Britney Spears releases album 'Glory': What are critics saying?

Singer Britney Spears, who first rose to fame in the late 1990s with albums such as “…Baby One More Time” and “Oops!... I Did It Again,” has released a new album, “Glory,” that some critics are calling a “fantastic comeback” and “a delightful, odd triumph,” though others find it to lack "anything particularly personal" and be "generic."

Ms. Spears’ “Glory” was released on Aug. 26 and is available on various streaming services and platforms such as Spotify, unlike recent albums by artists such as Drake and Rihanna, who made their works available exclusively at first on services such as Apple Music and Tidal.

The new album is the first from Spears since her 2013 album “Britney Jean,” which was the singer’s lowest-selling in America. Other recent records include the 2011 release “Femme Fatale” and 2008’s “Circus.” 

Some critics are impressed with “Glory.” Rolling Stone writer Rob Sheffield, for example, calls it "fantastic," a "welcome comeback" that "goes back to the fizzy electro-stomp mode she does best." 

Josh Duboff of Vanity Fair writes that Spears' voice "sounds more assured and carefree than it has in some time."

"This is not a perfect album, and could probably have done with a bit of trimming in the middle," he cautions, but adds "it's an album that will delight Britney Spears fans, and very much please even those who wouldn't describe themselves as such."

Not all reviewers were as won over, however, with Jon Pareles of the New York Times writing that Spears “sounds more involved, more present, than she has in a decade … yet even with her voice upfront, Ms. Spears isn’t singing anything particularly personal.” 

And Troy L. Smith of the Cleveland Plain Dealer writes that “none of it is original or authentic … Spears' entire album feels generic and tired.”