Her appeal with listeners on radio is waning, too. Tom Poleman, program director for Z-100 in New York, perhaps the most influential Top 40 radio station in the country, said his station played the sultry 2001 single "I'm A Slave 4 U" fewer times than any of her previous singles. "We played it, but it didn't have as much staying power," he said.

Brandon Holley, the editor in chief of Elle Girl, said she gets e-mail from hundreds of teenage readers about Ms. Spears, whom the feminist author Camille Paglia once described as "Lolita on aerobics."

"They are really tired of that sausage-casing look, that busting out all over the place, and they are very anti-midriff right now," Ms. Holley said. "It's a Britney backlash."

It is a pop-star crisis shared by a number of her peers, including Christina Aguilera, 'N Sync, the Backstreet Boys and a host of Britney clones, as they try to make the often hazardous shift from teen idol to adult superstar without alienating their loyal fans.

"The teen pop thing is mostly synthetic," said Jonny Podell, a co-founder of Evolution Talent Agency, which represents Ms. Spears and other young stars. "The majority don't get to the next level." Finally we recognize this small matter. Next the inevitable comparison to "grittier" singer-songwriters:

Ms. Spears has been challenged by a raft of grittier teenage singer-songwriters who play guitar and wear dime-store T-shirts and ties instead of snug bustiers.

Dubbed the "anti-Britneys," they include the tough rocker Pink, the soulful Michelle Branch and the skater girl Avril Lavigne, young women who eschew the overt yet out-of-reach sexuality Ms. Spears has cultivated. Ms. Holley said Ms. Lavigne and Ms. Branch in particular have replaced Ms. Spears among her readers.

The writers seem to revel in the difficulties Spears and teen idols in general face, as though it were retribution of some kind. This mean-spirited agenda is unworthy of the nation's premier paper.