Britney's Blackout

Whenever did Britney Spears find the time to record her first album in four years? Since In the Zone was released in 2003, she's been busy getting married, divorced, giving birth to two children, driving dangerously, losing custody of those two children, shaving her head and marauding knickerless around LA's hottest nightspots.

To judge by her performance of one of her new songs, Gimme More at the MTV Video Music Awards last month - not so much phoned in as sent by carrier pigeon - her music career seems low on her list of priorities right now. Nonetheless, her fifth album, Blackout, is ready, with its release date brought forward to 29 October to counter internet leaks.

The title, according to the troubled singer, refers to "blocking out negativity and embracing life fully". Sounds promising, Britney. But is Blackout any good? And will it be enough to put her back on her feet again? Well, it's difficult from my supervised preview of five tracks even to discern the extent of her involvement.

The vocals on the moody electronica of Radar are heavily digitally treated, so robotic that they could be anybody. And the lyrics of a pounding synthpop number, Heaven on Earth, are so generically loved-up ("Look at you and what I see is heaven on earth/I'm in love with you") that, knowing what we do about her catastrophic personal life, they just don't ring true.

Over the icy synth riffs of Break the Ice she plays the sex kitten once more, past hints at innocence long vanished as she sings, "Can you rise to the occasion?/I'm patiently waiting/'Cause it's getting late and I can't get enough".

But Piece of Me is the only new song that specifically relates to her own life, and thus is the track that will get all the attention. "I'm Miss American Dream since I was 17," she purrs over edgy electronics, before quoting her own headlines with lines such as "She's too big now she's too thin" and "Oh my God, that Britney's shameless". Yet unlike, for example, Michael Jackson's Scream, another song dealing with tabloid notoriety, she sounds emotionally indifferent throughout.

Blackout will be praised for having a more coherent sound than her previous albums but the sleek, digital pop backdrop she has been given is all surface. As with much about Britney these days, it sounds like she doesn't care.

NEW ON THE NET

• Keane have been extra busy with charity work recently, not only organising a War Child benefit gig at Brixton Academy on 1 November but also selling a new single as a download to benefit the organisation. The Night Sky will be on sale only at www.warchildmusic.com from Monday.

• Tipped to be the next band to do a Radiohead and sell an album over the internet without a record label, Oasis dip their toes into the water when they release their first download-only single, raw, stomping rocker Lord Don't Slow Me Down in download stores on Monday.

• While Radiohead may be virtually giving their album away, the Charlatans really are offering theirs for free, starting with new single You Cross My Path. It'll be downloadable for nothing at www.xfm.co.uk on Monday.

Classical's boost from the gamers

Call the Geek Police! The South Bank will be swarming with them on Monday, their eyes squinting from their first exposure to sunlight in many months, when Video Games Live comes to the Festival Hall. A huge worldwide draw since its first ever performance in front of more than 11,000 people at the Hollywood Bowl in 2005, it seems lots of people want to hear their favourite computer game theme tunes played by an orchestra.

With big-screen footage from dozens of games old and new, lasers, and actors pretending to be some of the better known characters, there are segments for anyone who has ever played a video game. As well as the theme from the shoot-em-up Halo, there's Donkey Kong, Tetris and Frogger.

Richard Jacques, a London-based composer who will be performing his theme from adventure game Headhunter, as well as his medleys of music from classic arcade games and the Sonic the Hedgehog series, talks up the significance of his oft-teased field.

"In the early Nineties the music was incredibly limited in games," he tells me. "But in 2001 I was the first person to record a live orchestra at Abbey Road for a computer game soundtrack, and that's now commonplace."

In fact, film scores are a doddle in comparison. "A film is linear whereas video games are interactive, so the music has to react to anything a player could possibly do at any given time. It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle."

Video game themes are also encouraging youngsters to take their first steps towards an appreciation of classical music. The Video Games Live team publish the scores of games and offer them to school bands in the US. "Teenagers who would generally shy away from anything by, say, Stravinsky, are being exposed to what is essentially accessible contemporary classical music."

But nobody dresses up as Super Mario at the Proms. "It's good fun, it's different and I promise you it's not as geeky as it sounds." In any case, anything that gets these kids out of the house for a bit of fresh air has got to be a good thing.