YOU'VE maybe heard about Britney Spears' sort of fall-down meltdown in Las Vegas just after the stroke of the new year. What I have heard that you haven't heard is that her seeming out-of-control spiral personally might be the downbeat of major inharmony professionally. And whether the one affected the other or which one caused the other, who knows?


While in New York she was in the studio recording for Jive Records. She worked some nights until 4 a.m. laying down tracks for a new CD. She thinks it's the makings of a really great album. They don't.


Talk inside the company is that either it's redone, or they need to drop it - and her. When this recording session began, she'd just dumped Federline the Insect. It was not a good time in her life. To recharge her career, she reconnected with her long-ago first-time manager, the one who originally brought her to the heights, Larry Rudolph.


But constant headlined misbehavior is stoking the problem. Jive fears she's alienating her fan base. Their fan base. Jive caters to a young music-buyer, and the continued atmosphere - drinking, bingeing, partying, whatevering, photos with no panties for a mother of two infants - is hitting sour notes. Besides, Jive is not in sync with the five tracks Brit delivered. Conversation in their offices is: If we bear the expense of a redo, is it possible that, down the road, because of the way she's going, we could end up with a really bad product? Or one that won't sell?


The recording has stopped midway. Nothing more's been done because the company doesn't yet know what it wants to do. But that recent front page ain't helping.


I called manager Larry Rudolph, who now has the job of gluing these broken pieces back together. I got him on a beach in Mexico. He very politely said: "I don't know where your information came from, but I can only tell you we're in the middle of recording an album. And you can quote me on that."