Britney Spears | D

The Britney Spears we knew and loved as children is officially gone for good. After a string of unimpressive live performances, fans hoped her newest album Femme Fatale would still live up to the albums of her past. Unfortunately, it just didn't happen.

Her first single "Hold It Against Me" is a perfect bubblegum pop dance song and it is by far the best song on the album. "Till the World Ends" is also another standout dance track. "Big Fat Bass" (a collaboration with will.i.am), as well as the track "I Wanna Go," have the potential to be radio hits, but the rest of the album doesn't deliver.

Obviously every song on the album contains massive amounts of over-produced, auto-tuned vocals — most of her fans have come to accept this because her songs have always been just so damn catchy. However, Femme Fatale is not. Songs like "Inside Out" and "How I Roll" sound legitimately horrific — Spears' voice sounds even more auto-tuned than usual and they are both unexciting and painfully boring. The beat on "Inside Out" is slow and awkward, creating a huge lack of listener appeal and her lyrics aren't exactly  Shakespeare's either.

You can never count Britney Spears out of the music scene, especially after she came back with Circus after her three-year meltdown. Yet, Femme Fatale does not live up to expectations at all. She hits the mark with "Hold It Against Me" and will have commercial success with a few other songs, but as a whole the album is unquestionably below average.