Spears' 'Circus:' Not the greatest show

Switching between late-night talk shows a few years ago, I came upon Kinky Friedman holding forth on his concept of "space takers."

As the Texas mystery novelist and satiric songwriter explained, a "space taker" is a ubiquitous somebody who occupies a far greater chunk of the cultural universe than his talents merit. People, in Friedman's view, like Garth Brooks, John Grisham, and the topic of today's discussion, Britney Spears.

Spears, in case you haven't heard, is - once again - back. Her sixth studio album, Circus (Jive **), arrives today, on her 27th birthday.

In addition, she's the subject of an MTV documentary called Britney: For the Record. And the recovering celebrity mother of two is also looking remarkably healthy on the covers of both Glamour and Rolling Stone, which she told: "I go to bed at, like, 9:30 every night. . . I just feel like an old fart!"

That candid admission of her new fuddy-duddiness comes, naturally, in the service of promoting Circus. And though it's inferior to last year's livelier Blackout, it seems poised to put Spears back on top of the pop heap.

"Womanizer," the album's spry first single, is, remarkably, Spears' first No. 1 hit single since she first began taking up space - then, to more felicitous effect - as a teen vixen in pigtails and a bare midriff with the naughty come-on " . . . Baby One More Time" in 1998.

Since then, of course, Spears' career has had more than its share of ups and downs. The . . . Baby One More Time album sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. Along with her commercial successes, Spears has made some good music, too, with Exhibit A being "Toxic," the Grammy-winning 2003 single that's equally experimental and irresistible.

Lately though, Spears' space-taking has been mostly of the celebrity nightmare - and tabloid-TV-dream-come-true - variety. Shaving her head, flashing paparazzi, sleepwalking through a performance at last year's MTV Video Music Awards, she took up more of the 24/7 news cycle than ever, even though the only product she had for sale was her train wreck of a life.

It was a tribute, then, to Spears' skills as a former child-star professional that Blackout was an effective dance-pop record, even though the album title seemed to be an accurate description of her emotional state. It also helped that she was in the more-than-capable hands of such savvy producers as Nate "Danja" Hills and Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald, both of whom are back for the serviceable (but not as much fun) Circus.

With Spears' post-K-Fed personal life ruling her public image, Blackout didn't have a chance to really succeed, by Spears standards. It sold only 2.1 million copies around the world. And the album's other handicap, commercially, was that it was free of the sappy, heart-wrenching ballads meant to bring a robo-singer like Spears down to a human level that her fans can relate to.

Unfortunately, that base has been covered on Circus. While still presenting Spears as ready for the dance floor, the album is weighed down by would-be-humanizing features such as "My Baby," the icky acoustic interlude sung to her sons, in which she weirdly confides, "I smell your breath, and I start to cry."

Spears also means to open a window to her soul in "Blur," in which she looks back on the club-hopping days allegedly behind her. When it comes time to spill the beans, however, she's forced to admit, "I can't remember what I did last night. . . . everything is still a blur."

The title song, too, promises more than it delivers. It's easy to accept the idea that Spears' life is indeed a circus, but "Circus" doesn't tell us anything about what goes on inside its three rings. "There's only two types of people in the world," she sings. "The ones that entertain, and the ones that observe."

Spears puts herself in the former category, as a former Mouseketeer who's a "put-on-a-show kinda girl." No doubt that's the case. But Circus also teases that it will tell us something substantive about its self-proclaimed "ringleader."

But Spears, whose affairs are under the control of her father, Jamie, can't convincingly command that title. And since she offers little evidence that's she paying close attention to the circus revolving around her, she doesn't offer a very revealing, or entertaining, glimpse into what really goes on underneath the big top.