Review: Christina Aguilera – Bionic

June 10th, 2010 by Jere / Comment on this post

Bionic, the fourth album by Christina Aguilera, has been at least two years in the making, and that’s just bad timing. Any other time, two years would be nothing, despite the four years between this and her last album, the two-CD Back to Basics. Any other time, a double album would tide over the masses long enough to make this gap excusable. Unfortunately, this album’s been released at a time when it will be compared to the hottest artist in pop music today, whose outfits and aesthetic share similar ideas. Thankfully, some of the music is high enough quality to make any trends and comparisons irrelevant.

Comparisons are nothing new for Aguilera, who started in Britney Spears’s chart-busting shadow, but those comparisons were never artistic. Next to Spears, Aguilera always came out ahead, critically, for having a great voice. It was a bad sign though, when her new video for “Not Myself Tonight” was compared to similarly audacious fare by reigning pop queen Lady Gaga. Bionic has been in the works since 2008, before Gaga really broke out, a time when Aguilera could honestly tell the LA Times, “I’m not quite sure who [Lady Gaga] is.”

In 2008, the future/robot imagery employed by Bionic might have been slightly ahead of the curve. In 2010, though, it comes off as a catch-up record, even if it isn’t. With Janelle Monae touting Metropolis as an influence and Gaga’s “Bad Romance” video, with its angular fashions, having taken over the world, Bionic comes off as late to the party. It doesn’t help that, individually, songs bear too much of a mark from their collaborators, making Aguilera, her haymaker of a voice as fantastic as ever, a bit faceless in the proceedings. So “Elastic Love” comes off like Aguilera covering an MIA song. It doesn’t help that some of the songs emphasize some of the worst tendencies Aguilera has always had.

With the electronic dance beats all over these album, there’s a distinct lack of swing to the proceedings. Aguilera succeeds in being the half-robot on the album cover, right down to her sexuality having all the subtlety of a vibrator stuck on its highest setting. “Sex for Breakfast” is exactly what its title implies to an uncomfortably literal degree, while a line like “They’re only good for fruit/I need bananas” in “I Hate Boys” aches with obviousness. It’s true that, since her “Dirrty” days, there hasn’t been much sensuality to her music. Her sex songs and club bangers give R. Kelly a run for their money in raunch, but usually the music can match it in either fun (“Candyman”) or grimy (“Dirrty”). Here, the electro arrangements make the bangers feel sterile.

Thankfully, Bionic picks up significantly in its final third. Linda Perry continues to be Aguilera’s best collaborator, providing the effective “Lift Me Up.” A trio of songs co-written by Sia (“All I Need,” “I Am,” and “You Lost Me”) tie for the album’s second best. They bear the mark of Sia still on their shoulder, but they effectively show off Aguilera’s vocal skills in a gorgeous setting. Things rap up with “My Girls” and “Vanity,” two songs that strike with such confident power that they come off as sexier than any of her songs about seducing people who aren’t Christina Aguilera.

There’s a deluxe version with a few songs on a bonus disc. The mini-set is notable for being more consistent than the album proper, but for the most part it re-uses ideas that were performed better on the main disc. “Bobblehead” is some maddeningly catchy lightweight MIA, for example, but “Birds of Prey” is a chilly, Matrix-referencing track that utilizes the futuristic aesthetic better than anything on the entire album.

Much of Bionic sinks on the push and pull between the chosen future-pop aesthetic and Aguilera’s powerful voice and club-like sexuality. These elements fight throughout, not quite comfortable, so that the songs that ignore these things stick out for the better. It’s lost when trying to be ultra-modern while showcasing a voice best heard unadorned. So, when it strips aways its ideas and gets to the point, when it feels the most human, it compels. It’s no coincidence that the three Sia ballads are in a row; they flow together to make a core that ends on a more graceful note.

Like this post? Bookmark it!

Email to a friend

Your message has been sent!

Please enter a valid email.

Your email failed. Try again later.

About the Author

Jere is not from Chicago. Nor is he from Parts Unknown. But he sure loves to hear things. Follow him on Twitter!

Email this Author | All posts by Jere