That said, Circus is worth examining for no other reason than that it is her occupational output—the mark she hopes to leave on the world. Much like her recent MTV docu-mercial, Britney: For The Record, however, Britney doesn’t reveal all that much on her latest musical effort.

“Womanizer” kicks off the album, and we’ve all heard it and it reached #1 on the Billboard charts and this is her Big Comeback Single (part deux.) It’s catchy enough, and female empowerment always lends itself to anthemic, sing-along pop, but the lyrics, even by Brit’s standards, are repetitive to the point of sounding more like a lesson, drilled into your mind, than clever lyrical wordplay. You can’t help but think that she repeats the word “womanizer” so often because she wants to be heard—she’s here, she’s back, and she will keep going until we pay attention.

And she succeeds—it’s a decent album opener. Holding our attention, you might expect the next track, “Circus,” to be a revealing pop moment in which she explains to us, the doting listener, what’s been going on in her life. Sadly, it’s not. “I’m like a performer,” she reminds us, as though we might have forgotten that her strip teases and lip-synched concerts were anything but performance “art.”

“Out From Under” succeeds in tapping into the eight-grader in all of us—you know, the part of us that wants her to go back to the way she was, a simple, pretty pop singer with a penchant for making memorable videos and ridiculous movies. (Hard to believe it’s the same girl.) If her higher-ups at Zomba Recording LLC are smart, they’ll make this the third single—a sweet contrast to the electro-drenched previous two singles (the first two tracks of the album, respectively.)

“Out From Under” also has the distinction of being the only song on the record that sounds at least somewhat organic. “Kill the Lights” brings us back into the blips and beeps and synthetic background voices that made up “Piece of Me” and much of the rest of Blackout. The album delves further into techno-land with “Shattered Glass,” which slices, dices, and breaks apart Britney’s voice, much like fragments of shattered glass. Get it?

The one other track that’s really great is “Lace and Leather,” which is both thrown towards the end of the album and the record’s shortest track. But it has a great bass line and that always-catchy self-harmonization in the chorus. Even if you’re weary of all the electronic-pop, don’t skip over this song. It even has an awesomely cheesy guitar riff in the bridge.

Circus is a perfectly decent pop album with enough catchiness and dance beats to provide the soundtrack for your next party. Problem is that maybe a little introspection would do nicely—and not just the false romanticism of, say, “Unusual You.”

Britney seems to lack the self-awareness that makes a good album great, and even one track in which she acknowledges the latest twists and turns her life has taken would have been welcome and memorable. Circuses don’t have to be all flash and pizzazz, you know.

The new Britney single should have come out this past Monday, but it didn’t. Britney wanted to work on it a little more, so the official release is on hold until next Monday, September 29th. I’m really hoping that it’s just some fine-tuning and not, you know a total do-over.

It’s not usually a good sign when release dates are pushed back, in either the music or movie worlds; it usually means that the work’s audience didn’t respond well and the producers/filmmakers have a lot more work to do, all while scrambling to meet some sort of deadline. Pull through, Britney. And, uh, don’t get back together with K-Fed. Please.