This saddens me. With so much national promotion in the past week you would think her album would have done better than this. I think it really comes down to two things.
1: The floppage of 'Not Myself Tonight'. While I loved and still love clubbing to this song, it simply made no sizeable impact on the charts to push Aguilera back into the public consciousness.
2: The Lady Gaga comparisons. With the mere announcement of the direction Aguilera was taking with this album (making it electronic, futuristic, etc.) people began to bitch about how she was copying Gaga. And the Not Myself Tonight video did not help as people thought it was a direct copyoff of Gaga's 'Bad Romance' video. This annoys me soooo muchhhhh. Seriously, WTF. I hate how any white girl who sings mainstream pop music now will automatically be called out on trying to copy Lady Gaga. It's such bull! Any artist who wears any clothing that is slightly different is automatically copying Lady Gaga. It's just stupid. I absolutely love Lady Gaga and her music and am one of her biggest fans, and it just doesn't make any sense that some people think that any upbeat pop song or god forbid any song at all with electronic elements is someone trying to copy Gaga. It's just not cool. Even people like Beyonce have been called out on it! A few irrational people said the 'Video Phone' video was Beyonce copying Gaga...are you serious???????????!?!!?!? So, because Beyonce was wearing multiple leotards and outfits, each with a distinct vibrant color, she is copying Gaga? Even while Gaga herself said that she was trying to do Beyonce in the video? Dumb. And then Ke$ha has fallen for it as well. During her SNL performances of 'Tik Tok' and 'Your Love Is My Drug' one of my friends texted me and said "She's gotta stop being Gaga. She's not gaga." Again, because Ke$ha was wearing cool outfits and had glow in the dark body paint she was trying to be Gaga? I don't think so. The point is that these comparisons are stupid but ultimately negatively affected Aguilera's album sales.
I just wish people would stop being like "She swagger jacked her! She's trying to do Gaga! She's trying to be like Lil Kim! blablabla." Again I am obsessed with Lady Gaga. I love her. But all of this people copying other people stuff is so dumb and will prevent artists from actually taking risks and being creative with their work. Are artists not allowed to change and evolve in the industry? Enough of my rant.
