Discographies: Britney Spears' albums from worst to best
All nine Britney Spears' studio albums ranked
More than 20 years since she became "Miss American Dreams", Britney Spears is back to the top. She was finally set free from her father's conservatorship, got married to a man that seems to love her and released her first new song in six years —a duet with no less than Sir Elton John.
Hold Me Closer is… nice. It's not as good as Cold Heart, another mashup of old classics that Elton released last year, that time with Dua Lipa. And it makes me guess if Elton will try to pull a career out of recycled classics now.
Still, it's a nice and well-produced pop song, with beats that are ready for the dance floor. It will sure bring both Elton and Britney back to their place at the top of the charts. And it's awesome to see Brit back.
To celebrate this good moment, I decided to revisit her catalog, ranking all of Britney Spears' albums from worst to best. Like I did with other pop artists, in this very blog:
I must confess that I didn't use to listen to Britney's albums as a whole —just the songs that I liked. But I did for the past two weeks, so I could really have an opinion on them.
Of course, it's purely based on my opinion and it may be very different from other lists you'll find on the internet. I also asked Manoella —one of my best friends who's also a huge Britney fan— her opinion, but we disagreed.
That said, let's proceed to the list of Britney Spears' albums, ranked.
9. Britney Jean (2014)
Me, my friend Manu and 99% of Brit's fans agree on this one: Britney Jean is her worst album, by far.
To be fair, Work Bitch is a dance floor classic, Perfume is a nice ballad, and I also like Alien, that opens the album on a good note. Still, it's her worst album because… so many reasons that I'll just list them:
- We can barely hear Britney's voice with the over-processed vocals. Some say it's not even her voice that was auto-tuned on Britney Jean.
- Too much of will.i.am's songwriting —which is always of questionable quality, but seems even worse in this album.
- There's a lot of EDM, but with a more dated, less interesting production than 2011’s Femme Fatale, that was also an EDM piece.
- There are some cringe-worthy songs like It Should Be Easy, Tik Tik Boom and whatever the hell it Chillin' With You, featuring Jamie Lynn Spears.
All this is specially frustrating considering Britney stated this would be "her most personal album" to date. Still, she sounded much more personal in Piece of Me than in any song from Britney Jean.
8. …Baby One More Time (1999)
This is where me and Manu started to disagree: she evaluates Britney's début album better. It's probably because she was one of millions of teenage girls all around the world that dreamed to be Brit in her school uniform when …Baby One More Time took the world by storm.
It went straight to the top of the charts and became an instant classic. Because it's commercial bubblegum pop song? Yes. But it's a hell of a good commercial bubblegum pop song.
Its production is flawless and Britney delivers awesome vocals in it. And I'm not the only one who said that. Music specialist podcast Switched on Pop made a whole series on Britney and explained the mastery in …Baby One More Time in detail, in the first episode. It's worth the listen.
But there are more good things on Brit's début album than the title track.
There are the other singles, of course. (You Drive Me) Crazy and Sometimes were also huge hits that may be not classics like …Baby One More Time, but share most of its qualities: very catchy, well produced and great vocals.
We also have a fun song with ska flair in Soda Pop, an almost disco track in Deep in My Heart, and a vintage sound in The Beat Goes On. Born to Make You Happy, the last single released off the album, is a nice romantic ballad, with another good vocal performance.
It's very cheesy and its lyrics are over dramatic? Yes. But it's nice to listen. And it's way better than From the Bottom of My Broken Heart —that's even cheesier and lasts for endless five minutes.
It's also worth noticing that many songs have artificially exaggerated choruses —like I Will Be There. Britney's voice didn't need so much work over it —not at that time, at least. But the worst thing in Britney's début is E-mail My Heart.
It's a deeply emotional ballad… in which Britney asks her crush to… send an e-mail to her heart.
And that's the thing with …Baby One More Time. It's a classic pop album, but it's not as good as other things Britney released later. That's why I put it in 8th place, on my list.
7. Circus (2008)
I love Circus and it's one of the few albums that I already used to listen, even before writing this list.
It starts with Womanizer, one the Britney's signature songs; the title-track, that follows, is a timeless pop classic. There's also If You Seek Amy, the third single off the album, a whole song created over one pun —it's so absurd, it's wonderful. Unusual You has very interesting lyrics and its one of Brit's best romantic songs for me.
But this record also has some things that sound lackluster —even more when we compare Circus with the amazing Blackout, released one year before. Kill The Lights and Shattered Glass are both good songs, but they start with a very similar beat —almost the same song, but twice.
From the middle to the end there are many filler tracks, like Blur, Lace and Leather and Mmm Papi. I like them and listen to all of them, but I can't deny they're not as good. In the end, there's also a song that, in fact, was released with the previous record: Radar.
And that's the thing with Circus: it sounds like a less interesting, less fun version of Blackout. Is it bad? No way. It just isn't as great as other records Britney released, before and after it.
6. Femme Fatale (2011)
Believe it or not, this is Britney's most successful era, in terms of singles: Hold it Against Me hit #1 on Billboard Hot 100, Till the World Ends and I Wanna Go both reached the top 10, and even Criminal was a hit. It's also a camp classic, for me, with its lyrics.
Maybe Britney achieved so much success with this album because she went for the dance-pop sound that was all over the charts and clubs at the time. It might sound a bit dated today —even more than some albums Brit released before this one—, but it's definitely the sound of 2011.
And it's this awesome dance-pop production that grants Femme Fatale its 6th place on the list. Most of the songs on the album make you want to dance and could be singles. Yes, Britney's vocals sound very artificial and there are some bad tracks, like Drop Dead Beautiful —but, over all, it's still a very good album.
Some critics even said this might be Britney's "strangest" record. Indeed, it has some things we may be able to call experiments, like How I Roll. And this EDM production is a chapter apart in the pop princess' discography.
5. Oops!… I Did it Again
Entitling her second album Oops!… I Did It Again is something so stupid that it's a stroke of genius. Indeed, there are many things here that reminds us of the previous year's mega-hit, but in an enhanced, more mature way.
The title track and lead single, for example, follows the same verse-chorus formula, with lots of bass and almost R&B beats. The second song, Stronger, even says "my loneliness ain't killing me no more" in its chorus.
But it's the rest that makes Oops!… such a better album than …Baby One More Time. As a whole, it's a more cohesive and interesting work.
Don't Go Knockin' on My Door is an empowered break-up anthem; Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know is a heartfelt ballad with some country flair (it was written by Shania Twain and her then-husband); Lucky, with its self-referential lyrics, is another of Brit's classics. Even her Satisfaction cover falls into the "so bad it's good" category.
Other tracks like What U See (Is What U Get) and One Kiss From You aren't outstanding, but are decent pop songs —you don't feel bothered enough to skip them, like some tracks on the début album. This record also has Brit's first songwriting credit, in the album closer Dear Diary.
4. Britney (2001)
Britney's self-titled third album received mixed reviews at its release: people thought she was pushing too hard to sound grown-up.
Bullshit. This is a great album with awesome songs. Hearing it now, it's very noticeable how it works as a perfect connection between teen Britney and the adult Britney we would see in the following record, 2003’s In the Zone.
Lyrics like "All you people look at me like I'm a little girl" are a genius way to start an album about growing up. I'm a Slave 4 U is one of Britney's best songs and is a pop classic. It sets the dance floor on fire, even two decades after its release —yes we're old.
Overprotected follows, with another hint at Brit's fame and her dissatisfaction at it. I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman is a great emotional take on the coming-of-age theme of the album. Also, there are tracks like Lonely and Boys, with a nice R&B sound. Anticipating brings a fun disco flair to the album.
Even in the second part of the album —where the filler tracks tend to be hidden— there are good songs like Bombastic Love.
Of course, it's not perfect: I Love Rock 'N' Roll is another cringe-worthy rock cover that didn't need to exist. But overall, Britney is a very good coming-of-age pop album.
3. Glory (2016)
This is another item where me and my friend Manu disagreed at lot. She puts Glory second-to-last, while I think it's one of Brit's best albums.
I understand that it doesn't have classic hits like her first albums —only Make Me, the lead single, got a good position on the charts. But listening to it a lot of times, back to back, like I did to write this article, I see that it's one of Britney's most cohesive pieces of work.
From beginning to end, we have the same beats, rhythms and motifs. There are no cringe-worthy filler tracks or sounds that seem of out place. And even though we don't have classics like …Baby or Oops!, we have some very good pop songs —Do You Wanna Come Over?, Man on the Moon and Slumber Party are among them.
Britney even flirts with Spanish/Latin motifs (in Change Your Mind) and sings in French Coupure Électrique. The Deluxe Edition, released four years after the main album, brought some good new stuff, like Mood Ring and Matches, with the Backstreet Boys.
News at the time told that Britney actually had fun working in Glory. She was really involved in the production and it shows: the vocal performances might be her best in 10 years. It's great that Brit was able to stand up again after the stumble in Britney Jean, even though she was still under conservatorship. And since this is her last album to date, we can only imagine what she'll bring next.
I hope it comes soon. It's been six years and Britney never spent so much time without a release since her début.
2. In the Zone (2003)
This is one of the first albums that I bought, when I was 10 years old. And still, my parents acted surprised when I told them I was gay…
But despite the emotional connection I have with In The Zone, it's an awesome pop album, a masterclass in pop craft. Toxic, alone, is better than some entire discographies.
That podcast I mentioned earlier, Switched on Pop, also did an episode about this song, explaining its details. It's so full of strings, rhythms and vocal tricks that a specialist can talk half an hour about it. Toxic might be one of the best songs of all time.
But In The Zone isn't Britney's second best album just because of one song. In fact, all 12 songs are great in their own way —the closest we get to a "filler" is Brave New Girl, and it's still a nice song.
Me Against the Music might not be what people expected from a collaboration between the princess and queen of pop, but it's an awesome pop song—and it actually is great that they surprised us like this.
I Got That Boom-Boom is a 5-minute hip-hop with country chords, followed by Showdown, a sensual R&B with synths and guitars. Breathe on Me is one of my favorite tracks on the record, with its disco flair and sexy lyrics.
In the second half, we also have Touch of My Hand, an awesome piece of music with far-eastern sounds and lyrics about masturbation. Also, The Hook Up and its reggae flair. The album closes with Everytime, a heartfelt ballad that people say it's about Justin Timberlake —a response to Cry Me a River.
If Britney was "pushing" to sound mature in her 2001’s self-titled album, here she really is a grown-up woman. I simply love this album —loved when I was 10 years old and love it to this day.
1. Blackout (2007)
There's so much we can say about Blackout that I don't know where to begin.
Let's start saying that 2007 wasn't a good time for Britney Spears. Even today, some people say "if Britney survived 2007, you can survive today". It was that year when she shaved her head and attacked paparazzi with an umbrella. All things that led to her conservatorship and the #FreeBritney movement.
It was that time when Britney returned to the VMA's stage and people said she looked bad presenting Gimme More. Now, we all see that this track is a perfect dance-pop masterpiece. It's opening line became iconic: It's Britney, bitch!
But as one iconic song isn't enough, Blackout follows with Piece of Me. Britney produced a lot of tracks about fame and its drawbacks, but this is the best. She never sounded so honest as when she sang lines like "I’m Mrs. Oh my God that Britney’s shameless!".
Radar was so good that, when Britney couldn't release it as a single for that era, she decided to put it again on her next album, Circus, so she could release it then. Break the Ice is an understated pop classic —maybe it shouldn't have been released as a single, but it's still very good.
Heaven on Earth is a 5-minute pure disco bliss —more than 10 years before the genre made its comeback to the charts. Get Naked (I Got a Plan) is a sexy and fun song, that I absolutely love to hear.
Freakshow and Toy Soldier have a futuristic pop sound, way ahead of its time. Hot as Ice and Ooh Ooh Baby bring a lot of fun to the tracklist. The album ends on a high note with the sexy Perfect Lover and the sincere Why Should I Be Sad, about her divorce from her father's children.
The rhythms and beats we see here are beyond good.
In fact, music critics say that Blackout paved the way for the electro-pop sound that would come in the following decade. This pop masterpiece even made its way into the prestigious "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list —above, you can hear the magazine's podcast about Blackout, explaining why it's so damn good.
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