‘Bionic’ by Christina Aguilera: an era wrecked by comparison
If we’re going to explore flop pop albums with a cult following, Christina Aguilera’s 2010, Bionic, is at the very top of the list. The only reason it wasn’t the absolute first entry in this series is that I knew the album’s tenth anniversary was approaching in early June and I wanted to celebrate within the month.
Bionic is perhaps the most legendary flop in 21st-century standom history, but the album/era’s disaster nowhere near matches the quality of the work itself. I have to imagine we’ll be getting plenty of “Bionic revisited” pieces now that the album is a decade past. Even just two years after its release, pieces for MTV and Idolator were already deeming it “misunderstood” and “ahead of its time,” something Christina herself claimed in 2012 and that many fans couldn’t agree with more. Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen many #JusticeFor_____ tags trending on Twitter, where stans declare work of their faves be reconsidered and given the respect they maybe deserved in the first place–this year, “justice for” Britney Spears’ 2016 masterpiece, Glory, sent the album to number one on iTunes charts, prompting the Spears’ team to finally unleash its rightful cover and getting a previously unreleased track (unreleased everywhere but Japan) put onto international streaming platforms. The “justice” movements more-or-less started with Bionic, becoming a trending Twitter topic back in 2013. Fans have frequently praised the album’s forward-thinking explorations into electropop and future-pop genres; it features genuine bops, containing some of the most shamelessly fun pop tracks of Xtina’s decades-long career.
So what went wrong in 2010?
Like the other two posts in this series so far, it’s not low-sales alone that earn Bionic its flop status; it’s the comparison, rather, between what the sales were with what an artist like Christina Aguilera, bonified pop-royalty, was expected to accomplish. At $110,000 in its first week, Bionic sold about ⅓ as much as her previous full-length album, Back To Basics, and its drop in sales the following weeks was even more damning, falling to number 22 on Billboard charts by week three. In the UK, the album broke the then-record for lowest-selling number one album in eight years (this would later be broken by our first featured flop, Electra Heart).
When we talked about Lady Gaga’s, ARTPOP, we went over some of the major ways an album and artist can “flop”–those being a failure to meet or outdo past success, over-exposure that leads to popular fatigue, and strange public behavior that evokes “trainwreck” more than “popstar.” These are all condemnations that affect women in pop more often than men, and another woefully female problem that can plague an album’s release is comparisons to other female artists. In Christina’s case, that would be comparisons to Lady Gaga specifically.
Competition between Gaga and Christina, whether recognized by either party or not, began an album cycle earlier with Christina’s first greatest-hits record, Keeps Getting Better: A Decade of Hits, released a few months into Gaga’s then-exploding debut. Some of the comparisons were sonically-based as Christina hopped on the Gaga-fronted electropop trend, but most surrounded each artist’s look–both women donning bangs, blonde hair, and bold fashion.
As shallow as that may seem, aesthetics play a huge part in pop music and many at the time considered Christina’s evolving style to be approaching territory of creative theft. Each singers’ responses to the discourse ignited a stan war that’s only recently died down (mostly for each standom to gain bigger enemies elsewhere). When asked about the comparisons, Gaga was courteous, but never denied the similarities, telling Digital Spy,
“[Christina’s] such a huge star and if anything I should send her flowers, because a lot of people in America didn't know who I was until that whole thing happened. It really put me on the map in a way…What it showed me was, even though I've only been on the commercial market for seven or eight months, I've really burned graphic images of my visuals onto the irises of my fans. They saw a huge, Grammy-winning star who's been around for years and they recognized Lady Gaga. That to me is quite an accomplishment.”
Christina’s response was a little less flattering, telling the Los Angeles Times:
“You know, that’s funny that you mention that. This person [Lady Gaga] was just brought to my attention not too long ago. I’m not quite sure who this person is, to be honest. I don’t know if it is a man or a woman. I just wasn’t sure. I really don’t spend any time on the Internet, so I guess I live a little under a rock in that respect.”
In the grander picture, it sounds ridiculous. Christina had been in the business as a tremendous success for over a decade longer than Gaga, and considering how much “borrowing” Gaga was accused of, Christina should have maybe been given the benefit of the doubt as the veteran influencer rather than influencee. Her ever-changing public image was maybe colliding with Gaga’s then-signature style to an uncomfortable degree, but we were mere months into Gaga’s career. If you believe Christina’s claim that she didn’t know who Gaga was, any similarity could really be chalked up to coincidence or both artists having similar inspirations.
“Keeps Getting Better,” the song and video, was the start, but the first single of Bionic “Not Myself Tonight” worsened the problem with a video that seemed intent to shock in an S&M Gaga-esque fashion. Christina later stated that the video was actually inspired by Madonna, incorporating direct references to “Express Yourself” and “Human Nature.” Since Gaga was already accused of ripping off Madge herself, the backlash Christina received indicated some widespread ignorance as to the influences fueling both women’s careers. The aesthetics in the video were certainly akin to things Gaga had done, but not anything she invented.
Nevertheless, “Not Myself Tonight” was less-than original, and even when Christina wasn’t being accused of plagiarism, reaction was mostly negative. Entertainment Weekly titled an article on the music video “Gone totally (Lady) Gaga, Madonna, or just desperate for relevance?” “The worst part about Xtina’s video,” says writer Tanner Stransky. “Beyond the rather unabashed unoriginality of it, is the sad stink of I’ve-been-gone-forever-had-a-baby-and-now-want-to-be-relevant-again desperation.” He and other critics cite the “girl-on-girl makeout sessions” in the video as attention-seeking, while the BDSM aesthetic garnered similar criticism for its shallow attempts at shock value. NME ranked it the following year as the eighth-worst music video of all time.
The next single, “WooHoo” featuring Nicki Minaj, continued Bionic’s over-sexed themes, though in substantially more fun and interesting ways from the previous release. Unfortunately, the song debuted at number 79 on the Billboard Hot 100, then fell off charts completely the following week. It never received a video and was given very little promotion.
Much of the blame in recent years has fallen onto Perez Hilton whom Christina claimed in 2018 “sabotaged” the album’s release by writing almost daily criticisms of her on his blog. Perez admitted to this later, saying his then-friendship with Gaga prompted him to believe Christina was plagiarizing her, though he also admits Gaga never asked him to intervene on her behalf. Perez would later become a huge proponent of the album in 2013 after he and Gaga endured a public falling out, igniting the “Justice For Bionic” campaign ahead of ARTPOP’s release (fittingly, Gaga blames her feud with Perez on competition between her and Madonna, furthering the on-going cycle of popstar-on-popstar drama). Much to Perez’s chagrin, instead of continuing their rivalry, Christina and Gaga teamed up during ARTPOP, working together on a remix for Gaga’s song “Do What U Want” and performing a duet on The Voice.
The Gaga comparisons, and comparisons to other artists (Britney Spears, Janet Jackson, Madonna, etc.), were maybe at the heart of Bionic’s failure, but not the sole cause of it. When the album officially dropped in June of 2010, reaction was mixed from the start.
The biggest criticism, aside from unoriginality, came from the project’s lack of cohesion. Bionic is exceptionally long for a pop album, with the deluxe edition running over 79 minutes, and the addition of an iTunes exclusive track putting the whole thing just shy of an hour and a half. Plenty of the record could have been cut or placed onto a separate release, especially the five ballads strangely placed in the middle of the tracklist, interrupting the fun electro- and future-pop fans most often associate with the album. Bionic was a reinvention into future-pop and electronic music that was different from anything Christina had released prior, but instead of exploring those sounds fully on their own, creative leads on the project decided to intersperse Christina’s more traditional vocal performances and ballads amongst the pop chaos. Even if you like every song on the record, it’s hard to argue that absolutely all of its 23 tracks (some transitional) had to be on that specific project and couldn’t be rehomed elsewhere.
As if we haven’t compared Christina and Gaga enough, there are similarities worth noting between Bionic and ARTPOP, especially in each album’s appeal. Both are less-than cohesive and could do with a couple more drafts to trim the fat, but both are sort of charming in their erratic immaturity. Bionic was criticized heavily for its unsophisticated sexuality, but that’s part of the album’s allure. Songs like “Woohoo” aren’t trying to be sultry and sexy; they’re dirty pop fun, evoking the same, almost juvenile appeal as a song like Katy Perry’s “Peacock.” If you can’t stomach the flashy vulgarity, that’s fine, but plenty find glee in its campy shamelessness. “I Hate Boys,” another track on the album, lampoons men in ways that feel childish, but the crudeness is a feature, not a flaw. Lyrics like those in the first verse of “Vanity,” (for instance “Mirror mirror on the wall/Who’s the flyest bitch of them all/Nevermind, I am”) contain the same kind of ironically exaggerated charm.
There’s a clear passion behind the record, making even its biggest flops somewhat endearing. “Not Myself Tonight” is nowhere near one of her best singles, but Christina’s love for drama and excess is highlighted in its spoken intro and outro. Especially for her LGBT audience, the album’s most theatrical moments seemed heavily inspired by ball culture and tailor-made for drag shows.
Christina was known since the adolescent start of her career for bearing gigantic, powerful vocals, but throughout much of the record (aside from the interrupting ballads), she doesn’t use them to their full extent, instead choosing to warp them electronically, creating unusual and unexpected sounds. She had already impressed the world with her voice; this time Christina was aiming to impress with her ingenuity. “I feel like I can do so much with my voice,” she said. “I would be so bored sitting on a stool singing ballad after ballad just because I can.”
As much as she was criticized for borrowing from other artists, one of the album’s biggest pros rests on the collaborative process the recording took. If you love M.I.A., you’ll love “Elastic Love” where M.I.A.’s contributions are heavy-handed. Much of the album is influenced by the English electronic band, Ladytron, who also produces a few of the bonus tracks. Sia as well contributed to the album before establishing her reputation working with artists like Rihanna and Beyonce. While the project as a whole is a bit of a mess, the way Bionic melded different sounds together, especially sounds not yet saturating mainstream airwaves, gives the album a level of intrigue not totally common of an artist so commercial. Like with her choice to not flex her vocal chops in exchange for electronic modulations, the experimental collaborations didn’t come from Christina looking to impress the general public, but her own interests and taste in music–hand-picking much of the collaborators based on whom she herself was a fan of. Sia said of Christina and the album,
“I don’t think she thought it was a risk, she was just excited to get to work with the artists she loves. There’s this misconception that she’s a Middle America kind of person. But she’s a little hipster. You go back to her house and sit by the fire with some wine, and what’s playing over the sound system? The Knife and Arthur Russell. She doesn’t listen to pop music.”
Unfortunately, the absolute best on Bionic is only available on the deluxe editions. It’s possible reactions may have been more positive had every critic heard tracks like “Birds of Prey” or “Monday Morning,” which take all the greatest aspects of the album’s experimentations and perfects them.
By the time the album’s era came to a close, the initial poor performance of its singles doomed the rest of the album’s promotion, with only two music videos being released and very few public performances. Personal struggles in Christina’s life contributed as well, as she and her then-husband became officially separated in September 2010, only a few months after Bionic’s debut.
Even with the album’s missteps, the overwhelmingly negative response had much more to do with Christina’s place in pop culture than it did with the quality of the work. Bionic just wasn’t a bad album and yet it practically sunk Christina’s then-dominating career, prompting her to cancel the album’s tour due to low ticket sales (though not the officially stated reason) and preventing her from reassuming her spot in the top tier of pop’s hierarchy (her following two albums yielded even poorer sales than Bionic).
The depiction of Christina as a has-been has haunted her career, but in plenty of ways, all the drama makes her an underdog pop stans love to root for (as long as they aren’t a part of rival standoms). It’s worth noting that Gaga only pulled herself out of her own career-slump post-ARTPOP by essentially turning her back on pop music, first with her jazz collaboration, Cheek to Cheek, then her country-influenced, Joanne, and most significantly her Oscar-winning work on A Star Is Born.
Christina also followed her flop with a film, Burlesque (co-starring another pop icon, Cher), utilizing her acting skills as well as her musical talents. Burlesque was nowhere near as successful as A Star Is Born, but A Star Is Born does retroactive work to criticize Gaga’s pop career and distance its star from her roots and subsequent failures. Burlesque does not, instead occupying the same shamelessly fun space as Bionic and all of Christina’s poppiest ventures. The film has gained a cult-following within the gay community, making up much of Bionic’s fanbase as well.
Bionic is seen by many as a stain on Christina’s career, but not by much of her fanbase, and certainly not by her. This is probably why the #JusticeForBionic movement is one of the strongest in pop standom history. Not only did Bionic contain some of Christina’s most underrated gems, it represents a sort of uninhibited love for pop that stans relate to. That’s what’s so significant about claims that Bionic was “ahead of its time.” Some of the specific sounds in the album would become more popular with time, but more than that, in 2010, many critics were too embarrassed to be proclaiming loud and proud love for songs like “Glam” or “Vanity.”
A revival of “poptimism” in music journalism, a movement in which pop music is upheld as equally deserving of praise and critique as more seemingly “authentic” genres, spread across mainstream publications a few years after Bionic, especially due to the work of artists like Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. Had Bionic been released in the mid-2010’s poptimist heyday, it’s not hard to imagine it would have been met with respect rather than side-eye for its autotune, electronic instrumentals, and adherences to “trends.”
As much as the album was “sabotaged” by superficial comparisons, maybe the biggest thing holding the album back, in truth, was that the world wasn’t ready to admit, yet, that shameless pop music is good.