Rating: 2 stars (out of 4)

It takes a village to keep Britney Spears doing what she does best: Selling stuff.

No fewer than 28 songwriters and 13 producers manicured the 12 songs on “Femme Fatale” (Jive), Spears’ seventh studio album. In that respect, it is scarcely different from most of her previous albums, committee efforts that position Spears as a brand rather than an artist with potentially dangerous thoughts of her own.

In a world where Lady Gaga aspires to turn dance-pop “entertainment” into an art form, Spears is perfectly happy to let her collaborators do the heavy lifting and the heavy thinking.

To her credit, she has never pretended to approach it any other way and it has turned her into a very wealthy icon, with more than 100 million album sales worldwide since her 1999 debut. On “Femme Fatale” she doesn’t even bother to shake down a songwriting credit, preferring to let the highly paid professionals do it instead. If nothing else it only adds to her aura: That of a teen-pop heiress entrusting the hired guns to do her bidding – or to use her any way they choose so long as they keep her in the Top 10.

“If I said I wanted your body now, would you hold it against me?”

It’s got to be tough singing lines like that with a straight face, and whether Britney Spears is in on the joke or not, you’ll be hearing that limp-as-a-dishrag double entendre a lot in the next few months.

Brace yourselves. Britney Spears’ latest single, “Hold it Against Me,” debuted Monday at the Web site of celebrity shill Ryan Seacrest. (Be warned, the Seacrest leak includes gratuitous commentary from the unctuous emcee: “That is hot!” “It’s gonna be sick in the club!”)

The Britney franchise is leaving nothing to chance, enlisting longtime producers Max Martin and Dr. Luke to do their usual hit-massaging. They buff Spears’ chirpy voice until it’s just another serviceable part – distorting it, smudging it, making it skip -- in a big, gleaming machine. As usual, it’s not about lyrical insight: Britney sees Boy Toy, Britney yearns for Boy Toy, Britney seduces Boy Toy, Britney pummels Boy Toy with dancefloor beats the size of small buildings. It has little to do with Britney as a performer. As is the case with most of her recent work, she sounds bored. 

No, this is all about the knob-twisters behind the studio glass.  Martin and the good Dr. work from the ground up, with a rhythm track that grips the road like an earth-mover, rumbling the lower regions of speaker cabinets everywhere, then morphs into an ebullient disco groove. It’s one of the tougher-sounding Spears singles yet and should do the job as a dancefloor-filler for listeners who are starting to wear out on the latest singles from Katy Perry and Black Eyed Peas. Spears’ seventh studio album is due in March.

greg@gregkot.com

    Britney Spears has had a rough couple of years, if you keep up with the tabloids: multiple divorces, child-custody battles, public meltdowns, a potentially career-busting performance on the MTV Video Music Awards in 2007.

    So her “Circus” tour is designed to restore faith in the franchise, which has sold more than 80 million records in the last decade. The Britney brand was trotted out Tuesday in the first of two sold-out concerts at the Allstate Arena, and it was choreographed to kinky perfection.

    Dressed as a whip-wielding lion tamer, a baton-waving cop, a drill sergeant (do we detect a theme here?), Spears flitted on and off a three-ring stage with a cylindrical curtain in the center of the arena. Her face was often obscured by her copious hair, sunglasses, caps. She frequently turned away from the audience when it came time to actually sing, to make it less obvious that she really wasn’t. The voice coming out of the speakers was processed into a chipmunk chirp.

        As for the dancing, Spears did a lot of it, but more as part of an ensemble rather than as a featured star. She was a remote, almost robotic presence throughout the show, kept at considerable distance from her fans as if she were some exotic species of entertainer that needs its privacy; she merely had to be in the building --- and occasionally remove some clothing --- to elicit cheers.

    All the rest was distraction: showers of sparks and confetti, shooting flames, bondage-clad slaves, gymnasts, trapeze artists, clowns, a guitar-playing midget. It was a lot of … something.

    Yet this audience was rooting for the person hiding behind all that entertainment make-up. Many fans were twentyish women who undoubtedly grew up with her songs. But Spears gave them little reason to embrace her. There was no banter, no smiles, not even any close-ups on the video screen. It was as if Spears’ handlers wanted to keep her a safe distance from anything resembling a spontaneous encounter, an unexpected turn of events. God help her if Spears actually had to improvise.

    By that play-it-safe standard, mission accomplished, I suppose. But if fans go to concerts seeking a closer connection to their heroes and heroines, this missed the mark by a mile. Frankly, I wasn’t so much appalled as bored. This for tickets as expensive as $750? 

    Music? Oh, yes, almost forgot about that. It was more of a soundtrack for all the dancing, play-acting and three-ring tomfoolery on stage. Those tracks pounding out of the speakers (an actual band was tucked out of view from most of the audience in an orchestra pit) sounded just fine. Whatever one thinks of Spears as a singer (she isn’t) or a songwriter (ditto), she puts a face on some thumping, well-produced hooks that would energize any dance club: “Toxic,” the Bollywood mix of “Me Against the Music,” “Womanizer” and especially “… Baby One More Time.”   

    But Spears is a disappointing performer. She’s a prop, used to sell tickets. This may be a Britney-approved event, but Britney herself is barely there.

    greg@gregkot.com

Here’s the set list for the 90-minute show:

1. Circus
2. Piece of Me
3. Radar
4. Ooh Ooh Baby/Hot as Ice
5. Boys
6. If U Seek Amy
7. Me Against the Music
8. Freakshow
9. Get Naked
10. Breathe on Me/Touch of My Hand
11. Do Something
12. Slave
13. Toxic
14. Baby One More Time

ENCORE
15. Womanizer

Photo: Britney Spears performs at Allstate Arena on Tuesday. (Dave Shields/Photo for the Tribune)

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