AMG Review of Femme Fatale

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

Starting with Blackout, Britney Spears began to slip into the background on her own records, a progression that continued unabated on Circus and finds some kind of culmination on 2011’s Femme Fatale. Essentially a cleaner, classier remake of the gaudily dark Blackout, Femme Fatale is a producer’s paradise, each cut decked out with stretched vocals, glassy keyboards, and insistent beats, all coming together in hyperactive arrangements that shift every five seconds. It's a sonically stylish album, driven by sound and given shape by Britney's hypersexual lyrics.