After making headlines for everything but music, Britney Spears is back with an album industry insiders say should top the charts.
Over the past year the one-time Mouseketeer shaved her head, spent time in rehab, went through an ugly divorce, lost custody of her children and attacked a photographer's car.
And in an odd habit yielding endless tabloid references to the title of her biggest album - Oops!... I Did It Again - she kept getting photographed without her underwear.
Now Spears is hoping that the release of Blackout, her first studio album in four years, will revive her reputation.
The album has already produced "Gimme More", which topped US digital charts.
Some critics who have heard her latest opus say the album's likely success has little to with her abilities and more to do with the producers.
The New York Daily News notes all the "studio trickery" makes her sound like a "Brit-Bot" machine.
"If a blow-up sex doll could sing, this is what she'd sound like," wrote Jim Farber.
"In terms of studio trickery, Paris Hilton's album was practically 'unplugged' compared to this.
"How wonderful it is that, in the world of slick pop, even if stars can't deliver, the machine behind them still can," he said, adding that her personal woes do not mean "Britney Spears can't turn up on some slammin' new songs."
The Times of London says that Spears should "take a certain amount of pleasure in the fact that Blackout coheres far better than sprawling recent sets by fellow Mickey Mouse Club alumni Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera."
But reviewer Pete Paphides added "certain songs wouldn't have sounded too different if her vocal were totally erased."
Lyrics
A Jive Records press release reveals the album's title refers to "blocking out negativity and embracing life fully."
And the lyrics make clear references to her life.
In one song, she sings: "I'm Miss bad media karma/Another day another drama/Guess I can't see no harm in working and being a mama."
Spears is due to appear at a Los Angeles court hearing on Friday over the custody of her kids.
She and ex-husband Kevin Federline have been locked in a bitter custody battle over their kids.
Number one debut?
Geoff Mayfield, director of charts at Billboard, says Spears's album could debut at number one with sales of between 200,000 and 300,000, well down on the more than 600,000 copies sold of previous album In the Zone during its first week. The 2003 album contained the Grammy-winning song "Toxic."
Spears's first-week sales peaked at more than 1 million for her second album, 2000's Oops!... I Did It Again.
"Most artists are selling less than they did before just because the album market is down," he said.
"She's not immune to that and she's already seen an erosion of her sales from what she did when she was a teen pop star.
"Even without the adverse publicity that she's had to weather, I would have expected her to have a smaller number."
According to Nielsen SoundScan data, year-to-date US album sales are down 14.2 per cent in 2007 compared to 2006.
'What she does best'
Michael Musto, entertainment columnist for New York's Village Voice, says that while he is yet to hear Blackout he has high hopes for it "because it is what she does best."
But he does acknowledge that her "voice is one of many elements that are put together in a record by other people."
"It's a good time for her to come out with this and say 'look, I am an artist on some level and I'm not just a walking train wreck'," he said. © 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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