Christina Aguilera – ‘Not Myself Tonight’
I do love a self-defeating song title, me. I loved it when One Night Only released a song called ‘Just For Tonight’ (reiterated their band name); I loved it when Paul Weller released the most generically Paul Wellery song of his entire, massively varied back catalogue, and called it ‘The Changingman’; and now I love that Christina Aguilera has released a song which deliberately encourages us, her audience to think back to the days when she was the girl who put the rrs in dirty, and called it ‘Not Myself Tonight’
I mean, clearly you ARE yourself tonight, dearie. Your old self. We know. We’ve seen it before.
(Can’t show you the video. Hoo MAMA!)
I think part of the problem is the trajectory of her career. The way she handled the transition from Disney show-off, to throatal hooterizer, to glistening sex wrestler, to ’40s jazz trollop has been so perfect, ending on a note of “and this is really me” and a break to have a baby. Now she’s moved back into that electrosexy thing, and it feels like her first properly backwards step.
It’s a bit like the absence of a rowdy house guest, who you miss when they’re not there and then they come back and you realise your tolerance muscles have got a little flabby since you last spent time together. Certainly watching the video requires an extra layer or two of protective skin on your eyes, but that’s only to be expected.
In the end, what with all the whispering and sexymoaning and shoehorned-in swearing, what with the one-riff monotony and the sense that Christina is chasing after modern R&B, rather than the other way around, there’s just something a bit too eager for attention about this as a comeback song.
The good bits are great – harmonies and chorus, basically – and Christina is in fine voice as you’d expect, but there’s no escaping the feeling that she’s only getting up in our collective grill once again with the sexy and the ‘tude because she wants to prove she still can. And that’s great, I just wish she could also prove why it’s important that we know this.
Download: Out now
CD Released: May 17th
www.christinaaguilera.com
BBC Music page
(Fraser McAlpine)
Digital Spy says: “After a few spins it becomes clear that this is far from a flop.”
The Prophet Blog says: “Not Myself Tonight’ is literally the club banger to end all club bangers (for the time being at least).”
Pink Is The New Blog says: “I swear I’m not trying to make the predictable Britney Spears comparison but… this song kinda sounds like a Britney Spears song.”
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