(Cole, Jonback, Muhammad, Nelson, Lewis, Smith)
Album: Radar – Single (2008/2009) / Blackout / Circus
So nice she released it twice. “Radar” is a midtempo electropop song with a pulsing sonar where Spears plays the prowler, and she’s got her sights locked in on her man. First released as the third track on her boundary pushing album Blackout, it fits in perfectly on the album both thematically and sonically. Produced by Bloodshy & Avant along with The Clutch, Spears’s voice at points is tuned up so high it becomes part of the tech, like she is a fembot on a mission. One of the highlights of the album it’s no surprise that it was considered initially for the third, then as the fourth single from the album. Spears’s personal life was a rollercoaster ride to say the least in 2007/2008, which complicated the whole Blackout era, and despite a limited physical release in summer of 2008, plans for a wider release were scrapped. In almost every other instance, this would mark the end of any single campaign and “Radar” would have been remembered as an excellent album cut from an excellent album. But “Radar” was the little engine that could. For reasons not entirely explained to us (was it fulfilling a contractual obligation?), the song made a surprise appearance on Spears’s 2008 album Circus as a bonus track where it stands in contrast to the lighter pop sound of the bulk of the newer material. Even more inexplicable, the 2007 album cut got the single treatment in June 2009, following up three Top 20 hits selected from the standard Circus tracklist. If that wasn’t confusing enough, the glamorous, bright music video with Britney on the polo grounds seems in conflict with the darker, grungier imagery the song evokes. Regardless of its complicated history, it’s a great piece of electropop that earns its place (or multiple places) in Spears’s discography.
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