“Not Myself Tonight” is a new song by the Sony Music (RCA) recording artist Christina Aguilera. The song serves as the lead single from her forthcoming fourth studio album, Bionic. The track was written and produced by hip hop writer and producer Ester Dean and Polow da Don. The song, along with its accompanying music video, was positively received by critics, praising Aguilera’s return to her style in 2002’s Stripped; however some were critical, calling the song and video “unoriginal”.
The video itself features a strong sexual theme with scenes of S&M and bondage, as well as scenes in a church and several prestigious-looking buildings. Aguilera sporting several hairstyles and outfits, including many which were dominatrix-style. Actress Jenna Dewan appears in the video as a woman that Aguilera straddles. The video was inspired by several artists. James Montgomery of MTV News compared her scenes in the church to a slimmed down version of Madonna’s scenes in her video for “Like a Prayer”. He also said that the S&M features in the video were reminiscent of her video for “Human Nature”, commenting, “The influence on “Tonight” is pretty evident, most notably in Christina’s leather get-ups, her dominatrix attitude and the sultry chair-related activities she engages in throughout.”
The video also pays direct homage to Madonna’s “Express Yourself” in the scene where Aguilera wears a monocle, where she crawls on the floor and reaches for a bowl, and in the “dancing in the rain” scenes. In the bowl scene, she later pours black milk on herself, similar to what Christina Milian did with black oil in her “Dip It Low” video. Aguilera goes back and forth between several hairstyles in the video, which have been compared to styles of Bettie Page, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and Gwen Stefani.
Tanner Stransky of Entertainment Weekly, commented that the video was very much like Lady Gaga, but said it was even more like Madonna. He also noted that, “When it comes to Madonna, nearly every pop star has taken pieces of her performances/styling/etc”, and “With the Gaga argument, can we really fault Christina for taking from Gaga, when Gaga herself has so ripped from a variety of other artists?” Stransky also noted that Aguilera did indeed seem desperate in the “unoriginal” clip, saying that she had been gone for along time and now “clawing for relevancy”, but “maybe she should have gone in a totally different direction to avoid comparisons”.
During its first week on the radio “Not Myself Tonight” became the most added song on Mainstream Top 40 (886 plays in its first six days) and Rhythmic Radio stations in the United States. It was released for digital download in the U.S. on April 13, 2010, and sold 77,000 copies in its first week resulting in a debut of number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. It fell to number 49 for its second week. It is Aguilera’s fourth highest chart debut behind 2008’s “Keeps Gettin’ Better” debuting at number seven, 2006’s “Ain’t No Other Man” which opened at number nineteen, and 1999’s “Genie In A Bottle” which debuted at number five.
