Blackout

Recording began in 2006. In July she began working with Danja, who brought in writers including Keri Hilson and Jim Beanz, and recording with them started at the Studio at the Palms in Las Vegas in August. Spears is credited as executive producer, the only one of her albums on which she is.

The release was planned for 13 November 2007 and brought forward to 25 October after the album leaked online. It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with 290,000 copies, behind the Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden, which had been ruled ineligible and then allowed after a rule change. It was her first studio album not to debut at number one, and it set the record for first-week digital sales by a female artist at the time. It reached number one in Canada and Ireland and had sold 3.1 million copies worldwide by the end of 2008. It won Best Album at the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards.

Reviews on release were mixed to positive. Pitchfork's Tom Ewing called it superb modern pop that could probably only have been released by this star at this moment, and the Guardian's Alexis Petridis called it a bold, exciting album. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone later said the industry first scoffed and then spent the next few years imitating it. In 2024 Pitchfork's Meaghan Garvey wrote that Danja stuck to beats that made Spears dance in the booth, and named Get Naked (I Got a Plan) the album's weirdest song. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame added the album to its library and archive in June 2012.