Less fallen star, more human
“Femme Fatale,’’ Britney Spears’s new album, marks the first time I’ve been able to listen to her without thinking of her formerly bald head. Its songs don’t summon memories of Spears snarling as she jabbed an umbrella at invasive paparazzi. It doesn’t even remind me of her Boston concert in 2009 when she didn’t sing a single note live and marched across the TD Garden stage with the heart and soul of a robot.
The album, which will be released on Tuesday, doesn’t present Spears as damaged goods, which is what most of us consider her ever since that dubious day in 2007 when she shaved her head in a hair salon. That visual, of a pop star leveled by the very machine that built her up, circulated around the globe and trumpeted the demise of Spears as the ultimate fantasy. She was suddenly very real; she might be a slave for you, but be prepared to lug her baggage.
To say Spears sounds like a shell of her former self on this new album is a compliment, really. Taking a back-to-basics approach, “Femme Fatale’’ is pure ear candy, the sort of fluff Spears effortlessly peddled before her troubles caught up with her.
Full of slick beats and throwaway lyrics that will sound terrific on a dance floor, it’s devoid of any commentary on her notoriety — the public meltdowns, the stints in rehab, the custody battle over her two sons. With a few exceptions (“Lately people got me all tied up/ There’s a countdown waiting for me to erupt,’’ she sings on “I Wanna Go’’), there are no reactionary lyrics asking if you want a piece of Spears or songs comparing her life to a circus.
“Femme Fatale’’ suggests Spears doesn’t want to be forgotten, but she doesn’t want to be remembered for her infamy, either. Maybe that’s why the album works so well. With no agenda to push, it’s free to present Spears in search of nothing more than a good time. For the first time in ages, Spears sounds human, which, we’ve learned from her stumbles, she obviously is. Now the music is reflecting that.
It’s mindless fun, but “Femme Fatale’’ also makes you wonder if Spears can truly ever get back in the game. This is the first album Spears has released since the pop cosmos officially aligned with Lady Gaga and a new crop of pop princesses who assumed Spears’s throne while she was down and out.
Like the rainbow in a box of crayons, they all fit neatly in their own molds and have carefully honed images. Gaga is the art freak with something to prove. Beyoncé is the talented hard worker who keeps her nose clean. Rihanna is the bad girl and boasts that whips and chains excite her. Katy Perry is one of the boys who just happens to resemble a retro pin-up model. Ke$ha looks like she might be sticky if you touched her.
Britney, though, is rising once again, but this time from the rubble of an image she can’t credibly project anymore. We know too much about her to believe she’s the come-hither seductress of “. . . Baby One More Time’’ and “I’m a Slave 4 U.’’ She’s aired her dirty laundry (sometimes literally) out in the open, and now it’s hard to separate her music from her drama. That explains why she wisely retreated from the public eye and has been something of a phantom superstar the past few years.
Gaga, in particular, is the anti-Britney: She’s everywhere, whether or not we like it. Every awards show presents a new outlandish outfit, every video is a milestone, every public statement is in service to a cause. She tweets, she rallies her “little monsters’’ (as she calls her fans), and she won’t go away.
Spears hasn’t been that kind of in-your-face pop star in a while. She was mostly missing in action for 2007’s “Blackout,’’ and her comeback for “Circus’’ the next year was impressive but still nowhere near the heights Spears used to scale. It’s as if she’s living in a vacuum.
That extends to her music, too. Nothing on “Femme Fatale’’ will remind you of current trends in pop music or the artists behind them. Maybe Spears learned from Christina Aguilera’s misstep with last year’s “Bionic,’’ a mishmash of styles that sounded like everyone but Aguilera.
“Femme Fatale’’ could go down as Spears’s most faceless record since she started making them more than a decade ago, but it’s also exactly what she needs right now. By refusing to revisit her past, she’s showing us she’ll likely have a future in pop music.
James Reed can be reached at jreed@globe.com. 
