Review Revue: Critics React To Christina Aguilera’s “Not Myself Tonight” Video

Robbie Daw | April 30, 2010 10:56 am

Christina Aguilera’s music video for “Not Myself Tonight” (watch here) premiered just after midnight, and fan reactions to the overtly sexed-up clip are divided: she’s either copying past videos and looks by Madonna, George Michael, Lady Gaga, etc., or she’s paying homage to her icons. So what do the music critics think now that the Bionic woman has let her latest visual genie out of the bottle? Let’s hop below and take a look.

* MTV points out that, in addition to Lady Gaga, Madonna and George Michael, there are also references in the “Not Myself Tonight” video to Marilyn Manson, Britney Spears, Rammstein and Duran Duran. (We’ll also add Backstreet Boys, for the shirtless men dancing in the rain bit.)

* Regarding the deafening roar of Xtina as a Gaga-a-like here, London’s Metro asserts that “it’s hard not to make comparisons between the pint-sized platinum blondes, who both share a love of extremely sexual music videos.”

* People has turned the Gaga/Madge-copying debate over to the, er, people, and posted a poll on whether or not readers think “Not Myself Tonight” is a complete ripoff. So far the majority has voted “Yes. She totally knocked them off.”

* Entertainment Weekly‘s Music Mix somewhat brushes aside all the copycat claims, though, by posing two arguments: “1) When it comes to Madonna, nearly every pop star has taken pieces of her performances/styling/etc. So there’s that. And then 2) With the Gaga argument, can we really fault Christina for taking from Gaga, when Gaga herself has so ripped from a variety of other artists?” They do, however, bash the clip for having “the sad stink of I’ve-been-gone-forever-had-a-baby-and-now-want-to-be-relevant-again desperation.”

* New York‘s Vulture blog reminds us that “Aguilera spends the last 45 seconds of the three-minute song making throaty sex sounds while clambering all over a male model.” (Note: we say “reminds” because we were actually too busy eying up said male model ourselves to even notice the throaty sex sounds!)

* PopEater ponders whether or not Aguilera is taking a step backwards, and laments “we can’t help but feel like we’re looking at an over-sexed stunt when really all we want is our gorgeous, sultry Christina back.”

* E!’s Ted Casablanca lays out the awful truth by stating, “The blond babe is trying way too hard, and not in that ‘A for effort’ kind of way (tho we’re sure even the mention of grades will give Tina a reason to turn this into a naughty schoolgirl fantasy).”

* And, oh, right—Xtina has a son now! Hitfix scolds “XXXtina” by saying she’s better than this. “In a few short years, her young son Max is going to want to know why mommy has a gag in her mouth, why she’s on all fours drinking from a water bowl and why she’s kneeling between another woman’s thighs in her video for ‘Not Myself Tonight’,” the site warns.

But look—perhaps in the end, it’s like Christina sings in the dance-pop tune: “If you don’t like it, f*** you!” So what do you think of Christina’s video? Are the above criticisms fair?