Christina Aguilera’s Lotus is coming our way mid-November, so it’s finally time to let go of the past — forgive, forget, and move on from prior missteps, right? Wrong! We were just about to stop ragging on Bionic and let Xtina’s new (and, presumably, improved) music speak for itself, but then she had to go pick at the wound again by making some pretty extreme claims about the LP in her Billboard cover story. Amongst other gems, The Voice judge says you have to “really be a music lover” to appreciate her 2010 flop, which will “forever live on.” Say what?
Aguilera’s full quote: “I can proudly say [Bionic] was ahead of its time, to be honest. It wasn’t so commercialized. You had to really be a music lover, be a true fan of music and the love of being open to really appreciate that record. It’s just a special piece in my body of work that will forever live on. The older the record gets the more people will come to appreciate it actually and check it out.”
Okay. So let’s dust this off one more time. Sure, there are a handful of solid tracks on Bionic, which seemed designed — perhaps too calculatingly — to point the way toward a gleaming future, four years after Christina’s (perhaps too calculatingly) retro Back To Basics collection. She recruited some of genuine innovators for the effort, including Ladytron, Sia, Le Tigre and M.I.A. and Santigold. The Sia collaborations hold up against Xtina’s ballads from other albums, and there are a couple interesting, innovative tracks (like the M.I.A. co-write “Elastic Love,” if you can ignore the lyrics).
But overall, Bionic suffers from a major identity crisis, veering wildly between different sounds and ideas in a jarring yet directionless ride. The end result was a synthetic collection of songs that added up to “one of the most disappointing” albums of 2010, according to Entertainment Weekly‘s list.
One minute, on tracks like “I Hate Boys” and “Vanity,” Christina is a bratty teenager (a role she’s a bit old for, frankly); the next, she’s a futuristic sex-bot (“Elastic Love” and the title track); then she’s just totally grossing us out (the ode to cunnilingus that is “Woohoo” and “Sex For Breakfast,” which makes two things that are normally wonderful in the morning sound completely unappealing). And in other instances, as in the listless Linda Perry-penned “Lift Me Up”, she aspires to something reflective, but falls well short. A lot of the lyrics are, quite honestly, embarrassing, and several bonus tracks — including the Ladytron-produced “Birds Of Prey” — are actually better than the ones that made the cut on the standard album.
But that’s our opinion, and clearly Christina has a different take. We were under the impression that she was aware of Bionic‘s flaws, but apparently, she stands by it! Who knew?
The biggest head-scratcher is that Christina thinks Bionic “wasn’t so commercialized.” If by that she means it was unable to spawn any hit singles, she is correct. But we doubt that’s for lack of trying, since Bionic throws just about everything but the kitchen sink at us, trying to get something (anything!) to stick. (Any album with a Nicki Minaj feature has got to be pretty “commercialized.”) Compared to Aguilera’s other albums, like Stripped and Back To Basics, which had such clear direction and vision, Bionic feels like a lot of tracks randomly slapped together with no care as to how they cohere as a whole.
So according to Xtina’s definition, we can no longer be considered “music lovers.” (Now it’s our fault?) We can agree on one point, at least — certain tracks will “forever live on,” because we still occasionally play “Vanity” and “Bobblehead” when we need a good chuckle at Christina’s expense.
But okay. We’ve said our piece, and now we’re done. Let’s just hope we find a little more to love in Lotus, so we can be considered “true fans of music” again.
Do you accept Aguilera’s defense of her last album? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter!
I agree with what she said, Bionic was her second best album in my opinion behind Back to Basics of course but I didn’t think it was a flop for her fans that still bought the album and appreciate it. I do think the songs were ahead of the time because they were different and frankly without music like this, the industry would get boring. Xtina takes risk and I like that. I am tired of hearing songs that are overproduced and have people singing a letter during the chorus like “OooooOoooOOO.” I agree that you really have to be a music lover, particularly xtina fan or you won’t understand bionic. And also I don’t disagree with what you are saying because you have valid points as well.
its good record.
a fresh sound and innovative but you can tell rca wasnt feeling the sound and make her do “commercial stuff” like wohoo, not myself tonight, i hate boys, vanity etc.
and yes the bonus track are better because they were the original ideal tracks to be on the record.
i feel so bad for christina she put a lot of effort on this record, and in the end they had to add those crappy songs on this masterpierce.
You can’t deny her anything name one artist that can out sing her. I loved sex for breakfast cant wait for lotus
*Rolls eyeballs at Idolhater*
Well… Well…. BIONIc———————>> Femme Fatale, Loud , Born This Way
The worst song of Bionic’s , exceeds the best song of BTW …maybe, Bionic is a bit messy, but it was a matter of RCA … The Bionic bonus tracks are masterpieces …
Loved this album! She’s right, like a few people have said before me, if your not a fan of her work then no you probably won’t like the album. Granted if you listen to the tracks in order then it doesn’t seem to run together to well, but who actaully listens to an entire album these days. But at least all the music is original. And I happen to love that song WooHoo… “Embarassing” “Gross”… wow aren’t we a bit close minded…. she’s a woman and proud of her body. With all the image issues going on today with the push to make every woman a barbie doll I love that someone finally sings about loving their body! Good Grief… She song some original songs instead of one syllable boring lyrics.
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The sneaky thing about BACK TO BASICS selling 1.7 million in the U.S. is that double albums are counted as TWO albums sold when bought. So, in truth, B2B sold on half of that number. Another interesting thing to consider is, although the 2 discs of BASICS make sense as separate concepts, if you place all of the tracks together on an itunes playlist, the album’s running time is just shy of 80 minutes (the length of a cd). I like her ok, but that’s just something to think about.
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bionic was great..nicki minaj has more bipolar issues on her album then xtina ever has…she’s the best
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Stay mad Idolator! Xtina is ahead of its time and you will deal. Have a nice day!
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I feel that there are many angry people .. Xtina just told the truth..
I met Sia and Minaj… all thanks to Bionic.
You haters don’t get it.
BIONIC WAS INDEED AHEAD OF ITS TIME. Did you forget that it was released in early 2010?????
Everyone started singing dirrty “woohoo” time of music AFTER Xtina did it.
Nicky Minaj??? She was not as famous at the time!!!!! I was just starting to hear about her when Bionic was released!!!!!
Bionic could have been released in 2011 or 2012 or even 2013 and it wouldn’t have sounded dated!! Bionic still sounds fresh today!!!!!!
I mean even MADONNA HERSELF WAS CLEARLY INSPIRED BY BIONIC for her album MDNA!!! She worked with Sia, Nicky and M.I.A. Clearly BLATANTLY inspired by Xtina.
All of these things make BIONIC ahead of its time!!!! Not to mention epic songs like “Birds of Prey” and whatnot!!!!!
It’s hilarious how people continue to try and discredit Christina Aguilera.
Christina is SMARTER than all of you haters. Don’t bother shading her!!!
shaking my head
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No, Gaga copied Xtina… a LOT.
Kell, you are truly an ignorant.
Lady Caca is the one that copies CHRISTINA AGUILERA, Madonna and Roisin Murphy 24/7.
Don’t get it twisted.
Lady Caca is nothing but a wannabe. Christina’s been famous, doing this sh*t since 1993′s Mickey Mouse.
Just a couple of things; I agree this album as far from perfect, but the best tracks are some of the best in her catalogue; which in my opinion is superior to many of her contemporaries.
‘Bionic’ and ‘Elastic Love’ are examples of a futuristic sex-bot? At this point; I would like to direct you to the lyric sheets. Or some kind of formal comprehension building work-shop.
Also, your view of “commercialization” is incredibly skewed, especially in regard to this album. Sure, she worked with commercial producers, but the MAJORITY of the album was not done by them. I understand what she means with her comments; this album is supposed to be further exploration of new sounds that inspired her and entwine it with the Christina that we are familiar with. This album was not safe, do you know many commercial albums that are that long, and that extend through various genres?
It’s respectable to see an artist stand by her work, especially when it was ill-received. It makes it even better, and even comical to see her comment cause such umbrage.
” ‘Forever live on.’ ‘Say what?’ ” What exactly are we doing here? …Allowing this work to persevere, by discussing it, years…later…
Admit it Idolhater, you were hypercritical on an album you couldn’t understand from your most favorite artist. Hell, you don’t even do this to Beyonce (Iam Sasha), Gaga (BTW), or Brit Brit (all her albums) even if a LOT errors, flaws are on their albums (more than Bionic).
Idolator, again, is taking things really personally with Christina. I think there is something about her that people are expecting more from. Perhaps it’s her voice, or you people from Idolator are secretly loving her. Other artists such as Beyonce, Rihanna, Katy Perry, and Lady Gaga have it easy on this site with the fewer to none bullying that you have been doing to Christina.
Bionic was actually a really well put together record. I still listen to songs like Bionic, Elastic Love, Prima Donna, I Am, Sex for Breakfast, You Lost Me, Lift Me Up, and Birds of Prey from that album (which is pretty long-lasting for me considering that I stopped listening to the new CDs of Rihanna, Madonna, Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, and Katy Perry). So in a way, Christina is right about the longevity of her songs…you just have to get out of your hater box to appreciate her music.
The reason why I called you guys haters is because in almost every post regarding Bionic, you guys have mentioned the word “flop.” That word has been associated with PerezHilton and the LittleMonsters of Lady Gaga that were bullying Christina during the Bionic era, which created this bandwagon of media hate on her.
So please, just stop for a moment and ask yourselves, “Why do I hate Christina so much? and are there any songs from the Bionic album that I can appreciate, without being influence by other media?” Think outside the hater box.
Totally agree with you, I don’t understand why so much hate coming from this website. They always says bad things about BIONIC and called it “FLOP” all the time. I hate this…
It’s nothing but jealousy.
Christina is smart, sane, TALENTED, beautiful, a modest philanthropist, etc.
What is there to truly hate? Nothing much.
The haters hate Xtina because Xtina drags the entire fake autotune music industry. Xtina makes the haters’ favs look and sound horrible.
That’s why they hate. There is no other logical reason.
I love “Desnudate”.
Why are you still hating BIONIC, IDOLATOR?? It is a great album, but you guys only says bad things about it and about X-TINA. Don’t understand why so much hate…
I Love Bionic, I listened to it for over a year, and still spin it from time to time. There was a completely baseless backlash against it, which had more to do with some people’s issue with their idea of Christina herself, and less to do with the music.
That said, I love that she defends and stands by it. She and her collaborators put a lot of hard work into it and for it to be so heavily criticized mainly for an apparent image problem is simply unfair.
Look, I hate CA, she annoys me with the the over sinning but I bought this album and I liked it. The only prob with the album is that people and the media then jumped on the bandwagon saying she was copying Gaga as if Gaga was the only person in a world of 7 billion who could do dance/electro/pop. This music style has been around for the past 10 years or so and played in European and Australian clubs. Any fans of Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Kylie, Britney or Madonna have already been exposed to this style of music – no one owns it. I’ve often wondered if country music fans argue about this stuff?
Christina still annoys me, but as someone who’s not a fan – it’s a great album and I feel it only bombed due to the media pushing a hate campaign.
Bionic was only messy, because she was forced to pick of from the trash of R&B some awful tracks and add to them dance to make it a lil’ more suitable for the record, but in the end they wheren’t suitable for the album, Bionic was originally to be the collaboration she did with Ladytron, Sia, Santigold, Switch, John Hill, Focus…, Samuel Dixon, M.I.A., Le Tigre, Linda Perry and Peaches, wich some where included on the record and some turned into bonus track and who knew what happen to the leftovers of some other Sia, Ladytron, Switch, John Hill or Linda Perry songs even the Goldfrapp and The Neptunes collaborations that didn’t make it to the album, all of these where over shadowed by the Claude Kelly, Polow Da Dow, Tricky Steward and Ester Dean bag of trash.
Bionic was a great Alternative dance album! Hello…Sia, Preaches, Ladytron colabs!
Y’all still on this? I mean, damn. You didn’t like Bionic. Some of us did. Relax.
floptina at it again!
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BIONIC is not a good album. Sorry.. You do not need to be a true fan of music to distinguish a good song from a bad one. Sorry fat Xtina, you failed.
How BIONIC inspired all the other less talented singers :
Pink’s whole look for the current era
Latex and S&M becoming a pop trope
Madonna working with Nicki and MIA
Pop artists making songs that sound like Santigold and MIA
Sia has a career thanks to Christina
During the Bionic era, Lady Caca was stealing many of Xtina’s BIONIC looks, while it was happening.
Nobody likes to give Christina credit because it makes her look waaayyyyy too great. People are already very jealous of Christina’s amazing vocal abilities, so let’s not give her anymore credit…. (that’s the mentality of most people).
Christina is smart, TALENTED, the singer of her generation AND A TRENDSETTER???? NO that is toooo much!!!! Let’s not stomp on anyone’s toes!!!! Let’s pretend that Xtina’s albums are horrible!!!
*Rolling my eyes*
Christina can not sing which makes Bionic, like all of her albums dreadful. Songs are all stupid to begin with, but Bionic was the epitome of a disaster. The album has no energy and her terrible voice makes you want to cover your ears. She closes her eyes when she sings and she can’t even sing! lol!! Lotus, I’m sure will be another flop because she can not sing! I never liked any of her albums. Listen to songs like “What a girl wants” and ” I turn to you” and her entire catalog and you’ll see what I mean by she can’t sing. Lady Gaga and Britney Spears can sing better.
Aguilera’s album Bionic was indeed choppy but alot of the songs like “Not MYself Tonight,” “WooHoo,” “Vanity,” and “Bobblehead” can make a person feel good, energized, and above all ALIVE. I have always been a giant fan of Aguilera’s work since her debut in 1999 with “Christina Aguilera” she will always continue to be an inspiration to me, my music, and my life. she has taught in many of her song the honesty and emotion that true talent has.