Sam Smith, Tinashe, Charli – have admitted to being inspired by the album, as Blackout sounds fresher today than ever.
Bloodshy & Avant and Danja lead on the production, which veers between choppy, brash EDM beats and warbled eurodance synths, while Britney is vocally at her most commanding. Across 12 tracks (on the standard edition) she manages to bottle both the tumultuous period in her personal life, and the media and public’s gossip-riddled response to it, and turn it into a potent pop elixir that feels both of its time, and of the future.
The world hasn’t seen a pop album quite as exhilarating since.
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