Blackout?

Britney Spears is calling her new album - assuming it can be recorded (or, more likely, assembled by producers painfully grafting old stuff and the odd flash of coherence) - Blackout.

There's a reason, which sounds like it might have been cooked up over a bottle of Jose Carrero:

The title "refers to blocking out negativity and embracing life fully," said the star's record label Jive.

... and not, as you might have assumed, to the mornings when you wake up naked, three miles from town, with only a guava with a face drawn on it for company.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jive aren't expecting Britney to do much to help sales:

"It's not Jive's place to fashion a public-relations campaign with respect to Britney's personal issues," label spokesman Allan Mayer told MTV, "but Jive does care about her and does support her.

"There's no question that when you have someone at this level of celebrity, they become like cartoons or soap-opera characters, and we forget that they're human beings.

"People say that's the trade you make - that you have to give up your privacy or the ability to lead a normal life - but sometimes you make that bargain before you realize what it entails and it's too late."

Aha. Jive is worried about its artist, and not merely bowing to the inevitable. We wonder where its concern was when it was pushing her onto the MTV Awards show. Perhaps they'd forgotten she wasn't a "cartoon character".