It’s silly to be disappointed that an album titled Bionic comes off robotic, but in the case of Christina Aguilera’s latest, it’s hard not to be.

The much anticipated, fourth full-length from the pop star teased with the promise of interesting collaborators for years before its release.
Unfortunately, while a few top-notch tracks make the album not entirely a waste, there are too many bland duds that clog up the system.

The album is filled to the brim with electronic beats and glitchy digital effects that get in the way of Aguilera’s powerful pipes. While “Elastic Love,” co-written by M.I.A., establishes itself as a catchy and minimalist electro song, the overuse of tremolo sounds a little too “ga-ga-oh-ah-ah-ah.”

Some of the tracks, though, are downright boring. The bratty “Woohoo” is basically just a rewrite of Kelis’s “Milkshake” with more focus on oral sex, and “Glam” is a tepid track about fashion that doesn’t really say much beyond “fashion is fun.”

Aguilera turns introspective on “Lift Me Up,” by “Beautiful” writer Linda Perry. The song is a standard we-can-get-through-this-together ballad, but redeems itself by allowing Aguilera’s vocals to shine without a barrage of digital effects.

While it has its moments, Bionic mostly comes off, well, bionic. Aguilera put too much thought into making her album a well-oiled machine. And while that process can produce a few catchy hits, it comes off devoid of any genuine emotion.