This new thread is about the genesis of #Bionic. Or should I say about Xtina's 4th era, because there was a whole other concept before Bionic. And a loooot of speculations.

Don't forget to join the #JusticeForBionic movement on June 8th!

After "Back to Basics" Xtina wanted to release a shorter album. She actually even announced that it would be titled "Light & Darkness." One part would have been fun and sophisticated pop, the other would have been darker.

The common thing to these two parts was really the experimental people Xtina worked with. @LadytronMusic, @Goldfrapp, @MIAuniverse, @Peaches, Sia, Nicki Minaj, were very niche back then.
Xtina said that the album would have a very futuristic vibe with "bizarre" effects.

The album had to be delayed because of her pregnancy. Her label asked her to release "Keeps Gettin' Better."
Xtina recorded 2 new songs+2 new versions of her classics Beautiful&Genie. They were a lil experimental & electronic but not too much because they had to sell the record.

The fans were REALLY thirsty and were already aware of the title "Light & Darkness."
A few months after the release of "Keeps Gettin Better" strange videos started appearing on YouTube… Xtina was literally MIA and Fighters were THIRSTY.
But there were some hints in the videos…

"iamamiwhoami" started uploading weird videos, in the woods, without ever showing their full face. Very quickly, the whole pop world was on fire and everyone assumed it was Xtina. If you were around, you obviously remember how we were all OBSESSED with proving it was her.

People started finding proofs that YES, it was Xtina. The hair, the nose, the teeth, the blue eyes. We knew X was up to something experimental and dark and it felt actually very coherent and logical.

Many videos had just a series of numbers as titles. Fans on pop forums started digging and finding clues. When you made calculations with the numbers you came upon things like "CH. AG." or "I AM C."

X also said that the album was inspired by her giving birth to Max and in one of the videos you could see a goat and an embryo. In another video, you could also see an owl and a few days before the video was uploaded, Xtina called herself a "night owl" in an interview…

Moreover, Xtina had already explored such an imagery. The music video for "Fighter" was very dark and was inspired by the life cycle of moths. The videos had a similar vibe/color palette. So, it kind of made sense back then. (Even though it definitely feels like a reach now.)

There was a strawberry cake in one of the videos. On the next day, Xtina appeared with a t-shirt with a strawberry cake drawn on it. That's farfetched but the coincidence was crazy!
In another video (since deleted), you could hear one sung note and it sounded very Xtina.

Also, you have to admit that by calling yourself "i am am i who am i" you want to hype people up and you're hinting at a big reveal. So it seemed very logical. Jonna Lee (the real person between the YouTube channel) sure knew what she was doing!

The rumors were so big that RCA and Xtina had to debunk them, destroying a big part of the hype around Xtina's new album and leaving fans very disappointed.
@_iamamiwhoami_ released several projects since then and it's very good, so check them out!

The fact that people thought it was Xtina made them expect something EXTREMELY experimental from her, and I'm pretty sure we can say it also played in Bionic's initial bad reception…
For example, from The @Guardian:

Xtina was finally ready to release her new album. But suddenly, RCA asked her (they literally forced her) to change the album's concept and to record more commercial tracks. That's when she recorded "Not Myself Tonight" for example. The whole "duality" concept had been cancelled.

The original lead single was "Glam", which was supposed to be a new "Vogue." So, in all cases, the lead single would have been a tribute to Madonna, "Not Myself Tonight" directly referencing "Express Yourself" and "Human Nature."

Because of all the new songs, Xtina could not make the short album she wished because she had to put commercial songs to please her label and she still wanted to include the more interesting tracks. And that may be why #Bionic was first considered to be all over the place.

Many tracks have been left behind. "Night Desires" with @Goldfrapp was never released. And the band actually doesn't even appear on the album. "Kimono Girl", that was inspired by Japanese electro and Xtina's life in Tokyo, remains unreleased too (and an obsession for the fans.)

Since the whole light and darkness concept had been thrown away because of RCA's demands, Xtina had to come up with something else. She decided to go for a retro-futuristic look somewhat inspired by Metropolis. Yes she's a robot but a retro one!

You know it, the album was destroyed by a fierce press campaign against Xtina. It was mainly led by Perez Hilton, who was back then very influential. He's now a flop so I'm not going to say much about this. Among all his lies, he falsely claimed that Xtina's sextape had leaked.

Xtina was going through a lot. We learnt later that she was going to divorce Jordan… All the promo plans were cancelled.
She was supposed to shoot a video with @NickiMinaj for "Woohoo" and a corset had been ordered to @TheBlondsNY but the video was scrapped.

The tour was also cancelled. It was first announced to be rescheduled but with the release of #Burlesque and Xtina's problems in her private life, it was just cancelled.
The last thing she did for "Bionic" was to release a video for "You Lost Me", a moving way to bury the era.

"Bionic" later received justice with plenty of articles praising it and confirming Xtina's 2012 claims that it was indeed "ahead of its time."
You can read more about its legacy in this other thread, here.
https://twitter.com/ratedxtina/status/1256638129974456322

Don't forget to join the #JusticeForBionic campaign on June 8th. Until then, keep streaming the album to get it to 100M streams on Spotify!
Thank you all! https://twitter.com/RatedXtina/status/1259416772492636161