Internationally, the album charted moderately, but obtained higher positions in Canada, Russia, Switzerland, and Venezuela, where it reached the top 10.

After the release of Aguilera's sixth studio album, Bionic (2010), which failed to generate her usual sales,[2] she divorced from her husband Jordan Bratman, starred in a film called Burlesque, and recorded its accompanying soundtrack.

[3] The singer then became a coach on NBC's singing contest show The Voice[3] and appeared as a guest vocalist on Maroon 5's single "Moves like Jagger" (2011), which spent four weeks atop the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.

[6] On The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 2012, Aguilera revealed that the album was taking a while to record because "I don't like to just get songs from producers.

[...] It's taken us a decade in the same business and watching each other from a distance, so for us to now come together and respect each other's work ethic and how we like to be heard and making a marriage out of it, I think 'Your Body' is the best culmination of that.

Music complimented Aguilera's figure,[15][16] while Sam Lansky from Idolator drew comparisons to the cover of her fourth studio album, Stripped (2002).

[10] Lotus incorporates pop styles with elements of dance-pop and rock in the form of up-tempo songs and piano-driven ballads.

[18] The song has a "hypnotic" yet "dark, serious" tone that develops and matures as it progresses, depicting Aguilera's rebirth, similar to the life cycle of a lotus flower.

[22] Originally, the song was meant to include a sample from M83's single "Midnight City" but the interpolation is not heard in the final track.

[10] The up-tempo track "Red Hot Kinda Love" combines a variety of genres, including dance and disco, "subtle" tones of Latin, hip hop, and pop.

[23] "Around the World" has a ragga influence and refers to Aguilera's 2001 hit "Lady Marmalade" as she whispers "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?".

The song received mostly positive reviews from music critics, who praised Aguilera's vocals and the collaboration with Max Martin.

The song's accompanying music video was directed by Melina Matsoukas; it portrays Aguilera as a killer dressed in pink, one who delights in wooing physically fit men to their demise.

[40] The singer performed a medley of three songs, "Lotus Intro", "Army of Me" and "Let There Be Love" at the 40th American Music Awards on November 18, 2012, held at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, California.

[46] Sarah Rodman of The Boston Globe called it "a good start in the effort to refocus attention on Aguilera's skills", but observed "several tracks that sound mindlessly repetitive as sedentary listening experiences".

Club felt that the album "often plays it safe" and accused Aguilera of "dumbing down her voice or lyrics for the sake of lightweight tunes or prevailing trends.

"[19] Melissa Maerz of Entertainment Weekly found the album's "self-empowerment anthems ... as contradictory as they are unoriginal" and criticized its production for "digitally smother[ing]" Aguilera's vocals and "draining all the emotion".

[47] Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani asserted that because it is "Aguilera's shortest album since her debut, it boasts less filler, but also fewer obvious standouts.

"[25] Jon Caramanica of The New York Times felt that the album's conventional direction is "its biggest crime, more than its musical unadventurousness or its emphasis on bland self-help lyrics or its reluctance to lean on [...] Aguilera's voice, the thing that makes her special".

[52] In a positive review, AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that Aguilera "feels comfortable in this familiar, slightly freshened territory".

[49] Kitty Empire of The Observer characterized its subject matter as "wiffle of the highest order", but wrote that "one of the pleasures of Aguilera is that she can use polysyllables, even when talking the rot that fills women's mags".

[48] Celina Murphy of Hot Press felt that Lotus's "safer" direction and Aguilera's "default mode" makes the album an improvement from Bionic.

[60] In a retrospective review That Grape Juice called the album "criminally underrated", and noted that it was a "wholly enjoyable jukebox of jams" doomed by a "questionable marketing".