Was it Britney, or wasn’t it?
    
Two songs that sounded like new work from the revitalized pop princess circulated briefly on the Internet this week, but only one of them was real.

Less than 40 seconds of a song called “Womanizer” made its way to the Web site for Nashville, Tennessee, radio station 107.5 The River on Friday  – but it was soon taken down.

 It appeared a couple of days after ”Candy From Strangers” circulated online, with a vocal track that some commentators said sounded deceptively like Spears.

Wendy Washington, a spokeswoman for Zomba Label Group/Jive Records, said the leaked preview of “Womanizer” was a Spears song and not a fake.  It is the first single off her upcoming new album  “Circus” and is expected to be released to radio stations on Monday.

“A radio rep played a rough mix of ‘Womanizer’ over the phone for a Nashville radio station, 37 seconds of this rough mix was recorded by someone at the radio station and that is what this leak contains,” Washington said in a statement. 
     
Spears, 26, is climbing back after a public meltdown that dominated show business headlines for much of the past 18 months, but last week she won three trophies at the MTV Video Music Awards.  
    
(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)