Album Review – Christina Aguilera “Bionic” Deluxe
Christina's "Bionic"
The 24 track long return to music from Christina Aguilera is a curious one, that starts out with a fantastic optimistic flair, that unfortunately trips and stumbles a few too many times on the way.
The album begins with the stellar track “Bionic” which really encapsulates the direction Christina seemed to be going for with this project, and one of the best parts of the song is that unlike in other songs where she simply sings over the music doing vocal back flips and somersaults, she really just melts into the production and the end result is a really great song.
Then we suddenly hear “Not Myself Tonight” which really does not feel very “Bionic”, more like “SexyBack” (or any other Timbaland song since then). “Not Myself Tonight” is a really nice dance song, lots of fun, she has some really nice vocals in it as well, except some of the lyrics are quite forgettable and unfortunately the whole premise of the song seems a little desperate when it’s in the context of a “futuristic” album.
However, this pattern of great, but ill fitting songs continues with “WooHoo” which I personally really like. The lyrics are somewhat... of a hit and miss, but the production of the song really shines. As with the many other collaborations on the album, her voice doesn’t sound as distinctive here. Nevertheless it’s a decent song, just badly timed.
“Elastic Love” is fantastic, the only criticism of this song is that she is practically imitating M.I.A’s vocal style completely. Otherwise this song is just pure genius, the production flows a little bit better than M.I.A’s music but it still holds that quirky confidence that she’s known for.
I would really like to stop here, but alas we still have 18 tracks to go, “Desunudate” is really where we begin to understand the reality of the album. It’s really not that interesting or original, you can’t help but hear the looped beats in the background. Then we are put through the “Love and Glamour” intro, what a joke, it’s the most embarrassing attempt at sounding intelligent I’ve heard lately, just a bunch of clichés mashed into an interlude. To be honest, interludes rarely work, so why bother doing one if you don’t have anything worth saying? “Glam” is possibly one of the worst attempts to sing about fashion in a song. It’s simply absurd to even thing this compares in any way to Madonna’s “Vogue”, and the fact that she chants “Now Snap!” and then “Don’t let the clothes wear you” is practically laughable. This is where I’m starting to lose my faith in the album, and we still have 13 tracks to go!
“Prima Donna” is fairly nice, it sounds like a continuation of “Bionic” the track almost, her vocals are a little shoutier on this one, but I guess the song really demands that. The musical interlude “Morning Dessert” is really nice, as is the beginning of “Sex for Breakfast”, unfortunately the song really doesn’t go anywhere from there, very bland, especially considering it’s the longest track on the album.
“Lift Me Up” is definitely one of the stand-out tracks on the album, but perhaps the production really doesn’t compliment the sheer emotion that Christina puts into the vocals on this track. The “My Heart” intro is completely unnecessary, and it is really just using her child for all the wrong reasons, I’m definitely not criticising her as a parent, but the only reason they put this in was so some listeners would go “Oh she’s a mother! I suddenly have more respect for her, sisterhood etc etc.”
“All I Need” has a beautiful melody, it’s another track worth noting, and this really shows how her vocal technique has vastly improved since her debut. The album follows on nicely with “I Am”, this is the kind of sound that she really thrives on! “You Lost Me” can be compared to work from artists like Fiona Apple and much like the previous song, really benefits from Sia Furler’s brilliant song writing.
God help us! Not again, now we’ve unwittingly stumbled into a pitfall, “I Hate Boys” really destroys the brilliant song writing and production that we witnessed before with a cheap immature re-hash of “Keeps Getting Better”. But wait, it gets worse, Christina follows this off with “Vanity” an absolute shocker of a song, even if you put aside the off-putting lyrics. This is the kind of stuff people expected of her after her debut album.
Then we get into the Deluxe Tracks, and thank god for that, if you purchased the standard edition and were left with “Vanity” ringing in your frightened cochleas, you would not be very satisfied. “Monday Morning, the Santigold track is a massive stand out on the album, in the same vein as “Elastic Love”, it shows that she is still capable of making interesting music. “Bobblehead” is disgusting, and nothing else, such a hypocritical song. “Birds Of Prey”, much like the title track, is a smooth song where her voice relaxes into the music around it, fantastic.
The Deluxe edition ends with “Stronger than Ever”, which is the right way to leave the listener, inspired by the beautiful lyrics and soothing vocals. Overall this album does not come out as a winner. If it were a 12 track album, it would be a simply breathtaking piece of work, but with its bloated track list we are left feeling unsatisfied and pushed around.
I hope you enjoyed this review, leave your comments below!
New Music Video – Lady Gaga “Alejandro”
I'm going to try and keep my opinions to myself here, and just post the video as is for now. If you want to see my opinion below (I stress, that it is an opinion), then check it out!
Ok, so basically, in my honest opinion, this video is just 8 long boring minutes of self gratifying cliches. I will admit that Lady Gaga does a nice job at making something seem meaningful when it's really just 8 minutes of techniques lifted straight out of a first year film students textbook. When Lady Gaga came out, she was great, her music was fun, and her personality was too. But now she is pretending to be some amazingly dark and troubled person, when clearly, if you ever saw interviews of her two years ago, she was just a young woman who loved fashion and pop music.
Unfortunetly now, she tries to cram imagery into her video's to fool her fans into thinking she is some kind of visionary. Can anyone not see that ever since she released her "Paparazzi" video and second album (or EP, The Fame Monster) her attitude has completely changed. Nobody, except her fans will want to sit through this video more than once, I don't understand how anyone could. This is 8 minutes of grade a "Bullshit". I think that Lady Gaga uses to her advantage, is that ANYTHING can be analysed and given a meaning, even if the meaning, is incorrect, or there was no meaning at all. To quote Pablo Picasso, "Those who try to explain pictures(in relation to art) are usually barking up the wrong tree". For Lady Gaga, it seems that the meaning can come after the actual creation of the project, as if it were some kind of divine intervention from her "muse".
One great example is, "Telephone", she wrote this song for Britney Spears in 2008, then releases it on her second album which she claims was all about "Fear of different monsters we encounter". OK so, let me get this, "Telephone" despite being written for Britney Spears, was written with the "Fear of Work" monster in mind? My God. I do like Lady Gaga's music, but I just cannot bring myself to listen to these songs that she brings out horrific music videos for. I originally loved "Paparazzi" when I bought "The Fame" in Mid 2008, but ever since the video I just cannot enjoy it.
I know that i am definetly in a minority here, but I am sure there are plenty of other people who are smart enough to understand how ridiculous and blown out of proportion, Lady Gaga's "Artistry" is. If not that, at least to understand that she is not some shining star of hope in the pop music world. I will thank her for one thing though, for making music videos big events, and allowing record labels to justify larger budgets! Although this is also due to the Youtube era.
I'm really sorry if I have offended anybody, but to set the record straight, I LOVED Lady Gaga when she wasn't so full of shit, there is an article on this website where I give endless praise to "LoveGame" the video. I love her music, ask me about any song, checkout the review of "The Fame" that I did. I honestly have given her a lot of time and thought, but I can no longer fully enjoy her music when I am bombarded with all this bullshit and delusions of grandeur from her "monsters" and the Lady herself. (Ps. I have seen her live three times, once in 2008 in a club in Melbourne, opening for the Pussy Cat Dolls, and then the Monster Ball)
Performance – MTV Movie Awards Christina Aguilera “Bionic Medley”
So, Christina performed at this years MTV movie awards, and did a medley of three songs from her upcoming album. I was expecting another horrible mess like her performance on Oprah, and judging by the fact that almost everything in her album campaign has failed miserably so far, I wasn't far off the public sentiment. To add to this, I personally listened to "Bionic" Christina new album, and whilst I really enjoyed a few songs, however it did not need to be so long, and certainly good have done without her talking it up so much.
BUT, I watched this performance and must say I really enjoyed it, she had a good stage presence, seemed really fired up and energised by what she was doing. I also though she looked great for once, no clown makeup, no massive frizzy hair, she was definetly making all the right moves. So basically, things are starting to look up for Christina's latest album campaign, it has since been #1 in the UK midweeks, which is a great sign considering she hasn't really promoted there as of yet. I think what is most important, is that she stops taking long breaks in between albums, as expectations can become too high. Anyway, checkout the performance and let me know what you thought in the comments section!
New Performance – Lady Gaga “Alejandro” American Idol
WHAT THE FUCK??? Why ruin a fantastic song? Why? There was nothing redeeming about this performance, the singing was horrible, the dancing was half assed, and my god can she stop it with the piano intro, it's just TOO cliched. I really am quite a fan of "Alejandro" but this performance was just an overwhelming 6 minute cliche. Apparently the performance was cut short by American Idol, so I have posted the full version here, but to be honest, if the singing was better, and there wasn't so much irrelevant "artsy" crap going on, I'm sure I would've been able to sit through this. Have a look for yourselves and comment below with your take on it!
New Demo – Britney Spears “Telephone” (DL link)
Ok, so it's most likely fake, but it's still becoming a big topic on the internet so far today. This is claiming to be the demo that Britney Spears recorded with producer Darkchild. It sounds somewhat like Britney Spears but at the same time reaks of fallacy, so take this with a grain of salt.
The story behind Telephone, is that the song was originally written by Lady Gaga and submitted to Britney's record label to be considered for her 6th studio album in 2008 "Circus". Britney recorded a demo of the song and it was eventually rejected altogether, at which point Lady Gaga reclaimed it and used it on her second album "The Fame Monster".
This version is so horribly edited it gives me a headache, but many people say they love it, perhaps they love the fact that it is supposedly Britney Spears. It could be a fantastic version if it were cleaned up and the vocals were stripped WAY back, because this is just ridiculous.
(Britney Spears "Telephone")
New Single – Christina Aguilera
Yes, this is certainly nothing new, and almost everybody seems to have an opinion on the song, yes it's pandered towards the commercial music market in vain, and the lyrics don't offer much to be desired, but why, for one second, can we not just appreciate the song for what it is? A stupidly fun, completely unintelligent tune of the dancey variety.
I'm going to completely put aside the horrific oversinging, forgettable dated production, and immarture lyrics, and reccomend this song to people (gasp?!). Yes, I do reccomend this song, not that anybody... 'reaally' takes any interest in this, but seriously, get in your car, put this song on, and I challenge you to avoid not enjoying it as a fun pop song!
Yes, the song is flopping, and this is no surprise, but it doesn't mean the song is particularly terrible, it's just moreso the fact that if you haven't released a song for two years, and you hype up your lead single as a comeback to the music scene, you really wouldn't be very smart to literally vomit up a vapid, generic, and unecessarily sexual bargain bin song, in order to reignite the embers of your career.
Either way, just download the song, and enjoy it, pretend it was released four years ago if you need to, and that it was a bonus track on a collection of b-sides. I guaruntee you'll be singing (or humming) along to the lyrics which you will inevitably forget after the mandatory 4 minutes is up.
New Song – Lady Gaga “Monster” (Preview + DL)
Lady Gaga's sophmore effort "The Fame Monster" may not have charted as impressively as hoped in it's first week, but her competition was abundant so this wasn't surprising. After being told to re-release her album "The Fame" as it's success did not seem to match the success of it's singles, Lady Gaga was adamant that she wanted to make it worthwhile for her fans to buy, and decided to record 8 new songs.
Listen to a preview of "Monster" below!
She then came to a stage where she decided it would be released by itself as her sophmore album (The 8 new songs) and as a deluxe edition with "The Fame". I respect this, however she should've waited a little longer to write a few more songs, and make it a fully fledged effort. I feel this because mainly there has been no gap between The Fame's last single and The Fame Monsters release. Many people will not view this as her sophmore album, which is sad because it's a really solid collection of songs.
Anyway, whilst there are some amazing songs, and some that fall flat in an attempt to channel other artists style, I am going to focus on one of the many amazing songs on the album, "Monster". Monster is a great song, it has a very catchy beat, and a corny hook "He ate my heart", but funnily enough this hook just fits so well. For once Gaga's vocals work perfectly for the song, and she isn't wasting her time with vocal inflections, it just comes together so well and feels like a full song.
"Monster" is fantastic, catchy, and relateable, it has a very 80's ish sound to it, with the fading bridge and the beats that remind me of Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation (weirdly enough). I hope you enjoy the song, and whilst I cannot stand the cover art and the idea of releasing an album with only 8 songss, the album itself has some great songs, if you haven't heard this album yet, buy it on iTunes.
(Lady Gaga "Monster")
Whilst Gaga's outfits and look may really put you off of her, one thing remains, her music is really good (apart from the ballads) and her image shouldn't stop you from giving it a go! Leave a comment below, what do you think of releasing an album with only 8 songs? Would you prefer a re-release? Are you getting sick of Gaga or do you think her new album is refreshing?
Updated – New Britney Spears Single “3″ (29th September)
After an initial pushback from the originally rumoured release date of 21st of September, as reported on Jaw Music over two weeks ago, there will be a worldwide simultaneous radio release of Britney Spears' new single titled "3".
This single will be lifted from her upcoming release, titled 'The Singles Collection" which will be released in two formats. The standard format will be a 18 track collection, including her biggest singles, and the new song titled "3", but there will also be a deluxe edition, which instead of the conventional extra track or two, it will be a completely different kind of release.
The deluxe edition will be a box set, created especially for her devoted fans, with copies of all 29 of her singles, individually packaged with additional b-sides and remixes for each disc, including a dvd of all her music videos from Gimme More to Lucky.
However, back to the single, it will premiere on Tuesday in the United States, and worldwide within the hour. This release has been handled very well, no leaking of any details has taken place, which will ensure that this single will chart extremely highly and possibly get Britney her "3rd" number 1 hit in the United States. The track was recently recorded by Britney in Europe and produced by Max Martin. Britney is likely to be adding this song with a dance that corresponds to the upcoming music video by her show in Las Vegas on the 26th of September.
Stay tuned!
Post VMA09 Update – Lady Gaga Performs Paparazzi
Lady Gaga desperately tried absolutely everything to get attention at the vma's on Sunday night. Whilst her looks and outfits hugely backfired on her, and her performance missed the mark, one thing remains, she has some good pipes! Her voice in the Paparazzi performance was alongside a reverberated backing track, but aside from this her voice sounded perfectly in tune, she can sing very, very well. However the performance, as a performance was trying to hard, the piano playing was a really bad attempt to act like a real piano player, and the blood and horrible acting skills were just done for simple shock value and had nothing to do with the story. Her outfits just looked awkward, and ridiculous, I miss when she used to dress and it suited her, however she's diverted down a path of dressing for the best reaction (positive or negative) But what remains is her vocals show some real talent, so PLEASE stop with all the pretentious bullshit and lame special effects and harness your voice!
What did you think of Gaga's performance? Leave a comment below (I'll reply!)
New Single – Bassment Jaxx “Raindrops”
- Bassment Jaxx "Raindrops"
Bassment Jaxx have always been a quirky group, their songs take most of their inspiration from countries like India to Iran, their muse is worldwide. This is what is so unique about the Bassment Jaxx they bring together so many different cultures and make them danceable, all the singers they work with are incredibly talented and are distinct.
Listen to "Raindrops" here in High Quality
Personally I became a solid fan of the group (rather than simply their songs) when I heard "Crazy Itch Radio" the album, which was a fantastic example of how to produce an amazing album. From start to end it sounded like a radio station from the 80's and it made the album instantly recognisable upon a listen. It was a great album because it takes you through a journey of songs rather than a collection, we need more albums like this!
Their new single from their upcoming album "Scars" is just beginning to impact on the charts in the United Kingdom and Australia. It has their trademark uplifting worldly sound throughout. This song has just debuted in the United Kingdom at number 21, and will undoubtedly climb many more places. Stay tuned for their new album "Scars" due to be released on the 21st of September!