Is Britney Spears Working On A New Album?

Britney Spears made a semi-return to music in 2022 by teaming up with Elton John for their collaborative single “Hold Me Closer,” which debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 2022. Still, Spears hasn’t released a full-length album since 2016’s Glory. So long as pop is a genre, there will always be a collective hunger for more Britney Spears, and there have been conflicting rumblings about a potential new album this week.

Is Britney Spears Working On A New Album?

Well, it depends on who you ask.

On Wednesday, January 3, Page Six reported that Charli XCX and Julia Michaels are involved in writing songs “for what Spears’ team hopes will become” her first album since 2016. However, “Spears has not recorded any new material yet, as the project is only starting to take shape.” (The US Sun also reported on the matter.)

Spears responded with a lengthy Instagram post that shot down not only the possibility of an album in the nearish future but also the possibility of her releasing music ever again.

“Just so we’re clear most of the news is trash !!!” Spears captained a Guido Reni painting. “They keep saying I’m turning to random people to do a new album … I will never return to the music industry !!! When I write, I write for fun or I write for other people !!!”

She continued, “For those of you who have read my book, there’s loads that you don’t know about me … I’ve written over 20 songs for other people the past two years !!! I’m a ghostwriter and I honestly enjoy it that way !!! People are also saying MY BOOK WAS RELEASED WITHOUT MY APPROVAL ILLEGALLY and that’s far from the truth … have you read the news these days ??? I’m so LOVED and blessed !!!”

That’s probably that, considering Britney Spears has the final say as to whether Britney Spears will make an album, but Rolling Stone‘s Tomás Mier added more context following Spears’ Instagram post.

According to Mier, the Page Six report has some truth to it in that, while Spears isn’t actively working on music, people around her are working aggressively to spark her interest. Read an excerpt of Mier’s report below.

“Minutes before her post, however, a source close to the Spears project-in-the-works tells Rolling Stone that the singer’s team was preparing new music to get the singer to return to the studio, but that she had not yet been ‘actively in recording.’

‘Right now, management and A&R are trying to get her excited for the music,’ the source says. ‘As of right now, she’s not actively in recording but they’re getting [songs] done to present to her.’

‘Nothing is cemented or in stone,’ they add.

Spears’ team had tapped Julia Michaels and Charli XCX as writers, producer Cirkut, and several of the collaborators from Glory, including Jason Evigan, to make songs to present to the singer, the source says. Evigan worked on ‘Man on the Moon’ and ‘Liar’ from her 2016 LP, while Cirkut produced all of Ava Max’s Diamonds and Dancefloors last year, along with Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ ‘Unholy.’

‘The hype around this is that everyone wants her to make music again, but I don’t know if she’s there yet,’ the source says, adding that both pop ballads and uptempo songs had been prepared to present to the singer.”

Ava Max and Charli XCX are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.