#1 [url]

Jun 7 10 4:02 PM

well, i guess it's not only us that see how she sucks...

the washington post completely trashed her in their bionic review:

System Failure: Christina Aguilera, 'Bionic'

Amid accusations that she was cribbing from Lady Gaga, her leadoff single, the cluttered club anthem "Not Myself Tonight," was an immediate flop, and Aguilera ended up canceling several dates on her summer tour. The reason given was that she needed more time to practice, but did anyone actually buy that? 

Aguilera should send flowers to M.I.A., who has actually been getting worse press for her upcoming album — releasing two middling tracks, a hyperviolent video and tweeting the private number of a writer who penned a less-than-adoring profile in the New York Times. Then again, maybe M.I.A. owes Christina, since their "Bionic" collaboration, "Elastic Love," is a trainwreck crashing into another trainwreck.

Even though Aguilera has worked with an impressive roster of producers and collaborators, "Bionic" lives down to its bad buzz. It's disjointed and punishingly long, as if the jittery din can convince you of her innovation and disguise the slight whiff of desperation. "Glam" and "My Girls" sound like runway fare, as if she's trying to land a slot on the "Sex & the City 2" soundtrack, while "Prima Donna" and "Vanity" are two of the most ridiculous odes to self-love ever written.

"Sex for Breakfast" is a "Birthday Sex" rip-off so ludicrous that it descends into parody, and in general, the lyrics range from embarrassing to REALLY embarrassing. "A rubberband is what I call your love for me, 'cause it comes and goes and pins me like a trampoline," she sings on "Elastic Love," with what sounds like a straight face. "A rubberband was an analogy, you could even say it's a metaphor for the tension between you and me."

Of the artists who emerged from the late '90s teen-pop field, Aguilera not only has the most powerful voice, but also seems to have the most fun with it, pushing its emotional and octave range. That instrument could compensate for so many sins, but "Bionic" doesn't give her much to sing. Instead she's constrained mostly to a half-sung rap cadence throughout the entire first half. The pair of power ballads later in the album — the anonymous "Lift Me Up" and the dreary "All I Need" — make for an adequate showcase for her pipes, but otherwise, anyone could be singing on "Bionic."

If Aguilera doesn't sound like herself on "Bionic," then perhaps that album title is more prescient than even she could imagine. Four years after her last album (which is several generations in pop music), she sounds like she's trying to remain relevant by rebuilding herself from pieces of other pop singers: the self-objectification of Britney, the outrageous self-sculpting of Lady Gaga, the dancefloor gender politics of Robyn, the robotic vulnerabilities of Janelle Monae and the tense rhythmic bangers of M.I.A. Yet, especially in a year that has seen superlative efforts from these women, Aguilera can only eat their dust. 

She is, in fact, better than "Bionic." Her late '90s tracks "Genie in a Bottle" and "What a Girl Wants" hold up better than contemporaneous hits by Britney and N'Sync, and even as those artists (save Justin Timberlake) have combusted with tabloid chicanery or cartoonisly hypersexual songs, Aguilera kept her dignity by staying out of the tabloids, except for the rare mention of her devotion to her husband and son.

In 2006, "Back to Basics" sounded like a woman at the top of her game, so it still holds up in 2010. By comparison, "Bionic" doesn't dumb her down so much as it absents her almost entirely. As a result, it sounds instantly dated.

Written by Express contributor Stephen M. Deusner