Britney Spears is not the artist who drops an album without warning or the one who makes us watch them cut planks of wood for hours for no apparent reason (WTF, FRANK OCEAN).  Call it old school but Britney does it the traditional way: with teaser clips, lead singles, Kimmel pranks and cover reveals. This is OK. We can’t all be Beyoncé.

When Britney released the single Make Me last month, I wrote that it was the first time in a long time that I was excited for a new album from her. Well, she revealed yesterday that we don’t have to wait long. The full album, Glory, is coming on August 26th.

 

 

I’m going to ignore the fact that “Glory” immediately makes me think of the Oscar-winning Common and John Legend anthem or the Oscar-winning Denzel Washington movie of the same name. Britney’s Glory probably won’t win an Oscar but I’ll still f-ck with it.

So here’s what we know so far: Britney is calling this album the “beginning of a new era.” Drama has left Britney alone for a while now. She seems to be embracing being single. She’s got a hit song and a successful Vegas run. According to an exec at RCA Records, there are 4 or 5 more hit songs coming. She’s stable. She’s healthy. She’s got a gig lined up at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in September. Britney has been steady for so long now that back in May, Lainey wrote about whether she is finally ready to handle her own sh-t, get out from the care of her guardians and be a grown-ass woman.

She spent two years on this album. She actually sounds passionate when she talks about it. But the problem with Britney since her glory days is that, aside from small glimpses of her former greatness, she just doesn’t seem like she wants to be performing. Can she handle an arena tour or a gruelling album promo schedule? I really hope she can. Especially, if she’s going to give us more hilarious sound bites like that time she forgot she met Taylor Swift. Twice. 

Glory will be available on Apple Music but if you pre-order the album, you get to hear her new single Private Show, which she teased with this perfume ad. The song isn’t as strong as Make Me but goddamn, does she look INCREDIBLE.