Bionic

Christina Aguilera accepts the challenge

It is not easy to be a pop diva: fans keep waiting for new songs, get crazy in concert halls, criticize or copy your image, and the main thing is to take care of your voice for it is the principal instrument in the game. Fortunately, no matter what happens in Christina Aguilera’s creative work, whichever images she is trying on her voice does not always remain at the necessary level but keeps improving. It is notable that the singer’s every new album is a new chapter in her life, changes in the appearance and music genres. Starting from a young romantic pop singer with blond curves looking playfully at us from the album cover of the 1999’s debut Christina Aguilera she turned into a rock brunet on 2002’s Stripped and set her eyes on the first half of the XX century with the 2006’s album Back To Basics putting on the Hollywood beautiful women of the epoch’s outfits. It was 2002 that turned out to be the most scandalous for Christina; her open sexuality got sharply criticized back then. However, the times are different these days and it is way more difficult to shock anybody, so the singer is happy to accept this challenge releasing the fourth record Bionic the main theme on which is herself.

Bionic’s bright, bold and extremely sexy protagonist

It is not a secret that today no pop album can be recorded without the participation of fashionable producers, but Christina Aguilera sticks to her principle in this respect choosing less notable music industry representatives. Thus, Claude Kelly, Sia Furler, M.I.A. and Linda Perry have worked on Bionic’s songs among others, besides, there are some collaborations on it. The album can be divided into three parts: the first one consist of contemporary dance compositions with a resilient beat and bold lyrics, the second one offers classic Christina’s ballad, and the final one is up-tempo egoistic rebuffs. The album opens with the title track which lets us know that it is a new personage in front of us, a bright, bold and extremely sexy one. The lyrics here, as well as on the following tracks: the first single Not Myself Tonight, Woohoo featuring Nicki Minaj, Elastic Love and Desnudate – is utterly frank, not devoid of pervasive vocabulary and states, in the first place, that the songs’ protagonist just wants to have fun and be herself and she does not care what the others think. Rather mediocre pop compositions Glam and Prima Donna still can boast powerful vocals, while R&B beats and mesmerizing tunes on Morning Dessert (Intro) and Sex For Breakfast probably present the climax of sexuality on the record. Finally, everyone who has been expecting beautiful ballads will appreciate very romantic and melodious numbers Lift Me Up and All I Need as well as the rather sincere I Am and the soulful You Lost Me. The sensual part finishes here, and it comes the turn of unserious, down-to-earth and rather bold rebuffs I Hate Boys, My Girls featuring the extravagant singer Peaches and the finale Vanity.

A scandalous video completes the picture

It is absolutely evident that Bionic has been conceived as a cynical album of a sexy glamorous damsel who sometimes allows herself to get sentimental but for a very short time and recreates quickly – the songs’ order is a good witness of that. Of course, there is a lot of material comprising this image in the memorable tunes, up-to-date and stylish arrangements and the lyrics expressing this attitude. Yet it is a long time now that an important component of every contemporary pop star is video and live performances. Hence, to get the full picture of Christina’s new look one should see the video of the first single Not Myself Tonight which has already become scandalous because of Aguilera’s openly sexy outfits and dancing. The singer is also famous for her legendary tours in which the most spectacular sceneries are always involved along with numerous dance collectives and expensive acoustic systems, so we can only guess what expects us in the nearest future. Though Bionic can be hardly called Christina Aguilera’s best album it does have several potential hits without which none of the singer’s works can be imagined and the record does not yield to its predecessors in the quality aspect, either.