Christina Aguilera - Not Myself Tonight (Official Unedited)

This is, I'm pretty sure, meant to be transgressive and sexy. But it isn't. It's so damn tired, on every single level. Of course, most obviously, it recycles a million things that Madonna and others had done, like, almost 20 years ago, so it's completely unoriginal. But, worse than that, it's trying too damn hard, in a time when totally sexualized and fetishized images of women are the norm. This, and the recent Lindsay Lohan gun and blood photoshoot/video are part of what I hope is the death knell of "pushing the sexual envelope" for women in pop culture. Even male bloggers running websites devoted to lusting after swimsuit models and dogging "ugly chicks" are bored with this bullshit.

And Xtina, you're not yourself tonight, but what are you all the other nights? Is this supposed to tap into the kinky vixen that all women supposedly secretly are? The lady on the street, but a freak in the bed? Whatever. This isn't some kind of empowering statement of ownership of your sexuality. This is a super desperate bid for attention, and I guess it sorta worked. But it doesn't make me want to buy your album or go to your shows.