Christina Aguilera – Bionic (Album Review)
Christina Aguilera – Bionic
(Release Date: June 4, 2010)
www.myspace.com/christinaaguilera
out of
This has got to be hands down the absolute worst time to be a popstar. I know what you are thinking, no I’m not going in on some wild conspiracy theory tangent about illegal downloaders or the internet bloggers and their smart ass opinions ruining everything no and no. This is the absolute worst time to be a popstar because of one Stefani Germanotta, or as Jerry Seinfeld calls her Lady Gag gag. Much like in 1940 when Richard and Maurice McDonald first made a sandwich with two all beef patties and inserted their “special” sauce the competition ended up biting the worst end of that unhappy meal. Ok let me slow down here McDonalds and the Ga2 where on earth am I going you ask. Think about it, everything was all good (just a week ago) until these two behemoths showed up on the scene and forever changed the way people do things in their respective industries. 
McDonalds wasn’t the best burger or fries for that matter but after they opened their restaurants nation wide people had to change to match their menu or get buried under their fatty residue. The same could be said for Ms Germanotta, she isn’t the best singer, song writer or performer for that matter, but none of that matters when her competition always somehow manages to be ten steps behind her big ass Frankenstein platforms. Christiana Aguilera just happens to be another one of her victims… ok victims is a bit harsh, I’ll just say its not easy to follow the Gaga.
Now that Lady Gaga cornered the bizarre sex freak show market Christina decided to take her own stab at things to mixed results. “Uplifting” songs for young impressionable girls like I hate boys and the head shaking shame making Vanity where she proclaims how much of a bitch she is… just wow is all I can say about that garbage. Getting back to this whole shock pop, the one thing that is different about this, for her at least, is that she is no stranger to this “stuff” and by this stuff I mean visual extremes to get a reaction out of people. And because of that, it isn’t like she is just hopping onboard the copy Gaga bandwagon express train to failure town. The truth of the matter is that Christina has been performing since she was a mouseketeer and likewise she has also transformed herself already from squeaky clean Genie in a bottle to XTina the thong holding tattooed way too much make-up wearing underwear showing lots of skin dirty singer. She has also been running on stage in her underwear long before Stefani started gluing glitter and spikes to her shoulder pads and thus the who is copying who starts to get real murky.
If you were looking here towards the music to try and separate her from the pretenders to the thrown you would also be looking in the wrong place. There is electro pop hiphop music abound in spades. Christina reached out to the same old favorites like Polo da Don, and Tricky Stewart down the line to Sia Furler and Ester Dean. Actually Sia was a surprise to me and I think she had the best song here. With that said everything else didn’t break any new ground the uptempo songs are uptempo-ie and the ballads remind you ever chance she gets that Christina can sing her butt off and you better recognize. I didn’t like the electro pop dodad songs mostly because they didn’t do anything to shine a light on her vocals they almost felt like fillers. 
I did like however when Christiana got to slow down and command respect on the song whether it be the topic or the fact that she got to stretch her voice how ever slight it was, and this is to me the highlight of the whole disc er album and I really wish she would do more of that instead of the sexup songs. I kind of look at all this like after you see a grand fireworks display you can’t top it with more fireworks it just isn’t impressive anymore and that’s is the way I see this shock pop stuff, I want to say crap but there is a art to it when done correctly just ask Madonna and Grace Jones but I’ll leave that for another debate.
I can’t say for certain if you should buy it or not, I think there are a few really good songs to listen to but there is also a bit of me too that sneaks through your headphones which shouldn’t be considering Christina’s stature in the music industry and skills as a singer and performer. I do think we have reached a apex in the over the top pop and hopefully we as a society can move on from here back to some normalcy.
$$$ out of $$$$$
