It's time to kick this addiction

"Blackout," the new album from Britney Spears, is as intoxicating as a snort of high-grade white powder. Like that nightclub indulgence, it's an expensive ride, crafted by a team of top producers exploring the outer reaches of cybernetic pop. Its dazzling studio effects, rhythmic reconstructions and vocal shape-shifting drag the listener in, as each song elaborates on the power of desire and desirability. It's hard to resist.

But maybe it's time to start just saying no.

Since it leaked online a few weeks ago, "Blackout" has been receiving buzzy attention. A few reviewers have trashed it, but most have called it a comeback. Spears' musical presence on the album may be minimal (dance-pop notables including Keri Hilson, Europop darling Robyn and L.A.'s own Nicole Morier shore up her vocals throughout, and Spears has just two deeply buried writing credits), and her public behavior remains cause for concern, but apparently that doesn't matter. The music's fun, the beats are fresh and the Spears that "Blackout" promotes isn't a person anyway but a publicly traded fantasy. Cynicism clearly outweighs compassion when it comes to poor, sad Brit.

The public agrees that Spears is a product worth purchasing. "Blackout," which was released Tuesday, is expected to chart at No. 1 next week, moving about two-thirds of the 527,000 units Carrie Underwood did the week before. This even though, beyond a sleepy and rather sad phone-in appearance on Ryan Seacrest's KIIS-FM radio show Wednesday, Spears isn't promoting the release. Maybe she's too caught up in the loss of her kids in a custody battle; maybe (even this seems possible with her) she really doesn't like "Blackout" all that much.

After all, it's not really her album, is it? It's one thing to recognize the fluid collaborative process that has made for great music since the days of disco, and jazz before that. It's another to blithely dismiss the importance of the figure who carries that music forth into the world. Spears is listed as executive producer of "Blackout," and the Wall Street Journal reported that it earned her a nearly $4-million advance. So the idea of Britney it presents must have some relation to her own idea of herself.