July 30, 2006
Christina Aguilera, That Dirrty Girl, Cleans Up Real Nice
By LOLA OGUNNAIKE

CHRISTINA AGUILERA would like to make one thing painfully clear: A happy marriage hasn’t made her all sappy. “Just because I have this newfound love in my life, that doesn’t mean I’m going to play it any softer, or that I’m going to change my point of view on sexuality,” said this platinum blond pop singer, known for her stellar voice, saucy attitude and penchant for chaps. “I still got the nasty in me.”

That may be true, but Ms. Aguilera, 26, has changed quite a bit since we last saw her. She’s traded the ratty, multicolored hair extensions of yesteryear for a 1930’s coif, the skanky miniskirts and leather S&M ensembles for an old-Hollywood look and the drag-queen makeup for a more understated glamour. Her music has changed as well. Due out Aug. 15, the album “Back to Basics,” her first in four years, features more than a handful of love songs, including the first single, “Ain’t No Other Man,” a rousing, horn-driven ode to her husband of nearly a year, Jordan Bratman.

“Before I met Jordan I used to think that love songs were so corny and I never really wanted to go there,” she said, “but now I’m in a happier space.”

For “Basics” (RCA), a double disc of 23 songs, Ms. Aguilera brought together the disparate talents of the rock songwriter and producer Linda Perry and DJ Premier, a producer best known for his work with rappers like Jay-Z and Nas. In addition to celebrating her new romance, Ms. Aguilera pays homage to the music that inspired her: jazz and blues from the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s, and soul. While recording the album, she said, she listened to Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Billie Holiday and Etta James, among others. They are the origin of her new look too. “For me the visual is just as important as the music,” she said. “I would never record without my red lipstick. It was my way of getting into character, sort of like Method singing.”

Over dinner at a trendy Japanese restaurant in the meatpacking District, Ms. Aguilera recalled the days when she didn’t have this much artistic freedom. She burst on the music scene in 1999, during the teen music boom that produced boy bands like the Backstreet Boys and ’N Sync, and her label morphed her into a pop princess singing tunes like “Genie in a Bottle.” “I was very pushed to look a certain way and act a certain way, and it wasn’t me,” she said, “but I played by their rules to get my foot in the door.” It worked: her album “Christina Aguilera” hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts and sold more than eight million copies. In 2000 Ms. Aguilera, whose father is Ecuadorian, followed with “Mi Reflejo,” a Spanish-language album, as well as a Christmas album, both of which sold well.

Though she was widely considered the more talented artist, she was immediately dogged by comparisons to Britney Spears. Both were blond and perky, and both began their careers performing together on “The New Mickey Mouse Club,” a cavity-inducing show on the Disney Channel. She beat out Ms. Spears for the best new artist Grammy in 2000, but Ms. Spears, with her teasingly virginal persona and revealing Catholic schoolgirl costumes, was the bigger star.

Desperate to liberate herself from her squeaky-clean pop persona, Ms. Aguilera began acting out. She got tattoos and piercings — nine in total — started calling herself Xtina, and discussed how she broke dishes to relieve stress. Her hemlines rose, her necklines plunged, and her lyrics grew racier. “Dirrty,” the first single from the 2002 album “Stripped,” successfully torpedoed her girl-next-door image. But soon her raunchy image was overshadowing her considerable talent. In the “Dirrty” video, a sweat-drenched disaster, she cavorts around in chaps and little else. Ms. Perry remembered seeing it for the first time: “I just looked at Christina and said: ‘Are you high? This is annoying. Why are you doing this?’ ”

Ms. Aguilera remains unapologetic. “I knew it was a bold move, and I knew a lot of people would not be ready for it,” she said. “The great thing is that everyone, whether you loved it or hated it, had an opinion about that song, and everybody talked about it.” And so they did: it was wildly lampooned, and even parodied on “Saturday Night Live.”

Ms. Perry said that Ms. Aguilera is smarter and more calculated than people give her credit for. “She released ‘Dirrty’ to show everybody that she’s not some goody-two-shoes, and she followed it up with ‘Beautiful,’ ” she said, referring to the singer’s wildly popular self-empowerment ballad. “She was going to turn people off before she turned them on, and it worked.”

They battled throughout the making of “Stripped.” “It was difficult because she was in I-have-to prove-myself mode,” Ms. Perry said, adding that Ms. Aguilera was in a “heavier place” then.

Ms. Aguilera admitted: “I came with a lot of angst, aggression and attitude on ‘Stripped.’ All that stuff that I‘d pent up and repressed while making the first album just came out.”

And, as she said at another moment, “I had a lot of walls up, a lot of defenses that came from being young and also being female in this business.” She added, “I’d just about had it with people that I thought I could trust but couldn’t.”

But some of her defenses predate her career.

Whether discussing the subject in interviews or writing about it in her lyrics, Ms. Aguilera has always been open about the domestic violence she and her mother endured at the hands of her father. On “I’m OK,” from “Stripped,” she sings,

Hurt me to see my mother’s face

Every time my father’s fist would put her in her place

Hearing all the yelling I would cry up in my room

Hoping it would be over soon

She sings about it again on “Basics.” “Oh Mother” praises her mother for escaping her father, and “The Right Man” is about moving beyond a painful childhood by looking toward a future with Mr. Right. Singing about physical abuse, she said, is therapeutic. “Growing up with the childhood that I had, I learned to never let a man make me feel helpless,” she explained, “and it also embedded a deep need in me to always stick up for women.”

She says that she has grown up — and “healed a lot” — since those days. (Making the new album, Ms. Perry said, “we only had one fight.”)

Ms. Aguilera said, “My husband broke down so many walls.” She beams when discussing the man she calls her “best friend and backbone,” and the family they hope to start in a few years. “It took a bit of time, but he did it.”

After dating for more than three years, the two were married last November in a lavish ceremony in Napa Valley, Calif. “I was never one of those girls that dreamt about her wedding day,” Ms. Aguilera explained. “I was always so focused on my career, and boys were second.” But her partner’s patience won her over.

“I’ve never really had a heartfelt relationship with a man besides my husband,” she later added. It was a realization that came to her as she considered who would walk her down the aisle. She chose to walk solo. And to not invite her father. “He never made an effort to be there, so why now?” she said. “I’ve gotten through life thus far.”

But no longer having to do so, at least not alone, clearly means a great deal to her. “It takes a strong man to be by my side and deal with this lifestyle,” she said, “and it takes a very strong man to give me the freedom to do what I need to do artistically, and he’s that.”

With red lips, skintight jeans and a plunging sleeveless sweater that showed off her ample chest, Ms. Aguilera looked like a Vargas illustration come to life when she strutted into Sony Studios in Midtown one sweltering summer evening. She was there to play tracks from “Basics” for an audience of more than 20 music industry people. A wine, Champagne and hors d’oeuvres spread was set out on a buffet table. “I hope you guys got a chance to get a little liquored up,” she purred. Scented candles burned as she candidly shared the stories behind several of her songs. On the uptempo “Makes Me Wanna Pray,” she sings, “Your love has brought me to a higher place/Every day I’m amazed and it makes me want to get down and pray.”

She said that song, like “Ain’t No Other Man,” was about Mr. Bratman, who sat quietly by her side throughout the listening session. On “Nasty Naughty Boy,” a sexy striptease, she declares, “I want to give you a little taste/Of the sugar below my waist.” “You know I’ve got to throw something provocative on there,” she said. “It’s just me.”

DJ Premier was shocked to get her call, but Ms. Aguilera said she was drawn to him because of the jazzy sound he gave the rapper Gang Starr in the early 90’s. “He searches through his vinyl, finds the obscure pieces and reinvents the old,” she said. “You never know if you’re going to vibe with someone, but we immediately hit it off.” She said it helped that he maintains a much lower profile than many of today’s celebrity producers. “Isn’t it enough to just make the beats anymore?” she asked, mildly annoyed. “What are you, starved for attention?”

She likes that his sound is not ubiquitous. “I have no interest in working with the Neptunes,” she said of the omnipresent producing team. “A lot of what’s on the radio sounds the same because everyone is using the same producers. Music is suffering because nobody wants to step out on a limb and go for something different. Everyone wants to stay in their safety box,” which Ms. Aguilera said she has absolutely no interest in doing, even if it means upsetting her label.

“When we played the first single for the label,” DJ Premier recalled, “they didn’t think that’s the way she should start the project. But she was like: ‘I don’t care. This is the one.’ That’s why I love her, because she doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks.”

Making a double CD was a risk, Ms. Aguilera later acknowledged. “I did kind of shoot myself in the foot, because it costs more to put out a double album, and the label isn’t always so happy about that, and statistically they don’t sell as well,” she said, “but I think it’s important to be fearless whenever you’re doing something for your art.”

But Clive Davis, head of RCA Records, said his label had no misgivings. “She has turned into one of today’s most cutting-edge artists,” he said. “She brings a whole fresh look to Top 40 and expands the horizon of what a pop artist can do. Everything from the video to the performance is coming from her and she deserves full credit.”

As Ms. Spears, a proud hillbilly and soon to be mother of two, attempts to clean up her image and quash speculation that her marriage to a backup dancer turned rapper is on the rocks, it’s her former rival, Ms. Aguilera, who has found the road to respectability. And the once-dirty singer is convinced that it is she who will have the last laugh. “Just like I knew I was going to be far more than that genie in a bottle, I knew I wasn’t going to be that girl in the chaps forever,” she said. “I’m in it for the long run.”

anyone who has to explain their intentions of longetivity probably isn't going to be around long enough to see it through.

Anx said:

yeah like what happened to that Disco tart from Detorit that said she was going to rule the world and wasn't going to go anywhere? God what was her name?

I can't believe she did a double album either, actually.

First of all it states there are 23 tracks which is not true, there are 19 and 3 of them are remixes which means there are 16 tracks. Thats a double album if your doing vinyl but what i have heard is that these cds together clock in at about 90 minutes, but it will be priced as a single disc to drum up sales, since its not really a double when u think about it.

Anx said:

yeah. i sort of agree. how long she'll be around? i think for a while. the woman has a voice. what i find annoying, is when artists try to make themselves appear "controversial". she's not. she's trying too hard. truly controversial artists don't set out to be. they just are. sure, there are moments when they are intentionally pushing buttons and are aware of what the outcome of a project may be. but here she's pushing psuedo jazz and talking about her red lipstick. whoa. that's hardcore. there's nothing shocking about her 'peek-a-boo' image/fashion either. she's been talking about how she's in control and doing her own thing since "Stripped". and i'm a fan of hers, but seriously. things of controversy, happen. they're not forwarned.
the article above sound like something one of her friends or p.r. people may have written. the Britney comparisons are tired. Britney has become some what controversial just by doing what she does. people just disect everything she does, or may not agree with what she represents, but she's not announcing it.
Christina always comes off phoney in her interviews. and this one's no exception.just shut up and sing! i like the new song (danced to it at a club last night), so i look forward to seeing what the rest of the album sounds like.

side note:
i remember buying a friend of mine tickets for her "Stripped" tour; only to find out a few days later the tour was cancelled. a statement was released saying she wasn't feeling well. the truth later came out that the reason was because of poor ticket sales. a lot of people were pretty disappointed. losing fans that early on..definitely not a good career move.

ehuffnsd said:

there's a big difference between having the audacity to claim you're taking over the world and mewling about your career in an interview. madonna was audacious; xtina is sounding a little desperate.