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Zero 7
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
Blackout

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 24 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 215 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Jive
Release Date: 30 October 2007
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Rock, Pop, Dance
Summary
Britney newest release includes tracks written by T-Pain and Pharrell Williams.
Also By This Artist: Britney Circus In The Zone Oops!... I Did It Again
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Observer Music Monthly
Britney has delivered the best album of her career, raising the bar for modern pop music with an incendiary mix of Timbaland's 'Shock Value' and her own back catalogue.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club)
Every song counts as markedly progressive and strange, from 'Get Naked (I Got A Plan)' (which sounds like intergalactic R&B filtered through The Cure's "Pornography") to 'Freakshow,' which gets by on little more than serpentine snaps, wub-wub bass, and Britney sounding synthetic and irresistibly at home.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly
Poetry it's not. Still, there is something delightfully escapist about Blackout, a perfectly serviceable dance album abundant in the kind of bouncy electro elements that buttressed her hottest hits.
Read Full Review >Sputnikmusic
Overall the album is consistently strong and evenly balanced between sexy club tracks and sexy pop tracks.
Read Full Review >NOW Magazine
The production is glossy and futuristic to a nearly avant-garde point, yet every song is a hit.
Read Full Review >Blender
Spears’s fifth studio album is her most consistent, a seamlessly entertaining collection of bright, brash electropop.
Read Full Review >Hot Press
For all the state-of-the-art urban production, there’s something distinctly unsavoury about Blackout. And yet, the truly bizarre thing is, the music is top notch.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
Blackout is state-of-the-art dance-pop, a testament to skills of the producers and perhaps even Britney being somehow cognizant enough to realize she should hire the best, even if she's not at her best.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone
She's gonna crank the best pop booty jams until a social worker cuts off her supply of hits.
Read Full Review >The Phoenix
Blackout may be more a tribute to the skills of the A-list producers who guided her through the disc than to any of her own talents.
Read Full Review >Slant Magazine
For every hot, of-the-moment track, though, there's something like the nonsensical 'Hot As Ice,' which was co-penned by the thoroughly talentless T-Pain and might have worked two albums ago but just sounds retrograde here.
Read Full Review >Drowned In Sound
At times the levels of raciness reach Spinal Tap levels of hilarity, as on 'Ooh Ooh Baby's' slinky Glitter Band stomp.
Read Full Review >Dot Music
Blackout is business as usual. Courting publicity more shamelessly than that infamous kiss with Madonna, Britney writhes, moans and generally gives good pillow talk for the duration of an album where crunk, glitches, squeaks and clubbed-up beats dominate.
Read Full Review >Billboard
It's defiant like a bad drunk, uncomfortably oversexed and more at home in a seedy after-hours club than a celebrity ultra-lounge.
Read Full Review >PopMatters
Right down to its utterly garish cover, Blackout is utterly disposable and ultimately forgettable.
Read Full Review >Hartford Courant
Blackout is her fifth and most hilarious record, thanks largely to the contrast between the often-brilliant musical production and Spears' steadfast insistence on taking herself seriously and expecting you will, too on songs called 'Get Naked (I Got a Plan),' 'Freakshow' and 'Why Should I Be Sad?'
Read Full Review >The New York Times
The electronic beats and bass lines are as thick as Ms. Spears’s voice is thin, and as the album title suggests, the general mood is bracingly unapologetic.
Read Full Review >Sputnikmusic
The biggest failure of these songs, and the most confusing thing about this album, are the melodies.
Read Full Review >New Musical Express
From 'Gimme More's' heavily treated vocals that sound like a sex addict's cry for help to the electro throb of 'Piece Of Me', where fembot Brit tackles the paps with laser eyes, it could really do with a few more human touches.
Read Full Review >Q Magazine
'Piece of Me' is a blast at the paparazzi, but her principle target is, inevitably, ex-hubby Kevin Federline. Not all pop stars give up their secrets so readily. [Jan 2008, p.112]
Uncut
Sighing, panting and smouldering her way throufgh a dozen digitized come-ons, she maintains the fiction of a robo-pop nymphomaniac while all around her, Rome burns. [Jan 2008, p.102]
Prefix Magazine
This album will sway neither the faithful nor the unbelievers from their positions along the borders of her stalled momentum.
Read Full Review >cokemachineglow
It wants to be danceable, sexy, and a defiant response to the media shitstorm. It's not even that danceable.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 215 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Joshua S gave it a10:
You could stick on this album at a party and dance all the way through. It is just full of songs you wanna shake to!
Victor C gave it a10:
Britney's best album yet. Very good from beginning to end.
J. M gave it an8:
Overall there are a lot of great tracks on the album, but when listening you get the feeling she just doesn't care about the music anymore.
Anonymous gave it a9:
Welcome back, Britney, we missed you! Blackout shocked me from start to finish. At first, I thought: "Oh, crap, another comeback album." But it's more. It's a defiant, in-your-face sucker punch to the media's gut. Full of catchy beats, unusual synth sounds, and fearlessly sexy lyrics, Blackout may just be Britney's best work yet. Piece Of Me, Gimme More, and Break The Ice are the best tracks, but Toy Soldier and Freakshow are well done, too.
maruz ha ha ha gave it a10:
This is a legend should sound like One of the good album welcome back Britney.
Beto A gave it a0:
Bad!! If I wolud have heard it before I wouldn't have bought it!!
Enzo P gave it a9:
Perfectly produced and sang: Spears' voice sounds amazing on beats by Danja, Bloodshy & Avant and others. Her best album so far.
