Christina Aguilera treats us with her seventh studio album Lotus
As she mentioned, this album is fun-filled, and she didn't care if it had hits-material. Of course, we'd believe that - right?
With the recent 'tragic' sales performance of Bionic, I feel Xtina was forced to go back to basics - and by this I mean succumbing to the commercially manufactured artist formula. This is the very same formula that brought her stardom to begin with.
I've been listening to the whole album for almost two weeks now. Let's backtrack for a minute… It is not a bad album, per se. It is a competent mix of great vocals, blue-eyed soul ballads, and trendy dance-influenced pop. There are no actually horrible songs.
She collaborates with Alex da Kid, fame and pop super-producer Max Martin. She's also commissioned her The Voice peers Blake Sheldon and CeeLo Greene. Noticing a pattern? After the commercial failure of Bionic, Christina seems to be hungry for a hit, and yet Bionic is actually a better album than Lotus.
One of the album's highlights is the power ballad Blank Page co-written by Sia; the track Light Up The Sky has that LSS effect; and other ballads Sing For Me, Empty Words, Best Of Me who all have been re-hashed from her previous works but still nonetheless a good listen.
Army of Me was described as the successor to Fighter, but the song lacks the same passion and angst. Let There Be Love could be described as an album highlight with its Max Martin-produced wall of synths, and has that American EDM sound written all over it but the song feels like it came a year or two too late.
Your Body, the lead single from the album, is another stand-out Max Martin produced pop track, which I truly felt was a very catchy track and deserved to be the carrier single. As for Just A Fool, a surprise and delight hit from Xtina and The Voice co-coach Blake Sheldon. The chemistry was just there, the vocals, the whole feel of the song brings a lot of hope for the album's struggle for success.
IMHO, I feel she is no longer a step ahead of her contemporaries, as she was with 2002’s Stripped and 2006’s retro pastiche Back to Basics. She’s trailing behind, desperately trying to hang on to the heels of her more successful peers. Which sometimes lead me to think that she is commercially misplaced - always next to someone, always being compared to. To date, I feel she doesn't have a solid identity as an artist as compared to the likes of Madonna, Mariah, Britney, etc. Don't get me wrong though, she is a great artist but I think she's reached the plateau of her artistry.
Having said that, Lotus is largely forgettable. While the songs are "good" they aren't as great - nothing that could stand alongside Stripped or Back to Basics. Everything felt like a second-place rehash - from album covers, to messages of the song, and even her voice sounded struggling for power.
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