Not Herself, not by a looooong way....

I can't help wondering, on seeing Christina Aguilera's latest video offering, what is she thinking? Has she only recently discovered Lady Gaga? Is she trying to hit the middle-ground between said Gaag and Gwen Stefani? Or does she really imagine she's being visually original? Ok, that's perhaps harsh. But in this post-Gaga popland a video such as this just smacks of imitation, and Aguilera just isn't up to the challenge. Plus the song is dire. Really really dire.

It's difficult to decide if this video is a try-hard wanna be or a knowing take on Lady Jeejee. But Aguilera's tongue is so firmly in her cheek that it's impossible to tell. One can't help feeling that she probably has no idea, and whilst she manages to look her usual fabulous/strange self it all feels, well, a bit lacklustre, no matter how much girl-on-girl/quasi-bondage action she offers us in these 3 minutes of drivel. Because you can't help watching this video and want to go and youtube La Gaag snarling into the camera with coke cans in her hair. Aguilera can do sexy, she can do Dirrty, she can do old-school, she can do a whore with a perm problem. But she can't do this. Nuh-uuuh.

It throws into sharp relief the bizarre trajectory Aguilera's image and career has taken of late. When she started, even from those glorious genie-in-a-bottle days she had nailed that "whoa that's a white girl?" R 'n' B sound. She took prissy 90s Girl Power (Spice Girls rapping, anyone?) and gave it the voice of a mo'fo'. Sure, she was always doing a "look" (who doesn't post-Madonna?), but her slightly rebellious, push-all-those buttons Stripped persona served her better than well, visually and vocally. It also seemed (perhaps mistakenly) like she was a fairly real person, not this strange airbrushed over-produced creature from another planet.

Back to Basics was a departure, and one it's difficult to be sure about. It didn't seem to fit with what she'd done before, and had the feel of Aguilera wanting to prove herself as being beyond her apparent boundaries. It also happened to be in fashion with its big band sounds and mash-up mood. But largely she pulled it off, and music video-wise, she really suits that kind of early 20th Century sex kitten/blonde bombshell look they went for, probably because it's actually relatively uncomplicated. And that is what serves her well, an ability to just stand in front of the camera and sing her little heart out and have you captured by her big blue eyes and slightly odd face. Which is something Gaga couldn't pull off the same, she doesn't have the presence that Aguilera has in the same way - Gaag sitting in a room on her own singing would be dull, for Aguilera it's electric.

But within all this "every new album must be a new look" methodology lies what could be seen as Aguilera's downfall. Not that she doesn't pull off different looks, she does. But she's in danger of visually losing all sense of herself. Someone along the line has told her to embrace this blonde weirdness, but forgot to mention that all the other girls are doing it too. Gwen Stefani has been doing it for years, but is another example of a girl who had to lobotomise her rocker edge (ok granted a small one) for the ubiquitous high-flyin' fashion princess solo career. Although that worked phenomenally well for her originally, The Sweet Escape proved this to be a double-edged sword, and Christina should have taken note of that. And in music video terms it's all about fashion - which doesn't mean you have to follow it, actually.

But really the big probem for any solo female pop artist now is that Lady Gaga has blown it apart, musically and visually. Love her or hate her, her influence on the pop world is massive and indelible and completely covers the territories of both Aguilera and Stefani, and arguably Beyonce as well (although collaborations have saved the cat fight which could have erupted on this one). Not only has she taken over their patch, she's annihilated them. And this is why Aguilera, on the strength of this song and video alone, has fallen down big style.

Instead of "doing a Gaag" and having all this crazy lesbian/leather/evil fashion mood (she even has the red lingerie/flames - also Stefani's 50s fringe), she should have, in her own words, gone back to basics. And by that I mean Stripped. It would be a brave thing to do, but Christina needs to get some grunge back. That's where she was always best, with a smear of grease around her kohl-d up eyes and a slightly rank look to her half-dredded locks. She's got a rawness to her which she should utilise. And she should wear jeans again and go get a proper tan. In short, get down off the pedestal, because she really doesn't need to be there, she did real well on the shop floor....

And if this video was intended as a gauntlet to the Gaag, a piss-take if you will, then she should just have done it frame for frame, not been coy about it. But I don't believe this is a piss-take, it feels too goddam serious. In which case, don't take on the Lady of Pop at the top of her game with an inferior song and a hectic video of bad "sexy face" fashion and frenetic writhing dancers. Cos Gaga's doing it better.

If Christina really had stuck to her stripped/back to basics philosophy we might have got something much more interesting, and something which would have been a much better vehicle for her powerhouse pipes. And in all fairness, Aguilera shouldn't need to dress up in awful bondage gear to prove anything - seriously girl, leave that to Rihanna and the other try-hards.

I think that until she goes back a bit Christina ain't ever going to move forward. She's in danger of ending up being the girl behind the curve rather than ploughing her own unique furrow. It may sound daft but she should take a leaf out of Pink's book - whatever you say about Pink she's more or less kept her visual/musical identity and she's done pretty well out of it.

But instead of real raw powerful stuff Christina gives us in this video a bizarrely pristine (and rather tame) fetish doll searching desperately for a banging tune and having what can only be described as a high profile identity crisis. The fact that she looks best in the covered-up patent leather beret outfit (with monocle?) says something for the video as a whole. Let's hope the rest of her new stuff isn't going to be so lame. Come on Christina, remember how much better it used to be? And yes, it really was: