BUT, she's never been ORIGINAL, just BETTER.

Here's the thing. I adore Christina Aguilera.

ADORE.

She's one talented itty bitty little woman. Huge voice. Adorable as sin.

I know every word to every song on every cd she's popped out. Squished myself into a stadium full of barely legals when she came through town on her first big tour years and years ago.

Am sort of hopelessly devoted to the girl, caked on makeup and all.

So by now we've seen her new "Not Myself Tonight" video.

And yes, she tries to be edgy, she tries to shock, she slithers all over a girl, uses a sort of facelessly hot guy as a stripper pole toward the end, sits around in bondage gear and pasties, rocks all sorts of vinyl outfits and ugly hairstyles - generally channels every Madonna and Lady Gaga video out there, fails to break any NEW video ground and is being taken to the rug for a decided lack of orinality.

But here's a thought:

Xtina's NEVER been original.

She's just been better.

She popped onto the pop scene behind Britney - her song and dance routine (even back then) was initially derrided as being a copycat act - another young blonde Mickey Mouse Club grad in a post-"Oops! I Did It Again" world.

And then we discovered she was actually a better singer.

In this case, it's been years and years since her last studio release - she's been off playing mom and now she's back on the promotional circuit with a new single, new video, and new CD due out June 8th. And since Christina was last seen, Lady Gaga became the pop heir apparent, pushed the limits of CGI costumery in her videos and slowly garnered all sorts of international pop love in a post-Xtina top 40 landscape. So what's a grown-up, married off mom to do in order to feel relevant again (or at least generate enough hum to guarantee that we download the CD out of curiosity, if nothing else...)??

Lick things. Flip us off. Not-quite-go-down-on-a-girl. Pour something black and sticky all over herself (you can call it chocolate if you like, I'm thinking it looks decidedly more like something that has the power to create little Batman spawn....). Hump the floor. Play with a whip.

Anyway - she needs to put herself back on the map, so she comes out with a video that sort of bombards the senses with lots of quick flashes of skin, weird eye makeup, strange hair, and some sort of tired, recyled, hair-tossing "dance" moves.

She's in incredible shape, we'll give her that. Looks amazing, actually. Probably better than she did in the assless chaps of "Dirrty" days past.

But here's the question, I suppose:

Why do we point fingers and scream "Unoriginal! Ripoff! Recycled!" when we watch her video, as though visual innovation was the only thing that mattered? Why not call it a striking homage? I mean, it's fun to watch. Nope, it's not really covering any new territory, but I suspect we'd agree she looks great, the song is catchy and well-produced (if a little predictable, and no, not altogether unique) and frankly, the "name the video she's copying there!" game is fun. It's like Skittles. You know what you're getting when you rip into a bag of Skittles. They're good. They're colorful. They're tasty. You never get a "bad" batch of Skittles. They're yummy comfort candy, sort of like Christina's yummy comfort pop.

She's good.

She's talented.

She can sing.

She choses good songs.

She waits and comes ot with great (read: catch) music, the sort I leave in my car cd player for months at a time. We have fun singing along with her (er, try our best to keep up with some serious vocal acrobatics...).

She seems stable - settled down. Normal, almost. That's more than we can say for the high drama, high-exposure lives of everyone from Britney to Rihanna to Jessica Simpson and JLo.

My suggestion: use the fact that she's getting all of these Lady Gaga comparisons to her advantage. Everyone loves the Gaga. In my fantasy pop music league they'd collaborate on something, actually. There's lots to love about both ladies.

Anyway: I'm excited for the CD. I enjoyed watching the video. Who says it has to be original - it's a fun, guilty pleasure and the song isn't too bad, either.

But I'm biased: I adore this girl.