Caviar
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Post by Caviar on Dec 22, 2014 8:50:42 GMT -5
Ahhh the album that started the downfall of one of our greatest divas. Released in June 2010 this was a challenging time to be a fan because she was getting trashed through the media and accused of being a copycat but the QUALITY of this album is simply stunning. "I Am" being the highlight and followed by "Lift Me Up". Hell "Elastic Love" & "Monday Morning" murders entire careers! I loved almost all of the songs on here and it's a crime it received bad press and followed by a cancelled tour. At least she still performs the title track "Bionic". I'm still holding out hope she performs "Vanity" one day. :'(
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Dreams
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Post by Dreams on Dec 22, 2014 11:06:58 GMT -5
I wasn't old enough to truly get what a failure Glitter was, so the Bionic era will always stand for me as the first "diva trainwreck" era I ever witnessed. I remember everyone being against Christina and just her getting so much scrutiny and bad press. It seemed like the rise of GaGa came with the fall of Christina. I remember when the snippet of "Not Myself Tonight" (and that was basically the newest Christina music since B2B, which had come out 4 years prior) premiered along with the single cover on her site and I felt it sounded so generic and underwhelming. I didn't like the full thing either and the video, which is still one of the most try-hard videos I've ever seen, did nothing to change that. I liked the "You Lost Me" video better (same goes for the song) and she looked great with no fire-engine lipstick on and rocking the strawberry blond hair.
Anyway, about the album itself - when it album came out I listened to the deluxe and was kinda excited because I'd figured there would be several songs I'd love among all those tracks. Meh. After the very first listen that album sounded like a total cluster f**k to me, and I still hold the same opinion today (I listened to it again last year). I only kept 4 songs:
-"Lift Me Up": I think this is her best ballad with Linda Perry -"I Am": I like the soft vocal -"Sex For Breakfast": nice R&B slow jam -"Little Dreamer": cool, melodic and experimental song
Other than those, I thought the album was full of bad songs: "Prima Donna," "Desnudate," "Bionic," "I Hate Boys," "Woo Hoo," "Vanity," "Bobblehead"... the latter four, especially, were just crap.
That said, I think it's a stronger album than its follow-up (make of that what you will); Lotus, for me, is one of the worst pop albums of the past 5 years. This is how I'd rank her discography:
1. Back To Basics 2. Stripped 3. Christina Aguilera 4. Bionic 5. Lotus
I think she's better off working with one producer/team and doing a 10 track album next.
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Linnethia Monique
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Post by Linnethia Monique on Dec 22, 2014 11:10:21 GMT -5
Elastic Love and Monday Morning! I still jam to this with the exception of Not Myself Tonight and I Hate Boys. Like Lil Jon randomly poppping up on Prima Donna The R&B sexiness of Sex for Breakfast and the intro Morning Dessert! YAS! The vogue down Glam and one of my personal favorites Bobblehead
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2014 13:57:58 GMT -5
I still jam out to "Bionic" tracks regularly, and it has some of her best vocals ever. As a whole, the album was a mess, which is a shame, because there are several amazing tracks to be found. I don't care what anyone says, "Vanity" is my f**king jam. The campiness, the gigging, Max at the end; it's SO Christina. Highlights: -I Am (Absolutely gorgeous song, stunning lyrics) - Monday Morning/Birds Of Prey- (I can see why these two were bonus tracks, but I love the experimental vibe of both) Stronger Than Ever (An absolutely beautiful song, nobody does balllads like Christina when she gets it right) -Little Dreamer (I loved this one one first listen, it's so heartfelt) -Vanity- PURE Christina, I love it -Not Myself Tonight Guilty pleasures: Glam, Primma Domna, Wohoo (She schooled the lessors, those vocals) Bobblehead (The "What, wait, What, REALLY?" towards the end gets me every f**king time) Trash: I Hate Boys, Sex For Breakfast Trash Of The Trash: My Girls
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Ginger Spice
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Post by Ginger Spice on Dec 22, 2014 19:39:48 GMT -5
It's much better than what most people say, although I'd hesitate to call the album great. It's a pain to try and get through when there are 24 tracks, and the ballads are all stuck together in the middle. It's a large pill to swallow, and it works much better in small doses. Monday Morning, Birds of Prey, Woohoo, Elastic Love, Vanity, Not Myself Tonight, You Lost Me, Prima Donna, and My Girls are all very enjoyable, and I could give or take the rest. The only one I outright hate is I Hate Boys.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2014 19:48:13 GMT -5
The ballads were good. Don't really care for the rest. It's better than Lotus though.
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NeRD
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Post by NeRD on Dec 23, 2014 19:39:19 GMT -5
She had some true gems on this album. Sucks they were overlooked.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2014 14:08:23 GMT -5
Little Dreamer & All I Need <3
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Post by Rocky on Dec 30, 2014 18:32:44 GMT -5
"You Lost Me" is a perfection. I liked "Not Myself Tonight" too.
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divasummer
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Post by divasummer on Jan 9, 2015 15:59:15 GMT -5
When I first heard "Not Myself Tonight" It was an instant Christina classic for me. When it first leaked I remember reading a lot of radio programmers liked it and they were getting a good reaction from it. I don't know what happened but it seemed like when she put the video out the backlash started. I know "Woohoo" is kind of dirty but I thought it was catchy that it would catch on. I guess I was wrong. Lol. "Desnudate" was another gem in my opinion which I jammed to for awhile. The ballads were all pretty good and I think she should have tried to release "I Am" at the time. It was different for her and I thought it could have received some play from the AC/Hot Ac formats. I could have done without "I Hate Boys" and surprisingly "Glam". It was to camp for me. As a whole I don't get the dislike for this cd with the exception of a few obnoxious tracks. I like it.
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Wave.
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Post by Wave. on Mar 4, 2015 9:44:58 GMT -5
Don't know why "Woohoo" never took off.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2015 10:51:58 GMT -5
I love Christina but I was never crazy about this album. :( I did really like "Lift Me Up" though as well as a few other tracks.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2015 15:12:15 GMT -5
Aside from I Am and Lift Me Up, I thought everything on this album was terrible.
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grandelf
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Post by grandelf on Apr 19, 2015 0:44:23 GMT -5
Listened to it a couple of times lately to see if it had really been "misunderstood" but it truly is a mess. Mostly cheap production and weird sequencing. The NME review sums it up the best, it's like three albums mashed together, similar to what happened to Madonna's Rebel Heart. www.nme.com/reviews/christina-aguilera/11355Album review: Christina Aguilera - 'Bionic' (RCA)
Usurped by Gaga, Xtina hits back with a host of lavish help, shonky tricks and limited thrills
5/10
What a difference a woman wearing a dress made solely of police tape makes. When the awesome cast list for Mousketeer-cum-dirrrty-girl Christina Aguilera’s fourth record leaked a good two years ago it had the whiff of revolution. With ‘Dirrrty’ and ‘Beautiful’, Aguilera proved herself smarter than the average popstrel. Adding MIA and Ladytron into the mix sounded like the sort of party we wanted to go to. Then along came Gaga and the future-pop thunder was stolen.
Maybe that’s why ‘Bionic’ arrives so long delayed. And maybe that’s why it feels as if Christina lost the courage of her convictions and, unsure of which album to make, went and made them all. There’s 23 tracks here, 18 on the main record, with the rest (the largely more interesting stuff) relegated to a deluxe edition. In a strange way, this is perfect for the digital age – there are at least three albums to compile, letting you build your own Christina. The first, from which so-so single ‘Not Myself Tonight’ is taken, is largely drab. Daring as some of the tracks are, they overwhelmingly loop her vocal around a generic house lick that has the effect of giving her very little to do vocally.
Neither is the endless sexytalk convincing anymore. Where Madonna and Gaga use sex as a weapon, they also employ a humour that’s lacking on songs such as ‘Woowoo’ and ‘Des Nudites’. Bionic? It’s as if the mighty Xtina has been reanimated as a slightly confused cyborg with levers and LEDs where the leather chaps used to be.
The second record, for the mums, features the obligatory Linda Perry ballad (the serviceable ‘Lift Me Up’) and some surprisingly classy jazz-infused stuff she’s made with soul pop singer Sia (each of these three versions of the album, by the way, should feature the smutty slow-jam ‘Sex For Breakfast’ simply because it’s so unintentionally hilarious).
Finally, for our purposes, there’s the exciting record. Most of these collaborations sound exactly as they appear on paper, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The grinding and growling ‘Elastic Love’ is vintage MIA (except sung by Aguilera). You’ll be a bit taken aback here until you discover that the word ‘spastic’ isn’t actually offensive in the US. ‘My Girls’ is euphoric girls-together punk funk from Le Tigre (except sung by Aguilera and with a rap from Peaches) and, if hardly riot grrrl subversive, is great fun. ‘Birds Of Prey’ is classic mournful electro from Ladytron (except… do you see a pattern emerging, children?) Perhaps best of all is ‘Monday Morning’[. Written with Santigold and The Bravery’s Sam Endicott, it’s a Day-Glo disco jam that sounds like Gwen Stefani doing ‘Borderline’. Get on the internet and build your own pop mercenary using those songs. It’ll cost you but a fiver and you can still cling to the idea of Aguilera as a revolutionary. Because it’s quite a nice illusion to maintain.
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ILLUSION
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Post by ILLUSION on May 28, 2015 7:40:02 GMT -5
I don't think this album was the start of her "downfall". "Your Body" sold over 100k its first week and peaked Top 20 on US radio but also did well internationally. I think her biggest problem lately is that she is struggling to find a musical style that both fits her AND what is favored on mainstream Pop today.
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Post by Live Your Life on Jan 9, 2016 17:07:42 GMT -5
I hate the uptempos on this album, but the ballads were really fantastic. I also love "Monday Morning" and "Birds of Prey" from the deluxe edition. AllMusic gave the album 3.5/5 stars:
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🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲
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Post by 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 on Jul 31, 2017 7:31:31 GMT -5
I always thought this was her most underrated album yet. Loved it from the very start when it first came out. It's far more interesting and fun as a whole than Lotus.
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beach1
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Post by beach1 on Feb 16, 2018 8:33:48 GMT -5
I remember thinking it was pretty good when it first came out, but now it's only just decent to me. The ballads were the highlight for me, but for the rest there were only several songs that I liked.
Highlights: Not Myself Tonight, You Lost Me, Stronger Than Ever, Lift Me Up, Sex For Breakfast, Woo Hoo, Glam, Bionic
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Joe1240
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Post by Joe1240 on Feb 9, 2020 0:12:48 GMT -5
My least favourite Christina album.A big disappointment coming off of 3 great albums. There are a few good songs in this album it is just surrounded by too much filler and as a concept album it fails. I have even went back and revisited this album the last few years, If the album was shorter it could be a much better album. "Not Myself Tonight" really the wrong lead single choice for this album. I think Lotus is much better than this album.
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🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲
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Post by 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 on Feb 9, 2020 0:58:09 GMT -5
10 years later...and I still feel that this is her most severely underrated and overlooked album to date. I loved it from the very start, while mostly everyone else was trashing it. I love the Girls Night Out/Girl Power theme. I also love the booklet artwork. I remember the horrific Bionic massacre. It was just so brutal, yet I somehow felt that the Bionic era was iconic. I remember on Twitter people had those red lips from the album cover in their profile avatars, including Nicole Richie.
My faves songs from Bionic are:
Bionic Elastic Love Bobblehead I Hate Boys Primadonna Desnudate Monday Morning My Girls Vanity
I actually love the uptempos way more than the ballads themselves. I think the only song I never really cared for is "Sex for Breakfast".
This quote that Xtina had made about Bionic still remains my favorite to this day:
"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."
About her later albums, Lotus wasn't a bad album, but I felt that it was much more generic and commercialized in comparison to Bionic. On Lotus, she played it way too safe. She didn't experiment with sounds that much as she did with Bionic. I felt at that time the songs on the album could have easily been done by Britney, Katy, and Rihanna. I do love "Sing For Me", "Blank Page", "Lotus intro", and "Make The World Move". I would have to say that Liberation definitely is my least fave so far out of her discography. I just couldn't get into it that much as her other ones. I've only listened to it once or twice, and just haven't felt compelled to have it on repeat since then.
This is how I would rank all her albums:
Stripped Back to Basics Bionic Christina Aguilera Lotus Liberation
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🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲
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Post by 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 on Jun 8, 2020 15:24:41 GMT -5
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🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲
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Post by 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 on Jun 8, 2020 15:28:22 GMT -5
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🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲
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Post by 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 on Jun 8, 2020 15:30:35 GMT -5
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