Britney Spears’ ‘Circus’ Turns Five: Stan & Deliver

Name: Arjan Writes | Location: Los Angeles, CA | Twitter: @arjanwrites

2. Circus

One of the things that I love most about Britney Spears’ “Circus” is that our beloved pop princess uses the song to assert control and put herself in the middle of the situation as the ultimate pop “ringleader.” It’s as if she tells the haters, pop purists and other nagging naysayers that despite the challenges in her personal life, she’s a force to reckon with who serves up a sound and message that’s uniquely hers. Produced by the winning duo of Dr. Luke and Benny Blanco, “Circus” is a slick and hooky pop confection that introduces a grand, overarching theme that lingers throughout the rest of the album it’s named after.

Circus follows the brilliantly dark Blackout that pushed the pop envelope forward by combining bonafide pop melodies with gritty hip hop textures. On Circus, Spears abandons her music’s darker sentiment and steps out into the light with an album of royal proportions that reminds us why we fell in love with Spears in the first place.

The album’s title track embodies that exact sense of rebirth and joy. Spears is astutely aware of the media frenzy that she set off during her Blackout days, but she now wants to take back the reins and have people focus on her artistic efforts again. “There are only two types of people in the world. The ones that entertain and the ones that observe,” Spears aptly argues in the song’s first verse, followed by her confession, “Well baby, I’m a put-on-a-show kind of girl.” And there you have it. Despite all that happened, Spears is not backing away but instead she holds steady and demands the world to focus on what really matters to her: the music.