by Christina Pomoni

Created on: July 27, 2010

Undoubtedly, Aguilera’s long-anticipated follow-up to her “Back to Basics” album (2006) is not up to anyone’s expectations – her fans, critics or the audience. The once one of the most prominent pop stars in the music industry seems to have lost a large amount of her star power, releasing a mediocre album that has hardly sold 200,000 copies 5 weeks after its release.

At first sight “Bionic” is a pop entertaining album that reflects influences from all Aguilera’s co-stars in the pop stardom – Madonna, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and certainly sounds as a counter-response to Lady Gaga's "Monster" (2009). However, this doesn’t seem to be enough. On the contrary, it seems to be one of the reasons for failure.

“Not Myself Tonight” is a Poor Copycat

The album’s first single “Not Myself Tonight” is an amalgam of pop and rock influences that Aguilera doesn’t even bother to filter to produce a new sound and image. As one watches the video of “Not Myself Tonight”, Aguilera becomes Lady Gaga in “Bad Romance” especially when hiding one eye or being half naked among men, or performing wild sex in bed or featuring the robot-glam style. She also aspires to Madonna as a reference to the Queen of Pop, or possibly Marilyn Manson judging from the way her blue eyes shine under the heavy make-up. No matter what, for an album that came out 4 years after “Back to Basics”, this first single is a poor copycat of past successful hits and Aguilera wastes her talent into moaning and making throaty sex sounds the last 45 seconds of the 3-minute song. This possibly explains why the song peak at #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 and fell off the chart completely.

“Bionic” Lacks Personality

One major problem with “Bionic” is that it lacks personality. Without a hit lead single to capture the audience, the album doesn’t sound too interesting. Compared not only to “Back to Basics”, but also to “Stripped” (2002), “Bionic” is sporadically sparkling, but basically a dull album. Although its futuristic sounds are not necessarily off-putting, the album cannot deliver hit tracks because it lacks direction. Aguilera’s multi-octave voice - for which she has been repeatedly praised and announced as “the voice of her generation”, - seems to be overpowered by electronic sounds that cancel out the

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