Album: Bionic
Rating: 7 out of 10 / B
Christina Aguilera sings “I’m not myself tonight” on her latest album, but it’s hard to tell exactly what norm she’s deviating from. In 11 years, she’s only recorded four full-length albums, and she’s yet to develop a signature sound beyond “Damn, that girl can SING!” Which isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. More successful pop careers have been launched with voices that could barely hold a note (like Xtina’s perennial media rival Britney Spears).
This tends to work in her favor during the playtime of Bionic, though, since the album careens around to so many styles and genres that it makes the album difficult to succinctly categorize. Christina tends to fully assume the identity of her collaborators whether they be M.I.A. (the charmingly banal “Elastic Love”) or Le Tigre (the infectious, Peaches-assisted disco stomp of “My Girls”) or Sia (a handful of ballads in the center of the album). The deluxe edition—which contains the best tracks—also includes collaborations with Santigold (the pleasant dance track “Monday Morning” and the cheerleader kiss-off “Bobblehead”) and Ladytron (the lush, exotic “Birds Of Prey”).
The “girl can sing” crowd will end up disappointed, however, when they find out that Christina’s impressive belting is completely absent for at least half of the disc’s running time. Christina’s voice is always perfectly formed, although in many cases she’s happy to form it around a more direct, deeper vocal than the wild voice from her 2006 album Back To Basics. When that voice does show up, it’s almost as if Christina is acting as her own featured vocalist. Her voice displays much more versatility here than it has in the past even if the throaty, rich vocal people have come to associate with her only makes occasional appearances. When it does show up—like on the killer ballad “You Lost Me”—it’s amazing.
For an album that’s ostensibly all about a robotic future, Christina certainly looks to backward for some of her tracks. That’s not good or bad, simply curious. The silly-but-catchy “Vanity” could easily have been a lost track from Lords of Acid’s first album (it’s “The Most Beautiful Girl” mashed-up with “I Must Increase My Bust”) and the slick house track “Glam” sounds like a cut from RuPaul’s first album re-interpreted by Daft Punk. The album has the same grindhouse vibe that Madonna’s Erotica did, and the Latin club beat of the campy “Desnudate” really drives that point home. Christina even mines her own past, with Linda Perry giving her what’s essentially “Beautiful (Part 2)” with “Lift Me Up.”
“Lift Me Up” is, sadly, one of the weak points on the album. When Christina stops the dance party to sing a few ballads rather abruptly in the middle of the album, the flow that’s come before is harshly disrupted. The ballads range from OK to excellent, and they’re segued into by the vintage slow jam of “Sex For Breakfast”, which ends up working well. However, the torch song of “You Lost Me” is suddenly replaced by the rowdy “I Hate Boys”, and the transition is rather jarring.
It’s also puzzling why the best tracks seem to be the bonus ones on the deluxe edition. I can’t understand how “Elastic Love” made the cut but “Birds Of Prey” (hands down the best track on the collection) didn’t. Also, her much-rumored collaborations with Goldfrapp are (perhaps distressingly) nowhere to be seen. The closest we may have to that are the new tracks included on Christina’s best of collection released last year: “You Are What You Are (Beautiful)” was her “Black Cherry” while “Keeps Gettin’ Better” was her “Ooh La La.”
The critics have often not been kind to the album, and its kind of understandable. Christina is expressly doing music she truly wants to be doing, and she doesn’t really care if you came to hear her channel the Andrew Sisters doing “Candyman” and end up hearing her express feminist sexuality by demanding that you pay attention to her “Woo Hoo” with a sparse techno beat. As she says in “Not Myself Tonight”, “If you don’t like it, fuck you.” While Bionic sometimes tries too hard to seem outrageous or different, in the end its an enjoyable collection of experiments with solid production work and always spot-on vocals, starting with the propulsive, stompy opening title track. But here’s hoping for the next album, Christina has a little more confidence in the direction she wants to take herself.
