Bionic is the sixth studio album by American singer Christina Aguilera. It was released on June 4, 2010, by RCA Records. Inspired by Aguilera's taste for electronic music, Bionic is characterized as an electropop, futurepop and R&B record. Its first half consists of electronic songs incorporating synthesizers and electronic beats, while the second half displays a balladic production. The album's main themes include sex and feminism.
Bionic initially received mixed reviews from music critics, although in retrospective commentary multiple professional journalists noted it has gained a cult following. Commercially, the record charted at number one in Greece, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom while reaching the top five within Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. It has received gold certifications from Australia, Austria, Brazil, Greece, and the United States.
Bionic spawned four singles: "Not Myself Tonight", "Woohoo", "You Lost Me", and "I Hate Boys". The album was promoted in mid-2010 by television performances, such as Aguilera's appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, the ninth season of American Idol, Today and MTV Movie Awards. Its concert tour, the Bionic Tour, was initially planned to support Bionic, but was ultimately canceled due to Aguilera's heavy promotional schedule for the album and then-upcoming film Burlesque (2010).
Background and development
After a successful 2006, during which Aguilera released her critically acclaimed and commercially successful fifth studio album Back to Basics, Aguilera received a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (2007) and won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for its lead single "Ain't No Other Man". While on the Asian leg of the Back to Basics Tour, during the summer of 2007, Aguilera said that her upcoming album would be "short, sweet and completely different" from its predecessor. After the birth of her son Max, Aguilera stated in an interview with Ryan Seacrest that her forthcoming album would include a completely new aspect of herself as an artist, because of the pregnancy with her son. In a February 2008 interview with People, Aguilera stated that she was going to start recording new material for her forthcoming album at her Beverly Hills, California residence. DJ Premier, who, at the time, was working on projects for his record label Year Round Records, shared plans to head back into the studio with Aguilera, and stated: "She's doing an all pop album again, but she wants me to keep the tone like what we did before. She's ready to start next month." Linda Perry, who had previously worked with Aguilera was to be included in the project too. In an interview with Billboard in October 2008, Aguilera said that the album would be mostly produced by Perry.
During the initial recording sessions, Aguilera released her first greatest hits album Keeps Gettin' Better: A Decade of Hits (2008), which featured two new songs that were derived from electronic music, and she announced that the compilation was in the vein of where the upcoming album was going to go, which was a very futuristic approach to music. "I get off on working with creative energy", she said, and added: "That's when I'm most at home and feel happiest. And all these people brought about new sides of me. It was a big collaboration-fest, and it felt so good and rewarding in the end, because I was just so happy with the work and the new territories that I ventured out to." Aguilera also remarked that her son inspired her to experiment in ways "that maybe I've been afraid to do in the past, to allow myself to go to a place of 'less singing'". She mentioned it "is just about the future" with Max "motivating me to want to play and have fun."
Recording and production
Aguilera set about contacting collaborators on her own accord, at the behest of then-husband Jordan Bratman, without relying on the record label A&R. She stated: "Going into [each of these partnerships], I said, 'I'm a really big fan of yours, and I'm interested in stepping into your world and what you do'", adding: "'I want to combine that with my sound, and let's see what happens.' I feel like I can do so much with my voice. I would be so bored sitting on a stool singing ballad after ballad just because I can." Australian singer-songwriter Sia and her collaborator Samuel Dixon worked with Aguilera on a number of tracks for the album. Aguilera told Billboard that she was a big fan of Sia and thrilled to learn Sia wanted to work with her as well. They recorded together at a studio in January 2009, and, according to Sia's blog, wrote four songs together during the sessions. Sia heard the album — or at least some songs recorded for it — as early as April 2009, which she revealed on Twitter.
Members of British electronic band Ladytron, Daniel Hunt and Reuben Wu, went to Los Angeles to meet Aguilera in December 2008 after hearing that they were one of her favorite bands. During the meeting, Aguilera identified what kind of Ladytron songs she liked, with Hunt later saying: "We were impressed because she had a real deep knowledge of our music – album tracks, not just the singles!". The band stated: "We went in with no expectations; the whole thing was a massive surprise. But it was incredible. She was so musically talented, a vocalist who really knows her voice. The first takes sounded really amazing, and while we'd made demos, it was only when her voice was on them that it all came to life." They finished working with Aguilera in March 2009 and produced four or five songs, but only three made the final cut. Two songs produced by the band – "Birds of Prey" and "Little Dreamer" – appeared on the deluxe edition of the album. Meanwhile, the third song "Kimono Girl" did not make the final cut, although it has been highly anticipated by fans. To celebrate the album's tenth anniversary, Aguilera released "Little Dreamer" onto streaming platforms in June 2020. British duo Goldfrapp said in a January 2010 interview that they did not finish the studio sessions and did not know whether their songs would make the final cut.
The Australian said that the production team The Neptunes were to work with Aguilera on the album. In an interview with HitQuarters, Dr. Dre protege Focus... said: "We did a song and an interlude together." He produced the beats for "Sex for Breakfast", which were then worked on by Aguilera and producer Noel "Detail" Fisher. Focus... got involved with the project because he and Aguilera share a loyal and longtime engineer Oscar Ramirez; Ramirez suggested and arranged the pairing. Focus... commented about the experience: "[Aguilera] knows exactly what she is looking for and is not afraid to tell you. It was the first project I've ever worked on where someone sent me examples and showed me exact parts in the song they were looking for." Aguilera announced on her E! television special that she was going to be working with American dance-punk band Le Tigre.
In August 2009, Aguilera said that she co-wrote tracks with British Tamil rapper and singer–songwriter M.I.A. and American singer Santigold, and according to American producer Tricky Stewart, Flo Rida would be featured on the album. Producer Polow da Don, who produced two of the four singles released from the project, was the only producer to be suggested by RCA Records and not contacted by Aguilera personally. Additionally, Stewart and Claude Kelly wrote the song "Glam", which was described as "a hard club song that's about high fashion. It's really for the ladies about getting dressed and looking your best, working it in the club and getting glam and sexy before you go out. ... It will surprise people. I'm calling it a modern day 'Vogue.' I wouldn't say it unless I believed it." Kelly also co-wrote three other tracks for the album, including the first two singles "Not Myself Tonight" and "Woohoo". He described the four tracks as being "up-tempo and fun, they're party anthems but at the same time have underlying messages." Commenting on the experience of working with Aguilera, Kelly said: "What people don't know about her is that she's actually a really good writer. She has good ideas, good melodies, good concepts ... She's really involved from the very beginning to the very end."
Composition Music and lyrics
Bionic is musically inspired by Aguilera's taste of electronic subgenres, including electronica. The album was mostly described as futurepop, while Andy Gill of The Independent noted the hybrid of electro and R&B on the project, and The New York Timess Alex Hagwood characterized it as an electropop album. Bionic consists of eighteen tracks on the standard edition, and twenty-three on the deluxe edition. The standard edition consists mostly of electropop songs, heavily incorporating synthesizers and electronic beats. Mike Usinger from The Georgia Straight opined that the accompaniment of synthesizers on the project "offers up a rise-of-the-fembots strain of robo-pop that sounds like LCD Soundsystem-era Williamsburg." A few tracks are done up with Auto-Tune. Multiple music critics recognized sex as the main theme of Bionic. Eric Handerson of Slant elaborated that the album "[is] all in service of routine pop sex, the sort of standard-issue sleaze that [...] stood in stark contrast against." Echoing Handerson's point of view, The Georgia Straights Mike Usinger commented: "Where past Xtina efforts have hinted that's she's horny to the core, Bionic makes a concrete case that she's the dirtiest girl working in mainstream pop." Bionic also displays feminism as a prominent theme; Kitty Empire from The Observer labelled Bionic a "cranking post-feminist party album". In June 2020, Aguilera stated that Bionic is "all about being unabashedly YOU".
Songs The album's title song "Bionic" serves as its opening. It is an electronic track, featuring tribal house drums, Morse code riffs, and synthesizers. "Not Myself Tonight" takes influence from tribal house and incorporates synthesizers, pulsing basslines, and house drums in its instrumentation. On the song, Aguilera explicitly announces her new persona and style adopted on Bionic, declaring that "The old me's gone I feel brand new / And if you don't like it, fuck you." The third track "Woohoo", featuring rapper Nicki Minaj, was detailed as an electro number, and speaks about oral sex, containing lyrics such as: "All the boys think it's cake when they taste my woohoo / You don't even need a plate, just your face." The following track "Elastic Love" features "808-esque backbeat" in its foundation. On the song, Aguilera uses office supplies such as rubber bands as a metaphor for her relationship. "Desnudate", which means "get naked" in Spanish, is a bilingual Spanish and English song in which Aguilera calls herself the "supplier of lust, love and fire." Musically, it achieves electro horns. "Love & Glamour (Intro)", which is a fashion-themed spoken interlude, follows, and is succeeded by "Glam", a "throbbing" dance-pop and electro song about high fashion and making up before going out, which was characterized as a hip hop-influenced throwback to Madonna's song "Vogue" (1990). "Prima Donna" is a retro styled combination of classic pop, dance-pop and electronic music. It talks about strong women, with background vocals from Lil Jon, who encourages them to "work yo' body" in the track.