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When Britney Spears set out to record her ninth studio album, Glory, in 2014, those around her noticed a remarkable shift.
“She was in complete command,” a music insider who worked with the Princess of Pop at the time exclusively tells Us.
Spears, then 32, may not have had much control in the eyes of California law — after all, she was only halfway into a conservatorship that dictated her every move for 13 years — but in the recording studio, she was nothing short of a mastermind.
“This wasn’t the Britney we saw in 2013,” the insider recalls, referencing the year that Spears released her widely panned album Britney Jean. “It was like it was 2001 all over again and she was in her prime. I couldn’t believe my eyes — or ears. She was on fire.”
From the moment Spears began conceptualizing Glory, she had a vision in mind. Early writing and recording sessions admittedly did not excite the singer, so RCA Records brought in A&R guru Karen Kwak to help shape the album’s direction as its executive producer.
“We found an amazing girl who found me the most fun people to write with,” Spears said on 103.5 KTU on the album’s release date, August 26, 2016. “Things started rolling. We made a good body of work.”
Kwak told the New York Post at the time that Spears “wanted to do things that were fresh and unexpected.” However, they agreed that the project did not need to be a complete reinvention for the singer, who launched her music career with “…Baby One More Time” in 1998 before smash hits like “Oops! … I Did It Again,” “Toxic,” “Gimme More” and “Womanizer” propelled her to a level of global superstardom that the industry had not seen since Michael Jackson and Madonna.
“It was important to everyone that it would still sound and feel like a Britney album,” the insider shares with Us, “but she had a lot of creative liberty.”
Spears ended up cowriting five of Glory‘s 12 songs (plus two more on the deluxe edition), making it one of her most hands-on projects. Even the material that she did not write had to get her stamp of approval.
“There was never a moment where she was given a song and anybody said, ‘This is a hit. You have to sing it,’” Kwak said. “Britney pursued the songs she wanted to do for herself. She came up with concepts and melodies.”
From slinky singles “Make Me” and “Slumber Party” to fan favorites “Invitation,” “Liar” and “Mood Ring,” Spears clearly was not afraid to experiment with new sounds. She even sang in Spanish and French on bonus tracks “Change Your Mind (No Seas Cortes)” and “Coupure Électrique,” respectively.
Critics immediately took note. Rolling Stone called Glory “another fantastic comeback” for Spears, noting that she had not “played around with her vocals so cleverly” since 2003’s “Toxic.” Entertainment Weekly agreed it was her “most adventurous album in a decade” and celebrated that she sounded “present and enthusiastic” again.
In the 10 years since Glory‘s release, Spears has broken free from her conservatorship and repeatedly stated that she is retired. Though she may have mixed feelings about the industry these days, the Grammy winner still looks back on her last album fondly.
“It was the one thing in the 13 years of the conservatorship that I really put my heart into,” she wrote in her 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me, also crediting “great” songwriters Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter. “I worked hard on the songs, which gave me confidence. You know when you’re good at something and can feel it? You start doing something and think, I got this? Writing that album gave me my confidence back.”
