Christina Aguilera "Not Myself Tonight"

[a Nick O!]

I give her a clean slate every time, but one listen to this leaves me describing the song as a hot mess. Not atrocious, but pretty underwhelming.

The verses reminded me of Britney vocals and there really isn't a strong hook to it at all. The song is kind of swallowed up by Christina's hollow horniness and Polow's clattering production (you can tell it's him by the "One-two-three-four!" chant that kicks off the bridge, which he recycled from the top of Chris Brown's "Forever).

(Not to mention the single cover looks like Madonna, 20 years ago, from the short black vinyl dress, to her hands on her hips, to her head cocked back.)

[blahblahblah]

Well he also recycled the drum beat from "Forever" right from the beginning of the song.

The swearing is kinda unnecessary and forced, and the song is really short. It's not bad though I guess, so it'll probably be a lower B range for me.

[a Nick O!]

I wish this song had an open Pulse topic still, so I could echo this quote (with modifications)...

I just can't stop laughing at this song's performance. It's not even a bad song and I actually enjoy it quite a lot, but this is hilarious.

And add this:


("Not Myself Tonight" being the ball, to state the obvious.)

[krazymack]

Critics seem to draw plenty of comparisons with her and Lady Gaga. I've wondered if listeners moved away from the X-tina era to focus on Gaga and if that notion somehow overshadowed the performance of "Not Myself Tonight" on the charts and X-tina's image in general. Especially since Gaga, has had hit after hit within the past two years.

[a Nick O!]

Since Christina was a throwback pin-up during her last album cycle and Gaga came on the scene and blew up 2 years after that, it's a little unfair and lazy to constantly say Christina's copying Gaga now, especially since the idea has been planted, that's what everyone will have in the back of their mind no matter what she does now. They're just looking for a reason to say it and feel a smug sense of satisfaction with themselves, like they're eagle-eyed detectives or something. And I'm in no way immune to this, myself, because it's impossible to remove that idea from my brain now. I need someone to sneak into my dreams and replace that idea, like in Inception.

I mean Christina did the "Fighter" video 7 years ago, for crying out loud. But since she made so many conventionally styled videos after that, people would totally tear her to shreds for copying Gaga if she tried to go back to fashion as off-the-wall as that now. (One wonders, though, how much influence director Floria Sigismondi had over the wardrobe.)

I feel like, for as shamelessly raunchy as the Bionic album is supposed to be, she rightfully deserved an underwhelmed public response. I do feel bad for her now, though, because "Not Myself Tonight" didn't deserve to die as quickly as it did and the more time goes on, the more it feels like her label is fumbling a damage-control single strategy, since "Woo Hoo" was pulled back and "You Lost Me" isn't really going anywhere. It's already beginning to feel like this album will end up being a total commercial dud like Kelly Clarkson's My December or Beyoncé's B'Day, before her label started shoveling money behind "Irreplaceable."