Posts tagged christina aguilera

The last we heard from Christina Aguilera, she had gone soft and sultry on the 2006 throwback album ‘Back to Basics’. Now she is gearing up for a March 2010 release of ‘Bionic’, a new album promising plenty of electronic and alternative influences. But can the once fiery pop princess regain her crown?

Although a critical darling, the fan consensus on Back to Basics was that the album lacked the hyper-commercial success and pop punch that had driven Christina to super-stardom with her first two albums, featuring hits such as Genie In A Bottle, Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You) and Beautiful. With only one song (Ain’t No Other Man) making a significant impact in the States, it seemed Xtina’s heyday of 4 Billboard #1’s in less than two years was long since over.

But she has always had one asset the flash in the pans lacked: artistic grit. When the going got tough, Christina got going. She went back to the drawing board once more and started to look into futuristic, electronic beats and experimented with them on her 2008 greatest hits album, Keeps Gettin’ Better: A Decade of Hits.

Then out of nowhere, one woman single-handedly kicked our cojones up into our brains. The woman who Xtina herself had propelled into the upper echelons of fame (“I don’t know if it is a man or a woman”) made synth beats and stutters ‘hot’. Yes, Lady Gaga’s “P-P-P-Poker face” has mesmerised us all this year, capturing the world’s attention by figuratively bashing us all over the head with her disco stick. Does anyone think Christina may be a bit sore that, once again, someone is stealing her thunder? First Amy Winehouse and Back to Black beat her to the critical punch with its retro, throwback theme and now the very woman she publicly criticised is flying higher than one of Mariah Carey’s dog whistles.

Still, the true greats do not imitate. Christina has pooled together the eccentric renegades of electropop for her next record but wisely enlisted the reliable hit-makers as well. Bionic features an eclectic bunch, from Umbrella-producing Tricky Stewart, to British electronic bands Goldfrapp and Ladytron, and Australian singer Sia Furler, who became “best friends” while working with Xtina on the record.

With a title like Bionic, I certainly expect infectious pop and perhaps even a little experimentation with AutoTune or at least a vocoder. Perhaps the other semantic connotation of her album title, that of super strength, is what Christina was aiming to hint at too, as spending four years between albums in an age of shooting pop stars and even faster pop breakdowns is certainly one way to splash water all over the embers of previous success.

Still, comebacks are not just saved for the Whitneys and Britneys. With the voice of a generation at her command and a legendary performance under her vocal belt (see the video below of It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World at the 2007 Grammys for a lesson in soul), I think the Pittsburgh artist is more than capable at delivering the first masterpiece of the decade. With the first single Glam expected to be released within a matter of weeks, we will all have a taste of things to come soon. Only one thing is for sure: if necessity is the mother of all invention, prepare yourself for one hell of a strong album.