And If You Don't Like It...

No, I haven't quite fallen off the face of the earth (although earlier today I took a rather spectacular tumble to the Manhattan concrete a mere two blocks from my building, resulting in lots of blood, gauze and moaning on Twitter). I suppose the real reason for my blogging hiatus has been the lack of music to stimulate me to write. Much of my iPod listening time has been spent listening to Korean Pop music over the past few weeks (which you can thank Nikki for). However, I'm slowly returning to my roots, as the summer music scene starts to shape up to be at least mildly interesting. When in doubt, you can always reach me on Twitter, or over at the HitPredictor blog with weekly 'American Idol' updates.

I suppose the biggest recent leak in the world of Mel was a song I mentioned the last time I wrote prior to Easter Holidays -- Christina Aguilera's Polow da Don-produced, first offering from Bionic (finally due out June 8th), called "Not Myself Tonight."

(While I'm quite fond of the recently revealed artwork for the album, this single cover as seen above is just...well...)

After much listening, I still can't seem to claim it the instant classic that so many people want it to be -- myself included. That does not seem to be the case at American radio, however. My area station, Z100, arguably one of the largest and most influential in terms of Top 40 playlists next to KISSFM in Los Angeles, has already been spinning the hell out of it since it debuted on Tina's website a few weeks back. The song is due for formal release on iTunes tomorrow. 

I suppose my main complaint was the song itself was underwhelming. At first listen, it almost sounded...dare I say it...unfinished. I'm not quite hearing the "Forever" callback that so many allude to, it's just to my ears it sounded far too monotone club banger rather than inspired electro-hazey. Considering this upcoming record is boasting efforts by Sia, Goldfrapp, Ladytron and Le Tigre amongst so many others, getting a snarky, semi-generic (especially in terms of Polow's production -- it's nothing we haven't heard before) urban staple cut is definitely not what I was expecting or dying for after so very, very long of a wait.

I keep telling myself it's one of those songs that will grow on you with time, and perhaps it will. It's just nothing is making me want to hit the proverbial replay button on my iPod. I'm somewhat confident enough in the fact that the entire record Bionic will offer better things (for example, the raw "Lift Me Up" premiered during the Haiti telecast was beautiful and downright haunting) rather than a somewhat feeble attempt at a post-poplectro American landscape. It's just the bar was set so high with Christina, in my eyes. 

I'm glad the public at large overall seems to be embracing it, much more than they had with Back to Basics (and I'm still in the camp that that double-disc was supremely underrated and dissed far too often). I'm just ready for Single #2. That's all.