I was wrong about Lady Gaga’s Elle cover yesterday – it was actually for Elle America, not Elle UK. Gaga and Britney will “share” the Elle cover for January 2010 – actually they’re dueling covers, one with Gaga looking like Madonna, and this one, with Britney and her boys (I don‘t know which is which). Britney looks pretty, doesn’t she? And the boys look happy and healthy too. Of course, the additional Elle photos reveal Britney’s busted weave, but no matter. If her jacked weave is all we have to worry about, Britney is doing great. Thus far, Elle hasn’t released anything from an interview, but the blurb they have online reads like a press release written by Britney’s “team”.

A decade after her titillating debut in pigtails and a plaid Catholic school skirt, we find ourselves cheering on Britney Spears once again. There have been, of course, speed bumps in recent years—a divorce, feuds with family, a very public breakdown—but the past 12 months have witnessed a cautious yet emphatic comeback.

With Circus, her triumphant 2008 album and subsequent world tour, Britney reasserted herself as a pop music ringleader, firmly in control of the spectacle. The album is the star’s fifth to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200—making her the youngest woman to accomplish that feat. And the nearly yearlong tour, with its elaborate $50 million extravaganza featuring DSquared2 costumes (nine outfit changes a night, including Britney as a trapeze artist, a magician’s assistant, and, somewhat perplexingly, a policewoman), was among the highestgrossing concert tours in the United States last year, rivaling those of U2 and Bruce Springsteen.

With another greatest-hits record freshly arrived (and a new single, “3,” which raced up the Billboard chart), we see flashes of vintage Brit, the one we love—blond, happy, and back on top.

This is no small turnabout. Rare is the artist who can pirouette from teen idolhood to a discerning adult audience; not even Madonna, Britney’s idol, had to do that. But Britney was a teen pop princess who knew how to build an image (the virginal temptress) and sell it through videos (her 1999 breakout “…Baby One More Time”) that nimbly walked the line between sweetness and provocation.

Now, at 28, her sound is grittier (as in the throbby 2008 hit “Womanizer”) and her lyrics reveal a confident sexuality. Britney may have sung “I’m not that innocent” on her 2000 single “Oops!…I Did It Again,” but today, there’s no argument, with frank lyrics such as those on “3”: “Merrier the more/ Triple fun that way/ Twister on the floor.” The new track represents Spears’ rekindled partnership with the reclusive Swedish producer Max Martin (Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl”; Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone”), who wrote “…Baby One More Time” but hadn’t worked with the singer in more than seven years.

[From Elle Magazine]

Yes, yesterday was Britney’s 28th birthday. She celebrated in a very low-key fashion, going shopping, being serenaded to by the paparazzi and being sober. Good for her. Happy birthday, Brit, and congratulations. Hopefully, Brit stays in a sobriety and zero-insanity holding pattern for many years to come. Now we only need to get her to fix the damn weave!

To see more photos from the Britney Spears January Cover Shoot visit Elle.com.

Elle cover courtesy of The Frisky. Additional photos courtesy of Elle Magazine. For the one of Brit in the blue coat, Elle notes: “Goatskin coat with fox fur and marabou-feather trim, Valentino, price upon request, at Valentino Boutique nationwide. Studded leather pumps, Christian Louboutin, $995.” All photos by Carter Smith.