With an infusion of R&B and electro, the pop-princess Britney Spears is back and proving she is here to stay with the release of her sixth album, Circus.

Debuting on the singer’s 27th birthday, December 2, the album has exploded onto the music scene, with pre-order sales placing it in the iTunes top 10 two weeks before its debut.

Similar to her last album, Blackout, Spears creates sultry, infectious beats accompanied by dance-pop-style synthesized and techno backgrounds. Her vocal-heavy songs differ from past albums with the layers of effects and strong singing support from studio A-listers.

With messages of the chaos of stardom, speaking out against the paparazzi, broken relationships, and feminism, Circus can be considered more than just a Madonna-style dance club hit.

Released October 15, Circus’s first single “Womanizer” had download sales in the first week that exceeded $286,000, the biggest opening week for a female artist since 2003. And Womanizer was Spear’s first number one single on the Billboard Hot 100 list since her debut with “…Baby One More Time.”

The second single, “Circus,” the title track from the album, consists of a hard-hitting beat and verses with catchy phrases such as “I’m like the ringleader, I call the shots, I’m like a firecracker, I make it hot.” The contagious track is sure to become many people’s secret pleasure.

Throughout the album Spears experiments with a mixture of her new style with her old bubblegum pop days in “Shattered Glass,” and emotional tracks like “Out from Under” remind listeners why they got hooked years ago.

Her other slow tracks such as “Unusual You” and “Baby” give a touching look into Spears’ life, a much welcomed variation from the otherwise exhaustingly non-stop tempo of the album.

With album of the year potential, Spears pleases die-hard fans with her old style while accompanying the new-era techno fanatics.