--- title: Music: Britney Spears description: Britney Spears canonical: https://time.com/archive/6665193/music-britney-spears/ author: Josh Tyrangiel article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2001-11-12T05:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-27T07:04:48.929Z article:section: U.S. og:title: Music: Britney Spears og:description: Britney Spears og:url: https://time.com/archive/6665193/music-britney-spears/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Music: Britney Spears twitter:description: Britney Spears twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Music: Britney Spears by [Josh Tyrangiel](/author/josh-tyrangiel/) Nov 12, 2001 5:00 AM CUT by [Josh Tyrangiel](/author/josh-tyrangiel/) Nov 12, 2001 5:00 AM CUT Forget the reality whiplash of Sept. 11; it was always frivolous to care about the artistic development of Britney Spears. Her promoters may call this album an evolution, but, like all things Britney, it’s no more than a successful diversion that just happens to have titillating words and groans. I’m a Slave 4 U and I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman are rebellious (but not really, silly!); Boys offers the wisdom, “Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em,” while Let Me Be and the Max Martin-produced Bombastic Love are irresistible pop. So what if it sounds exactly like her other two albums? Musical evolution will take care of Britney soon enough. –By Josh Tyrangiel ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6665193/music-britney-spears/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6665193/music-britney-spears/"},"headline":"Music: Britney Spears","datePublished":"2001-11-12T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-27T07:04:48.929Z","description":"Britney Spears","url":"https://time.com/archive/6665193/music-britney-spears/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Josh Tyrangiel","url":"https://time.com/author/josh-tyrangiel/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6665193/music-britney-spears/","name":"Music: Britney Spears"}}]}] ```