Britney Spears’ new album, Blackout, appears to be getting slightly mixed reviews.

Although the album has yet to be released, it has had some preview
listens and it has been well-received by most of the media outlets that
have reviewed it. Times Online[14]. Entertainment Weeklygave the album a B+ rating and praised the album as "a perfectly
serviceable dance album abundant in the kind of bouncy electro elements
that buttressed her hottest hits."[15]. The New York Daily News
review was less than favorable, noting the overwhelming presence of,
"studio trickery", making her sound like a "Brit Bot". "If a blow-up
sex doll could sing, this is what she’d sound like," wrote critic, Jim
Farber. "In terms of studio trickery, Paris Hilton’s album was
practically ‘unplugged’ compared to this."[16]
Pete Paphides wrote, "certain songs wouldn’t have sounded too different if her vocal were totally erased."[17] was the first to review the album, giving it a 4 out of 5 star rating.

Britney Spears as a singing blow up sex doll does have a certain force as a mental image. However, The Guardian is rather more supportive. Not often that a pop album is the subject of a leader:

Stockbrokers have a term for a share that has been pummelled nearly to
death: "oversold". It is a nice euphemism; neither ignoring past
misfortunes nor ruling out the possibility of more to come, it merely
says, enough already. In the pop market, Britney Spears has definitely
been oversold. Ignore, if you can, the bear-baiting that constitutes
this twentysomething’s personal life; forget those lamentable videos.
The new album, as today’s Film & Music section points out, is often
brilliant. And what is most brilliant is its musical risk-taking. This
is pop, all right, but pop taken down a dark alley and given a
frightful scare. Synthesisers are distorted, vocals are so heavily
treated they are almost unrecognisable, and at one point there is what
sounds disconcertingly like a rooster. This could make for sales
success, but it is nevertheless something of a gamble, relying on
relatively unknown producers. This is not what major pop stars are
meant to do, especially not those going through personal turmoil. It is
as if Dan Brown had written a thriller about tax hypothecation, or Jack
Vettriano had come over all conceptual. Category-jumping is not common
in the arts. Highbrows sometimes make for the mainstream – Helen
Fielding wrote her first novel about Africa before finding fame with
Bridget Jones – but the traffic does not usually go the other way. Pop
is almost unique in having commercial successes who go on to use edgier
sounds. In a small way, Britney Spears continues that long, chequered
tradition.