When "Blackout" was released, Spears' behavior in public began to clash with her image. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic stated that Spears was an artist that always relied on her "carefully sculpted sexpot-next-door persona", but for "Blackout" "those images re replaced by images of Britney beating cars up with umbrellas, wiping her greasy fingers on designer dresses, and nodding off on-stage, each new disaster stripping away any residual sexiness in her public image." Erlewine added that the album served as a soundtrack "for Britney's hazy, drunken days, reflecting the excess that's splashed all over the tabloids", while noting that the album had a coherence that the public Spears lacked.