Was it Britney, or wasn't it? Two songs that sounded like new work from the revitalised 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 website for Nashville, Tennessee, radio station 107.5 The River last week - 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 this week.

"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.

(China Daily/Agencies September 23, 2008)