(originally posted on Facebook)
So Christina, you want to pay tribute to the classic forms of music? How does including digital effects that sound like an old scratchy vinyl record accomplish that? You do realize that during that era people did everything they could to minimize the limitations of their recording and playback formats, right? And scratching, clicking, and tape hiss was something people wanted to avoid. If you actually wanted to pay tribute to classic music styles, maybe you should be trying to reduce the amount of digitalness in your album because the great artists of yesteryear didn't have any of that crap but somehow still made music that sounded awesome.
One fucking song in and I'm already ranting. Of course for some reason this album is 71 minutes long. Another thing classic music tends to contain is instruments, not samples. The real shame is Aguilera can sing quite well. Her sound isn't anything special, but she's got strong pipes and solid technique. These R&B standard style songs wouldn't be half bad if they weren't produced by whatever half-wit DJ they had in the studio that day.
There's a song on here called "Thank You (Dedication To Fans...)" that I guess is supposed to be some kind of message of thanks to the people who like her music. It might have started like that, but someone decided it would be a great idea to use recorded messages of people telling Christina how wonderful she is and how much she inspired them. I don't know... if she really wanted to thank her fans, couldn't she just have written a simple thank you song without including bits of people saying, "You're such a brilliant artist!" It's so self-centered. Instead of saying, "Thanks, I'm glad my music makes you happy," she seems to be saying, "THANKS FOR RECOGNIZING HOW GREAT I AM!"
It's kind of amazing that Aguilera, the producers, and anyone who wrote for the first half of this album can claim they wrote in the style of music from the 20s, 30s, and 40s, and yet they wound up with music that sounds like any other modern R&B album. I can't really pick apart the composition too much because the songs are decent enough. But certainly a much better way to honor music's basic past would be to concentrate less on writing like they did way back when- I mean, has the basic structure of popular music really changed that much in the last century? What has changed way more is how the music sounded. Maybe get away from that computer and drum machine and pick up an actual instrument? Maybe?
OK, so the album is actually made up of two parts. The first half is dull modern R&B as described above. The second half is darker, sillier, and trashier while containing GASP... actual instruments! Is that a drum kit I hear? A horn section? Holy crap! Almost all of my complaints from the first half are being addressed in spades. I mean it still sounds like a cheap imitation of cheesy music from a 1920s burlesque club, but it's a thousand times less insulting than the informed "tribute" I was slogging through before.
So for the first time I am legitimately torn. In essence I have two albums to review. The first half of Back to Basics is an easy 1 star, while the second half is a pleasant 3 stars. But I can't leave it at that, because this was not released as two seperate albums, so part 2 can only be considered as a continuation of part 1, not another entity. I guess I have to go back to that old standby- if I like a significant portion of an album, no matter how long it is I have to say it's a good album. That's why The Wall got 3 stars even though I didn't really like it. Back to Basics is a bit more of an extreme case because the good stuff is all mashed together and the crap is front-loaded. But I guess I still have to say 3 stars.
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