After 22 years, Christina Aguilera returns to the Latin music scene with "Aguilera". This is her second Spanish-language album, named after her family name, a reference to her review of her family's upbringing, as well as reflections on Latino identity.
After 22 years, Christina Aguilera returned to the Latin music scene with "Aguilera"
Admittedly, it's an excellent original album, but its topicality was unsurprisingly taken away by this month's reissue of Stripped-20th Anniversary Edition. Stripped, released in 2002, is not only one of the most visually effective and topical pop albums in the conservative American music scene after the "911" incident, but also one of the best-selling albums in the first 20 years of the 21st century.
Stripped's name shouts "Look down at me!" But what doesn't shout out is actually "be true to yourself." This became Aguilera's hallmark, the biggest difference between her and the pop singers of her time: under the highly industrialized recording system of the millennium, she was one of the people who most dared to pursue truth and self in disregard of the market and public opinion.
Christina Aguilera's fourth studio album, Stripped
But we decided to use Aguilera as an introduction to get to know Christina Aguilera again.
Aguilera consists of a trilogy: La Fuerza (released January 21, 2022), La Tormenta (released May 30, 2022) and La Luz (released September 29, 2022). Speaking about her return to Spanish, she said: "This album I wanted to continue working on for a long time, and I was happy to wait until I was already a mature woman to finish this album. ”
Aguilera, who is 42 years old this year, asked "What a Girl Wants", but has experienced two marriages and two children. She told Billborad: "Having been a mother, going through my career, I injected a different perspective and passion into this album. Knowing the difficulties and facing them head-on is sometimes daunting and frightening. I can't create in Spanish the way I do in English, but I know my heart. "Aguilera grew up in fictional English, so she doesn't speak Spanish.
At the end of the 90s, the Latin music wave represented by Gloria Estefan, JLo, and Ricky Martin rose, and the record label RCA Records considered her the perfect candidate to break into emerging markets, allowing her to tutor Spanish, recording the Spanish version of the hit single "Genie in a Bottle", and releasing the album "Mi Reflejo" a year later while the iron was hot.
Many years later, she no longer had to follow the record company's schedule. She decided to take the initiative to complete a Spanish album: "Now it seems like I'm back to square one again, but this time as a mature woman." "Sometimes my most commercially successful moments aren't my happiest moments because they don't represent the real me or my passions at the time." But since Stripped, I've been making music that I totally believe in, even if it's hard to delineate a genre, and this new album is the best example of this. ”
"Since Stripped, I've been making music that I totally believe in, even if it's hard to delineate a genre, and this new album is the best example of this."
Aguilera was born in 1980 on Staten Island, New York, to a U.S. soldier father from Ecuador and a second-generation immigrant mother from Ireland who was a Spanish translator.
Her childhood changed frequently with her father's location, from New York to Texas to New Jersey to Japan, but what was more disturbing was his domestic violence, which enveloped her and her mother's life. Aguilera recounts how she sought refuge in music: she kept watching The Sound of Music, singing loudly with Julie Andrews in her room, trying to drown out the squabbles of her parents outside the door.
When Aguilera was four years old, she was once found covered in blood by her mother, and when her mother asked her what had happened, she explained: "My father hit her, and my father wanted to nap, but I was too noisy." That was the last straw, and my mother finally decided not to endure it anymore and fled back to her mother's home in Pennsylvania with her and her one-year-old sister.
Christina looked angelic beside her grandmother and younger sister
The short period of stability gave Aguilera, who fell in love with music, the opportunity to pursue her dreams, and she began to ask her mother to send her to participate in talent competitions large and small. She was almost invincible and quickly became a local singer in Pittsburgh, but the two sides of her success were that it may have made her arrogant, perhaps made others jealous, and of course, maybe both — the controversy over both causes would carry out the rest of her career — the only thing that was certain was that Aguilera began to suffer a long period of school bullying soon after escaping the shadow of domestic violence.
As if destined to become famous as soon as possible, she experienced everything that required her to become famous too early, and even in contrast, her childhood experience was not entirely unhelpful to her career as a child star - when she was 9 years old, Disney's famous children's show "New Mickey Club" was selected for members of the national team. Aguilera, one of 400 children who auditioned for Pittsburgh, finished in the top six but was eliminated for being too young. Two years later, Aguilera's mother received a call from a producer of "Mickey's Club" who kept the tape of the original audition and asked if she would like to audition again, only this time she had to compete with 15,000 children across the United States.
In 1993, at the age of 11, Aguilera's dream came true and she officially joined Club Mickey. Just before she left for Hollywood, her mother also remarried, and everything seemed to enter a new chapter. At the 2000 Grammys, when Aguilera won Best Newcomer Award, she thanked her parents on the list, referring to stepfather Jim Kearns rather than biological father Xavier Aguilera.
Despite her acting experience at the time, Hollywood's child stardom career was always fraught with crises: the lack of child protection mechanisms and the pressure of transformation that followed her growth made it difficult for most child stars to survive, including tragedy. In the 50s, Paul Peterson, the shortest-lived member of the Mickey Club history, was often a laughing stock on the set because of his small stature at the time, and was fired after a conflict with the casting director after his humiliation. After a painful acting career and overcoming drug addiction, he became an activist dedicated to the protection of child actors.
Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera shared the stage one of the few moments after they became famous
She was born at the same time as "The New Mickey Club" Ryan Gosling and, of course, Justin Timberlake, who later entangled her for a lifetime, love-hate and Britney Spears, who suffered the same horrific tragedy that Paul Peterson tried to warn against.
Aguilera stayed at Club Mitch for two years until the show went off the air in 1994. Trying to start her singing career, she did not wait for a record company to sign, so she went to Japan in 1997 to perform with singer Keizo Nakanishi. She then went to Romania to represent the United States at the Golden Deer Music Festival.
A year later, she had just returned to the United States and finally had her chance: the producers of the Disney movie "Mulan" were looking for someone who could sing the High E. Aguilera's manager, Steve Kurtz, sent Disney a demo of Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Run to You" that she recorded on a portable tape recorder in her living room. The next day, she was already in the studio, singing the soundtrack for Disney. Six months later, she signed with RCA Records to start recording her first album, Christina Aguilera. In August 1999, the album was released and became an instant hit.
At that time, the agent strictly created the most market-tested "bubblegum" princess image for her, in her words, it was the image that young female singers should have in the minds of "middle-aged and elderly white male executives in record companies" at that time.
Steve Kurtz strictly created the most market-tested "bubblegum" princess image for her at that time, in her words, it was the image that young female singers should have in the minds of "middle-aged and elderly white male executives of record companies" at that time. This made her not only have no say in the music creation of her album, but also had to be compared to Britney, who also came from "Mickey Club" and took the same route. Kurtz squeezed her excessively, arranged a full job, eventually led to her falling ill and throat infection, and she decided to fire the manager when she first debuted.
Rebellion and flight – this is the theme that runs through Aguilera's life. Almost no one is as unafraid to change the status quo or even start over. After Kurtz, she found her co-opter, Irving Azoff. His strong style has made him frequent enemies externally, but he is an effective protective umbrella internally, which is almost identical to Aguilera's style. Soon, she released the sharply changed style, sexy and sexy "Stripped", completely getting rid of the girly image with the hit "Dirrty".
In an interview with Glamour magazine, writer Laurie Sandell asked about the impact of Dirrty: "When young boys watch the MV, they don't see a competent, powerful woman — they see a sexy, almost naked woman in a tight bikini scratching her head. What do you think? ”
Aguilera replied, "I can't control what young boys think. I'm not putting on a show for men; I'm happy with my body, it's a creative choice. I know this may make some women uncomfortable, but we need to unite and not blame other women for their choices. I think women are sensual, beautiful beings, and expressing myself sexually empowers me. ”
As Rolling Stone magazine commented at the time: "The Stripped name is shouting: 'Look down at me!'" But what I didn't shout was, 'Be true to yourself.' This became Aguilera's hallmark, the biggest difference between her and her contemporaries: under the highly industrialized recording system of the millennium, she was one of the people who dared to pursue truth and self the most regardless of the market and public opinion. When the icing is removed, she does not replace it with plastic.
Her direct expression naturally met with a more intense response than a magazine interview. The most widespread and representative response came from Eminem. In 1999, Aguilera revealed on MTV that Eminem had been secretly married to his longtime girlfriend Kim Scott, and pointed out that there was a lot of violence in Eminem's lyrics, all aimed at Kim.
This content is certainly no secret to this day, but it made Eminem furious at the time, and soon he choreographed Aguilera's sexual experience in "The Real Slim Shady" and humiliated her as a slut. Aguilera said in an interview that Eminem's lyrics were "disgusting, offensive, and most importantly, not true." On 2002's Can't Hold Us Down, she sang "So what? Am I not supposed to have an opinion？ In response. That same year, the two embraced reconciliation at the MTV Awards, but in 2018, Eminem challenged her again in a new song.
This time, she responded on Andy Cohen's show: "It's not good to attack anyone, especially women in this industry, but look at what he's doing now, really, find some new tricks." "It was thirsty then, it's thirsty now."
In another interview in 2018, Aguilera couldn't help but express envy for a new generation of female singers. This is in stark contrast to Eminem, who is still continuing the millennial fashion. Aguilera couldn't help but sigh: "They won't have so much opposition when they debut, but I do." She recalls a time when people were accustomed to: "Women are either not sexy enough or don't satisfy men's fantasies, but if we show sexiness openly or gain power, we will be humiliated." She has no regrets about the controversy that sparked the drastic transition, "Madonna went through what she had to go through, and she paved the way for our generation." I'm just a relay pass, and I'm happy and unbelievable to see the rise of the younger generation. ”
Along with her singing career, there is also her private life, especially the love-hate relationship that continues from the Mickey Club: according to the most widely circulated version, Aguilera and Britney, as the youngest members of the show, were originally sisters, so that their mothers became friends, until Justin Timberlake's intervention caused the two to have conflicts. Justin later became Britney's boyfriend, or according to today's public theory, one of the initiators of Britney's journey to the abyss.
The rumors surrounding the trio reached their peak in 2003: when Justin and Britney broke up high-profile, he immediately announced a special tour of "Justified & Stripped" with Aguilera. Despite Justin's denials, many, including Britney, believe it was a deliberate act of revenge on his ex.
The night after the tour, Britney went to the popular Joseph Bar in Hollywood to try to reconcile with Aguilera. She knew that Aguilera and Timberlake were there, but when she arrived, she bumped into the scene of the two hugging, and Britney and her clashed.
When Britney and Kevin Federline got engaged, Aguilera was asked by the media for her opinion. She rated Federline "inferior," and Britney did not respond publicly. But Aguilera reportedly regretted her statement and wrote a letter to Britney, hoping that they would put their past past apart and become friends again. Britney never replied again.
After spending the first decade of the 21st century, where she was almost omnipresent, Aguilera turned 30. The music scene has changed dramatically with the birth of Lady Gaga: electronic music, technology, space wind, these elements have never been needed by Aguilera, who is known for his singing skills. Perhaps in order to break through herself again, or perhaps to debut too early to lead to the early arrival of the midlife crisis, she released an album "Bionic" that almost reproduced the style of Lady Gaga.
After a decade of popularity, the album "Bionic" became a watershed moment in Aguilera's singing career
It was the biggest waterloo of her musical career, largely due to the loss of authenticity she was proud of. In Stripped and Back to Basics, she pours out her heartfelt but doesn't gossip. Her music shines a light on her real life: her sexual liberation, her and her mother who suffered domestic violence, the sexism she encounters in plain sight, her urge to be a bad girl, her desire to be a good wife and mother, and all her love of music, her fear of the spotlight, her nightmares of self-destruction. But Bionic is a work of style that is greater than content, and even style does not belong to her.
Cristina Aguilera's 2006 release of Back to Basics continued Stripped's success
Crises ensue, as if to herald her early midlife crisis. That year, she met production assistant Matt Rutler on the set of Burlesque and fell in love, her first film, but as fiasco as Bionic. The new relationship also ended her 5-year marriage to music producer Jordan Bratman. She and her ex-husband broke up peacefully and shared custody of her son Max.
"I never wanted Max to grow up in arguments or unnecessary upset." Years later, she talked about her childhood reflections on her decision to divorce, "I had an unhappy childhood, but I appreciate the experience. I know I have a bigger purpose, to empower and to encourage others to find their voice. ”
In 2011, her first year together with Matthew, they attended the Super Bowl in Dallas together, and Aguilera was the opening musical guest, and then her biggest live blunder occurred: she forgot the lyrics of the anthem.
Even more tabloid carnival than forgetting words were other news happening at about the same time: At Jeremy Renner's birthday party, Aguilera fell into Renner's bed, perhaps too drunk, or maybe too crazy. Shortly afterwards at the Grammys, Aguilera was unsteady on stage while paying tribute to Aretha Franklin, almost falling, and speculation grew that her drinking was out of control. Less than a month later, after she and Matthew celebrated her joining the upcoming "The Voice of America" at a restaurant, the two were arrested by police for drunk driving on their way home at three a.m. Despite later reveling that Matthew's blood alcohol concentration at the time was 0.06%, below the California legal standard of 0.08%, the two were detained overnight by the police.
This was the lowest point of Aguilera's life at the age of thirty. In an interview afterwards, she said: "This incident should not have happened in the first place," but she knew exactly why it came to this point, "The police knew my current situation and completely followed the public opinion at the time." I didn't mean to be a martyr, but I thought I was a victim of fame. I didn't drive, it wasn't me driving at all, I didn't commit a crime, but they put me in jail. They called me 'hot potato'. They said, 'What are we going to do with this woman?' I think they were bored that night." ”
Compared to her former sister Britney, the worst victims of fame, Aguilera is undoubtedly lucky. The prison incident plunged her into reflection, and The Voice of America saved her career. She quit after six seasons as a mentor: "I initially took on 'The Voice' because it gave me a bit of a real place in the hearts of my kids," she says, "but after a while, the artist in me would say, 'I have to change!'" I'm only afraid to go out on tour because I'm afraid I won't be able to give my kids a stable environment. Her next job after "The Voice" was a residency in Las Vegas.
It took her years to get everything back on track, although her career never had a real crisis compared to many stars of the same period, and perhaps, as she is grateful, premature shattering avoided bigger shattering. Children are the most common words in interviews since she became a mother, the focus of her life and the meaning of her career. Speaking about the challenges of making her new album in Spanish, she said: "I've been through a lot, but now that I have my own children, I want them to see that mom doesn't know everything, I'm still learning, and I'm not going to give up what I really love because I'm afraid or worried about what other people think." I want to be myself on the journey of life. ”
Another point of the album "Aguilera" is to confront her father after she has a complete family: "I talked about my father, and for the first time... Because I want to reconcile with some things in the past. "This album means a lot to me because I finally accept a lot about who I am, who I am now." ”
Christina with her dad
F.S. Fitzgerald said, "There is no second act in American life. But Aguilera has always proven that life can have countless second acts. If Stripped has lost the sugar-coating of bubblegum rock and dance, and Back to Basics is a return to the true nature of jazz and blues, then Aguilera is Aguilera's exploration of her intertwined and essential multiple identities – mother and daughter, good girl and bad girl, trailblazer and victim, survivor of misfortune, and thus chooses to stop the transmitter of misfortune at her place.
Those were the first acts she was arranged, the second act she had composed.