Posted by Christopher R. Weingarten on 03/11/2011 at 5:45 PM News

The Popdust Files: britney spears, Femme Fatale

You want a piece of her? Today, Britney’s seventh album, Femme Fatale, slinked its way onto the internet—well before its official March 29 release date. With every illegal download and secret unzip comes answers to all the questions that fans had on their mind: Does Britney still have it? (Sure.) Could there possibly be any lyrics cornier than the ones in “Hold It Against Me” (Surprisingly yes.) Is the will.i.am-produced “Big Fat Bass” about the sound or the fish? (Undetermined.)

Critics have been manically blogging their first impressions all day. Thankfully, it looks like Britney can put her crazy umbrella away and breathe a sigh of relief—things have been looking pretty positive!

Popjustice was downright rapturous in its praise, calling it “basically brilliant” in a 1,000 word review, praising it for capturing the spirit of Blackout, for flirting with dubstep in a non-pandering way, and delivering even the corniest lines with an Oops-era joie de vivre. “No crap songs,” writes Popjustice. “And that, really, is all you need to know.”

New York called it “appealingly odd,” saying the singles are serviceable, but preferring its stranger, more experimental (read: not by Dr. Luke) tracks and especially singling out the glitchy, Robyn-styled outlier “How I Roll”: “It’s a charmingly cracked-out nursery rhyme—simple and cloying, and with some limerick-level lyrics about tequila. It’s the sort of song that rewards people who still listen to albums as albums: something you would never hear on the radio, but is a likable curiosity. To our ears, that’s the first such song in Britney’s entire oeuvre.”

The usually upbeat and terse OK! gushed at some early tastes, saying “Her main aim being to get everyone on the dancefloor… We struggled to keep our feet still.” UK celeb blog SugarScape was equally adoring: “This album is a lot more confident, experimental, and is clearly Britney having some fun with Dr Luke and Max Martin, just doin’ her thing. If you want old Britney a la …Oops! I Did It Again, then the 90s rang and they want you back. This is Britney’s new sound. Deal with it.”

Even Perez tweeted something swell: “Hit me one more time, it’s so amazing! How you shook my world and flipped it upside down! Yes, B!!!!”

Wow, does anyone have anything bad to say about this album?! Well even mined that cesspool of snark Twitter for some disparaging comments, and so far all we found was a bunch of <3 and .

Congrats, Britney. We look forward to enjoying the next 48 hours before the media turns on you again!