During the first weekend of the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, I needed a break from my phone. My screen time had already increased 12% in the first few days of the outbreak hitting the U.S. I struggled to disconnect as new information came through, and disastrous daily press conferences from the then-President only made matters worse. But as I had my breakfast and morning coffee, I needed some music. So I naturally glided my fingers along the spines of my record collection, and looked for something. Weekend morning listening typically elicits something like Songs In The Key Of Life, some Miles Davis, or something more stereotypical for me, like Aretha. But today I found myself pulling out the box set of Christina Aguilera’s Bionic, a truly polarizing body of work. The album, released on June 8, 2010, was a commercial disaster and fared nearly as bad critically. Its arrival was so poorly received that the tour Aguilera announced prior to Bionic’s release was swiftly canceled (though “postponed” was the official term used, so she could rehearse more to promote her debut feature film, ‘Burlesque’).
A few years ago, a group of fans (read: white gays who spend too much time on Twitter, not unlike myself) banded together in an effort to get justice for Bionic. But was the treatment of Bionic unjust in the first place? When I wrote this a decade after its release, the answer was, and today still is… not entirely.
For starters, Bionic is poorly sequenced. It’s lopsided and unbalanced. The album is charged from its introduction, but exactly halfway through the album’s standard edition, things slow down. A series of ballads cascade out alongside two interludes. The ballads, while different, all blend together because they largely open the same: driven by soft instrumentation and gentle vocals from Aguilera. The ballads come to a grinding halt and the tempo reaccelerates for 3 more songs. 5 bonus tracks of varying tempos and quality followed on the deluxe edition.
Looking over the tracklist now, there seemed to have been *some* logic to the sequencing: the album begins in the clubs during a night of uninhibited fun with friends and more. It refocuses into the morning after, where some love and affection leads to introspection and heartbreak. That culminates in a return to the dance floor, except now the focuses are ‘men ain’t shit,’ female empowerment and self-love. But that’s only clear years later, and with some examination. Simply playing the album through, the shift is abrupt. Adding a few breaks in the tracklist could’ve more formally focused the album’s pieces into a few acts and made for a different experience digesting and understanding Bionic.
Musically, Bionic suffered in the way that most Aguilera albums do: they have nothing to harken back to. There’s no “Christina Aguilera sound” that can be evoked. Now, of course she wasn’t making the music of her debut album anymore, because she wasn’t a teeny bopper anymore. And she didn’t stick to the script of urban pop that she appropriated on her magnum opus Stripped, nor her fantastic marriage of big-voiced influences and contemporary samples of Back To Basics. Bionic was yet another exploration of musical genres. Artistically, that’s not just respectable but also admirable. Christina wasn’t going to just sit in a box and be categorized as one thing. Yet, from a popular music perspective, without establishing a base sound, it’s hard to develop and maintain a wide-reaching fan base. Madonna even inadvertently did it with her first three albums.
Sonically Bionic is not bad, by any means. The upbeat songs hit hard and intense like any good dance album should, and they have their catchy moments. It’s synth-heavy when it’s upbeat, and piano-driven when it mellows out. The chaotic “Woohoo” featuring Nicki Minaj is fantastic. As is the hard-hitting “Prima Donna.”
What also slows things down is the similarity many songs bear, not intricate, but initially. Was that catchy lyric in “Desnudate”, or “Prima Donna”? Was that ballad I liked “All I Need” or “Lift Me Up”? Was the closing cut I gravitated towards “I Hate Boys” or “Vanity”? In the cases of some albums, like Brandy’s Two Eleven, this initial confusion melts away to reveal a masterfully cohesive body of work. That never happens with Bionic. After innumerable listens over nearly a decade and a half, the songs never fully distinguish themselves from one another.
On its own, the pieces of the album that are of substance and quality haven’t aged poorly. But the ballads still weigh down Bionic as a full body of the work. It makes me question: did this album need them? Sure, they showcase her incredible instrument at its full capacity, but they may have done more harm than good on Bionic. After all, one of the pillars of this album was this idea of being electronic and mechanical, and futuristic. What’s futuristic about a piano ballad? Maybe Bionic would have served better as a straight up dance album, like Britney Spears did the following year with 2011’s Femme Fatale.
One song that shined particularly bright during this re-examination came on the deluxe edition. First off, remember that 2010 pre-dates streaming so you had to buy or download to have an album. I was working for Sony and got a promo copy only of the standard edition of the album. I might’ve heard the deluxe songs once or twice and that was it. Dedicating some time to the deluxe tracks during this re-evaluation, I found the elongated synths that open “Birds Of Prey” yielded to a brilliantly ominous and driving mid-tempo. How this didn’t make the standard edition is beyond me. It’s easily one of the album’s best, and because of its unique sound, it’s memorable and supports the sonic goals of Bionic.
Her record label, RCA, didn’t exactly help the situation either. Lead single “Not Myself Tonight” was edgy but polarizing, video included. When “Woohoo,” featuring a then-budding Nicki Minaj leaked a month prior to the album’s release, a huge opportunity was missed. “Woohoo had all the makings of a hit and none of the support to get it there. With a formal release, solid promotion and a well-constructed video it could have changed the trajectory of Bionic. Instead, the album’s second single, ballad “You Lost Me,” was effectively dead on arrival. It didn’t even crack the Billboard Hot 100.
Upon this reexamination in 2020 I tried to scrap the ballads and resequence the album into a straight-up dance LP, but after multiple attempts still didn’t yield a satisfying flow. Bionic wasn’t it then, and it isn’t now either. That doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t be enjoyed in pieces, or that some shouldn’t love the album as a whole, as they do, and have a right to. But there’s no justice to be had here. Bionic wasn’t an under-appreciated body of work then, nor now. It’s simply not a quality body of work as a whole. It’s best to think of Bionic like a shattered disco ball; despite it falling apart, there’s still some glimmer to it. If you want justice for something here, make it the deluxe track “Birds of Prey.”
Stream and purchase Christina Aguilera’s Bionic on CD (standard and deluxe) and 2021 limited edition vinyl.