If 2001's Britney was a transitional album, capturing
Spears at the point when she wasn't a girl, and not yet a woman, her 2003 follow-up, In the Zone, is where she has finally completed that journey and turned into
Britney, the Adult Woman. Like her peer
Christina Aguilera,
Britney equates maturity with transparent sexuality and the pounding sounds of nightclubs, but since she's not as dirrty as
Xtina, her spin is a little different. On In the Zone, Britney feels like the good girl next door cutting loose at college, since this is the first time she can indulge herself. She has been freed from her musical parent, Max Martin, who is absent for the first time from a
Britney Spears album. Instead,
Britney has decided to play the field and work with a bunch of different collaborators, including
Madonna,
Moby, the
Matrix, TrixsterRoy "Royalty" Hamilton,
Bloodshy, and
Avant, and
R Kelly. Since she's so determined to be a woman, not a girl, she has completely shed the sugarcoated big hooks and sappy love songs that drove her stardom, concentrating on music that glides by on mellow grooves, or hits hard with its hip-hop beats. It's all club-ready, but despite some hints of neo-electro and the
Neptunes, it doesn't quite sound modern -- it sounds like a cut from 1993, or
Madonna's
Bedtime Stories and
Ray of Light. Production-wise, these tracks are not only accomplished, they're much more varied than any of her previous albums -- in particular, the sleek feel of
Moby's "Early Mornin'," the alluring "Breathe on Me" from
Mark Taylor, and the irresistible
Bloodshy and
Avant productions, "Showdown" and "Toxic." They make In the Zone surely her most ambitious, adventurous album to date. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine