Britney Spears

Britney Spears has reached an interesting stage in her career in which she’s set to jam pretty much all signals. Sifting through her rise, taking stock of her downfall, charting her recovery—all such exercises are too interlocking with too much at this point to make sense of. So here she is, again—a pop star with a lithe, alien voice that sounds all the more natural in synthetic settings. Spears herself even seems to understand this, if 2007’s Blackout and 2008’s Circus—are any indication. Her most recent album continues to cash in on her fame and image by placing her willowy voice in au courrant dubstep-infused playground called Femme Fatale, an album that features producing assists from factory-grade hit-makers Will.i.am, Fraser T. Smith, and Rodney Jerkins.

Updated 06/22/2011