This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
What a difference an album makes.
Only two short years ago, Britney Spears was telling us she was “not a girl — not yet a woman.” She sure can’t sing that one with a straight face anymore. Not after she’s done the deed with Justin, spent time with Colin Farrell and Fred Durst, and spent more of the last year partying like a sorority sister on spring break. These days, if Britney were being honest, she’d admit she’s “not a girl — not yet quite as skanky as Christina’s reputation.”
On her fourth album In the Zone, however, she’s definitely closing the gap. After three albums of pubescent teen-pop in as many years, Britney is making up for lost time with these PG-rated tracks. “I was shaking my ass in the streets,” she boasts like a bad girl on one cut. “Just walked in and it’s early mornin’ / Passed out on the couch and yawnin.’ ” Of course, she’s not too tired for a little, um, dirty dancing, she tells us later: “I don’t really wanna be a tease / But would you undo my zipper please?” And if you don’t want to oblige, well, she doesn’t need you anyway, as she makes perfectly clear on one hilariously onanistic ode: “Another day without a lover / The more I come to understand the touch of my hand.” Yikes. Toss in references to going out in a “trench coat and my underwear,” that steamy video duet with Madonna and even a bit of vintage Lauren Bacall (“Just put your lips together … and blow”) and you start to think that Zone in the title is an erogenous one.
But even though Britney wants to be yours tonight, she still wants you to respect her in the morning. And she clearly wants to use these dozen cuts to generate some musical credibility. That, one presumes, is why she ditched the staccato-synth Max Martin dance-pop of her early days for more cutting-edge hip-hop and club grooves. That’s why she’s enlisted more mature and respected collaborators like Moby (who produced and co-wrote the chill-out groover Early Mornin’), R. Kelly (who wrote and produced the crunktastic Outrageous), The Matrix (who crafted the swirly neo-ballad Shadow) and dance-pop godmother Madonna. That’s why she tries to push the vocal envelope on these tracks, employing everything from a sex kittenish growl to a breathy falsetto to compensate for her limited technical skills. And it’s likely why she is credited with co-writing eight tracks on this disc, more than any of her previous albums.
In the end, it’s also why In The Zone is perhaps her most intriguing and listenable album. Sure, it’s mostly a bunch of disposable dance-pop ditties loaded down with Barbie-doll come-ons and teenage bump ’n’ grind beats. But it’s still not nearly as tawdry as, say, that last Christina disc. Now and then, you even get the impression that maybe, just maybe, Britney is trying to evolve and grow as a singer and songwriter.
So OK, maybe she isn’t exactly In The Zone yet. But sometimes on this disc, she’s almost in the ballpark.
