Xtina’s “Elastic Love” Rocks—But You’ll Have To Wait To See It Live

Becky Bain | May 25, 2010 11:28 am

Christina Aguilera is postponing her Bionic tour til 2011, citing prior commitments as the reason for pushing back her tour with Leona Lewis. Turns out 2010 is too busy a year for the singer, since she has to promote both her new album and her film Burlesque, which will be released this November.

But don’t be too sad, Xtina stans! Bionic drops June 8, and we’ve got two standout tracks from her fourth studio album to share with you—”I Hate Boys” and the M.I.A.-penned “Elastic Love”. Unfortunately, only one of them is a standout in a good way.

[wpaudio url=”//idolator.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/04-Track-04.mp3″ text=”Christina Aguilera – Elastic Love” dl=”0″] “A rubber band is what I call your love for me, cause it comes and goes and pins me like a trampoline,” talks-sings Christina, sounding a bit like Gwen Stefani (but not in any blatant let’s-start-a-feud-with-Gwen way, so retract your claws, folks). We’re just going to blurt it out—we love this song. This 80s New Wave-style synth track is fresh and bouncy and is interestingly bereft of Aguilera’s power notes she’s known for. It’s a unique change of pace that doesn’t feel forced in any way.

It’s interesting that M.I.A. is a co-writer on “Elastic Love,” because we don’t think it necessarily reminds us much of her music (whereas the Santigold-written opener “Bionic” has tinges of Maya Arulpragasam’s darker electro sound). But it’s definitely a departure for Christina, or Xtina, or any other adopted phase the pop star has sported throughout her career. It doesn’t sound much like anything on Top 40 radio at the moment, either, so we hope it  gets a shot at being a single.

(If we have but one complaint, it’s this dumber-than-dumb lyric: “A rubber band was an analogy, you could even say it’s a metaphor.” Yeah, Christina. We got that.)

[wpaudio url=”//idolator.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/16-Track-16.mp3″ text=”Christina Aguilera – I Hate Boys” dl=”0″] The track, allegedly produced by Polow Da Don, begins pretty much ripping off the opening drum beat to Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” and sounds almost directly inspired by the trash-talk obnoxiousness found in Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend.” We think Avril is too old to be chanting such schoolyard insults, so just imagine how disappointing it is to hear a 29-year old do the same thing, but in an even less sophisticated way.

In the song, Christina claims that “all men are dogs” and that guys are “only good for fruit, I mean bananas, them boys they’re driving me bananas.” (Yes, she just rhymed bananas with bananas.) It’s one of those pandering songs that will no doubt have young girls singing along, particularly the chorus, “I hate boys, but boys love me, I think they suck and my friends agree.”

It comes off like a song about female empowerment on the surface, but really, it’s just a hate-driven song about ridiculing all men. What happened to Christina’s positive outlook about the male race in “Ain’t No Other Man” or “Candyman”? We know “I Hate Boys” is just a song, but it’s a lazy one that leaves rubs us the wrong way.

So basically, these two tracks highlight the best and the worst you’ll find on Bionic. Is that good enough to motivate passing Christina fans to pick up her album June 8? We’ll have to wait and see.