When the sun rises, there's one thing on my mind. What's for breakfast, baby?

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts.

13/06/10 : Bionic - Christina Aguilera

Only our second meeting with Ms Aguilera - last time I liked some bits of it, but didn't find it as enjoyable as I was expecting.  Here's hoping for a better experience this time around...

And yeah, I think it was - but I'm struggling to describe exactly what it was.  There's way more variety here than I was expecting - it's more R&B than her earlier pop stuff or the ballad-y stuff that she's also known for, but there's all sorts in there.  I was slightly surprised I didn't recognise any of the tracks but I quite liked "Bionic", "Glam" and "Elastic Love" - "I Hate Boys" made me laugh (but I'm not sure whether it was supposed to) and some of the sexual metaphor used on other tracks is somewhat tortuous.  I was reminded of No Doubt in lots of places and there's definitely bits of Destiny's Child, Gaga and Madonna (it's a very Madge look on the cover) in there too but I'd have to say a lot of it still sounds pretty fresh today - there are some nice TikTok stealable sections in a lot of the songs.  It feels like it would take quite a few listens to really get this album, but the initial signs are promising.  However, as with the previous album, the deluxe version is really too long at 83 minutes - the 58 minute original would have been more than enough.

We're at #1 with a new entry at the start of a mere six week run - so I guess people weren't that into it.  The rest of the top five were Alicia Keys, Michael Bublé, Glee (but not the one we met last week) and Lady Gaga and the next highest new entry was The Drums (#16).

Wikipedia has the expected huge amount (404 milliPeppers because she's American and famous) and I didn't bother reading most of it.  It is interesting how mixed the reviews were at the time though, even within the same review - The Guardian said it was an "occasionally brilliant and brave, occasionally teeth-gritting and stupid album" and there were various comments about how she was trying to copy Gaga (which I didn't get as a whole across the album).  Retrospective views have been kinder though, although I'm still not convinced it's ever going to be rediscovered as a pop classic.  It also struggled commercially, being bought by the core fans in the first week and then no-one else afterwards - it was the lowest selling #1 album for eight years and registered the biggest ever (at the time) drop in its second week to #29.  It still managed #3 in the US, so it can't be considered a complete failure!

"Customers also listened to" The Pussycat Dolls (it's WAY better than this offering), Beyoncé, Gwen Stefani and Kelly Clarkson - some shy retiring ladies for you there.  All in all, I thought this was quite an interesting and potentially good album and it was odd reading how down everyone was on it - particularly when compared with her previous album which felt very Xtina-by-numbers, which this very much didn't.  No, I'm never going to listen to it again but I'm glad I've listened to it once.

06/06/10 - Why do so many people love this?
20/06/10 - Bearable but mystifyingly popular