Let's go back to 2011. It was January, and the Army was freaking out over a leaked demo of Britney's alleged new single sang by Bonnie McKee. It wasn't long before the queen took to twitter to confirm that it was indeed her new song that leaked, and on January 10 the song had its grand premiere on Ryan Seacrest. ATRL had changed it's banner to Britney's new single cover.
The album's lead single, "Hold It Against Me", debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, with first week sales of 411,000. She beat the previous record for most downloads in a first week by a female artist, as well as most radio plays during a first day, registering 619 plays on Mediabase and 595 plays on Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems (BDS). As of June 2012, "Hold It Against Me" has sold 1,520,000 paid digital downloads in the United States.
The music video was released to great scrutiny, as it included a male body double, impersonating Britney in several scenes. Prior to its release, team Britney teased the video, showing dance scenes, showing what seemed to be the return of pre-breakdown Britney. It currently has 93 million views and is close to being VEVO certified.
"Till The World Ends" leaked on March 3rd. Britney's team said it was only a demo version (a lie, as usual), and that the official version would be released the morning after on Ryan Seacrest. The song would become Spears' highest-charting song on the radio in her entire career. The song sold 117,000 copies after its first three days of sales in the United States, debuting at #20 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the week of March 9, 2011. It later peaked at #3. A remix was released, featuring Nicki Minaj and original songwriter Kesha.
Two versions of the music video were released
Britney Spears' seventh studio album "Femme Fatale", was released on March 29th to great critical reception. Jody Rosen of Rolling Stone commented that it "may be Britney's best album; certainly it's her strangest," rating it 4/5 stars. It holds a score of 67 out of 100 at Metacritic. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, with first week sales of 276k. This gave Britney her sixth debut at the top of the charts, leaving her in a three way tie for third most number one albums for a female artist, tied with Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson. It sold 432,000 copies worldwide in it's first week.
The third single would be "I Wanna Go." On the chart issue of August 4, 2011, the song climbed from number 11 to number nine on the Billboard Hot 100, making Femme Fatale the first album by Spears to achieve three top ten singles. "I Wanna Go" peaked at number seven on the Hot 100 on the chart issue of August 24, 2011. The song peaked at #1 of the Pop Songs chart on September 24, 2011, becoming Spears' sixth single to top the chart, and setting a record for the longest span of number-one singles by an artist (12 years, seven months and four days). The music video was released on June 22, and featured a more playful side of Britney.
After winning 2 moon men at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards -Michael Jackson Video Vanguard and Best Pop Video- Spears announced the 4th single from her new album would be fan chosen Criminal, despite the real fan favourite being Inside Out (several fans including me are pressed to this day ). The song peaked at #19 on Billboard's Pop Songs chart on November 19, 2011. It peaked at #55 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It went #1 in Brazil. The music video was cute I guess.
On June 16, 2011, Spears embarked on the ambitious Femme Fatale tour, where she would tour 4 continents over 6 months. The Femme Fatale Tour received positive to mixed reviews from critics. Some described it as her most entertaining show yet and praised Spears's performance, while others criticized her dancing and lack of interaction. The Femme Fatale Tour grossed $6.2 million in the first ten shows, and was included on Pollstar's Top 100 North American Tours list. This was the first time Britney toured all of South America properly.
Additionally, Britney scored another #1 by being featured in Rihanna's remix for her song "S&M".
It smashed, to be honest. When you said it was the first time Britney ever had three singles going top 10 on BBHot 100, it said it all. Besides, the tour was successful, the album sold over 2,5M and she got 3 smash hits.
Besides Criminal was liked, the fact that youtube censored the video kind hurt it but it did pretty ok. I know a lot of people who know it and like it.
