Happy tenth birthday to Blackout, which is not only the greatest of all Britney Spears albums, but one of the most innovative and influential pop albums of the past decade. It’s where America’s sweetheart changed her name to Mrs. Oh My God That Britney’s Shameless and got real, real dark on us. On Tuesday, October 30th, 2007, when the world was trying to write her off as a joke – not for the first time, not for the last – Brit dropped music way too weird for the radio, all alien and distorted, warping her Southern drawl into a surly electro-punk sneer. Within a couple of years, everybody was trying to sound like this. It’s Britney, bitch.

Read more about the dark time in Brit’s life here and what is considered by many to be her best album ever.