I may still be on the library waitlist for Britney Spears’s incendiary memoir (curse you, other readers!), but the part of my heart that’s been reserved for Britney since roughly 2001 just grew three sizes: It was reported this week that Spears is collaborating with none other than Charli XCX on new music for an album that might even arrive this year?!? Could we really be that lucky?
As an unabashed Charli stan who bumped the Barbie soundtrack for entirely too long last summer (and fall…and, okay, winter…), I couldn’t be more delighted about the news that the English singer-songwriter might just be collaborating with Spears. Five-time Grammy nominee Julia Michaels is also rumored to be writing some of the songs on the album, and I, personally, want to hear them!
Granted, it probably makes sense not to expect too much from this particular album, since Charli XCX had some of her songs scrapped the last time she tried writing for Spears—for the 2013 album Britney Jean—but things are also different now! It’s 2024! Britney’s out of her conservatorship, divorced from that man who famously sucks, and (hopefully) about to give us the good musical food we crave and deserve. I would totally understand if she didn’t want to make new music, and instead spent the rest of her life posting Instagram Stories from the beach, but since it seems like she does, I am very ready for this collab. Do I even need to hear it? No. Will I blast it at every party I throw for the rest of my life? Absolutely.