Christina Aguilera
Bionic (Sony)

Man, Christina Aguilera must love to fuck. Either that, or she’s proof of the old adage that those who talk about it the most do it the least. And, as sure as Ron Jeremy is the most repulsive porn star on the planet, Xtina talks about it plenty on Bionic.

But first, let’s deal with the music. Much was made of the former New Mouseketeer embracing her inner underground aficionado on her fourth disc. Those lending a helping hand here include the microchip-minded riot grrrls of Le Tigre, folk freak Sia, and synth-pop wizards Ladytron. Say what you will about Aguilera’s tendency to show off in the studio, but don’t deny that she’s managed to reinvent herself with each record. In just 10 years she’s moved from the kiddie-friendly bubblegum of her self-titled debut to the guitar-spiked skank-pop of 2002’s Stripped to the hip-hop tinted retro-jazz of 2006’s Back to Basics. Even though she doesn’t really need to say it, she starts off Bionic with the declaration “The old me’s gone I feel brand new/And if you don’t like it—fuck you.”

At times that feels like more than a little hyperbolic. Xtina starts off edgy enough with “Not Myself Tonight”, dressing up new-millennium electroclash with ’80s vintage synths, and “Elastic Love”, which offers up a rise-of-the-fembots strain of robo-pop that sounds like LCD Soundsystem-era Williamsburg. But it all goes temporarily off the rails right around the three-quarter mark of the 18-track outing. Beginning with “Morning Dessert (Intro)”, Aguilera takes things down to a never-ending crawl, rolling out candle-scented ballad after ballad until she’s sucked the life right out of the party. By the time Peaches arrives to pump the energy back up with “My Girls”, it’s almost too little too late.

Still, the first half of Bionic is enough of a blast that you can’t help but hope that Aguilera discovers Bikini Kill and the Distillers in time for her next outing.

Now to the sex.

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. Forget beating around the bush with open-to-interpretation lines like “Give all you got/Give it to me/Just hit the spot” from Stripped. The singer picks up where Back to Basics left off except, instead of channelling Mae West with lines such as “I wanna give you a little taste/Of the sugar below my waist”, she’s now like the letters section of Penthouse set to music.

The filthiness starts three songs in with “Woohoo”, a jungle-flavoured ode to her snapper where she comes across as a less-wholesome Gwen Stefani with “All the boys think it’s cake when they taste my/You don’t even need a plate just ya face—ha!/Licky licky, yum yum what a great guy”.

The aforementioned soft-soul jam “Morning Dessert (Intro)” finds her greeting her evidently shagged-rotten-on-a-daily-basis husband with “Touch me here, touch me there/Lemme give you your morning dessert”. And “Sex for Breakfast” takes the between-the-sheets shenanigans to disgustingly graphic levels with nothing-left-to-the-imagination lines like “Gonna feel your honey drip/My juices start to flow”, not to mention “Taste me and I’ll taste you” and “When the morning comes, I know that I will too”.

At least we get a break from the sucky-fucky stuff in the icky-thumper “Desnudate”, although, considering that Xtina delivers half of it in Spanish, there’s no guarantee she’s not singing “Get down there and tongue my sweet sweet poop chute”. The funny thing is, no one would put it past her.

Download This: “Not Myself Tonight”