Well where to begin, mainly the music on this collection is divided onto two discs, Disc 1 having 13 tracks, is the modern, commercial sounding one, and disc two has 9 tracks and this is where she shines in my opinion, though i doubt anything on Disc 2 will please the MTV crowd. This record is Produced by Christina with help from Linda Perry, Ron Fair and Dj premier. Disc 1 is Modern but with a little retro feel, and the version of Aint no other Man is a little different too. Thankfully the label or Christina CUT the remixes off the record that were supposed to be on here. Im sure the label wanted to just release disc 1 on its own, but i think Christina fought to get the second one out. The funny thing that i noticed with this Collection is how much PCD have inlfuenced her and her styles, very loungey at times, retro, cabaret feel at times too. As much as people say they dislike PCD they sure have shaken up the norm in POP. But Disc 1 overall to me isnt very strong material, the songs are very empty and seem to just have no meaning to them. Im also glad to hear Christina say in a recent interview, she said that "she didnt want to use a Hip Producer like everyone else", she wanted someone that could make something new. Gotta agree there.
Now Disc 2 is a total 360 in sound and honestly its clearly the superior, her vocals are strong and the songs are very deep at times and love the whole "sleazy night club feel". However though i could say this should have been a 1 disc effort, I hate that, and when people say shit like that. Its an artists statement, The Beatles with the White Album, some say that should have been one album, Princes Emancipation, many say the same, but it is what it is, stop complaining. Overall i would Give Disc 1 about a 6.5 out of 10 and Disc 2 easily would be a 9, so overall a pretty solid effort most of the way.

Best tracks.....Disc 1- F.U.S.S., Aint no other man, Here to Stay, Back in the day.
Best Tracks.....Disc 2- HURT, Candyman, Nasty Naughty Boy, The Right Man, Save me from Myself.
[Edited 8/13/06 19:33pm]

I sat here & stared at the screen for about 5 minutes
before i could get what PCD is short for.

She did use a hip hop producer for the first disc. DJ Premier who is best known for prodcing Nas's Illmatic. I like a lot of the beats he uses on her CD it sonds like early to mid 90's hip hop.

The first disc is not hat bad compared to "music" other pop princesses put out. You have to give her props for playing around with some new sounds. Who else would open a pop cd with a gospel chior singing in the background.

Maybe the material sounds "empty" because alot of the subjects are a bit self centered, singing about her husband and all. BUT she sings those songs with with alot of emotion. ie: "Understand"

whoever said the Beatles White Album should be one album... is on crack.


plain and simple!

lastdecember said:

I'm save up some cash so I can buy THAT album soon.

Sdldawn said:

With The Beatles slowly falling apart, I'm surprise the White Album wasn't a 4 album set (one solo record for each member!!!).

TonyVanDam said:

That would have been nice too


very creative output during this era..

okay, enough of the beatles..

carry on with Xtina please

lyecry said:

Well i think she meant "Hip" by being the guy everyone uses now, as she put it, it had been awhile since DJ premier did something like this. Well i def give her props, more than any other Pop female, just the fact that she didnt use a Pharrell or Timbaland and stuck with what she wanted was impressive. As far as opening the CD with a choir, well Shakira did that already, though its notable, it has been done in the Pop field.

The album is all about her ego! She talks about nothing but herself, There is no accesible lyrics, basically if u aint Christina it will be hard to relate. Christina takes herself to seriously, This album is really shallow, and you just get the feeling that she thinks it's groundbreaking. I don't think she intended for the album to sound so camp (worse type of camp)

.
[Edited 8/13/06 22:49pm]

twink69 said:

That seems to be Christina's personality
Even in the "Stripped" era when doing interviews you could tell how highly she held herself, you'd think she thought she was a legend already.

She is incredibly gifted though, her music just never appeals to me. I still enjoy her first album the most to be honest.

Personally, I don't like her vocals as much as she does..

lyecry said:

Umm, Madonna w/ Like A Prayer and Mariah w/ Make It Happen it's been done already.

Anyone else get the album?
She has soo much range and can actually hit and a hold a note in key, on paper she should be an amazing singer, it's just the actual tone and sound of her voice that grates on you after a while (some people just dont like it all) her talent it seems is her downfall.

I bought Back to Basics. I haven't listened to the second CD yet, but from start to finish, I thought the first CD was amazing. Christina has a remarkable voice and I think this is a very mature sounding CD. As much as I love it so far, I don't think it's going to go over well with a lot of young people.
I'm a 35 year old Black woman, so I get it. I think it's great. But I'm not the typical X-Tina fan so I'm worried for her.
You can tell that she put her heart and soul into making it.
And as for the people who say that Christina is shallow because she talks about herself, well that's because she is writing these songs herself. Most artists who are gifted enough to write their own songs write about what they know. Christina is no different.

NewPowerSoulSista said:

Yeah I know what your saying its just that she comes across as preachy and self absorbed.

lastdecember said:

does anyone else find this quote funny?

the record is not "produced by" christina if there are three other people acting as producers on it.

a bit of a let down for me (as a whole) but there are some standout tracks, Hurt is a GREAT track!

there's a few good tracks, but Stripped was way better imo.

I think maybe they over-did the concept for this project. The reviews seem underwhelming. Maybe her PR hyped the project a bit too much.

And I agree about her voice. She just goes all out each time out of the gate. A little bit of Christina goes all over my plate, I guess.

sallysassalot said:

She was executive producer, but she is not listed at all as a producer on the actual tracks themselves (kind of like Whitney Houston) she co wrote her lyrics. and her "producer' credit probably comes from the occasional "yeah, i like that, loop it'

.
[Edited 8/16/06 22:18pm]

I've had this CD for a bit, so I've been able to listen to it longer.

Yes her ego does flow throughout some tracks. But she's happy, she's married and in that state of mind. And y'all must admit, Emancipation (Prince) was the same damn thing...I'm happy and in love.

So on to the review, Disc 1 is the modern side. Some good tracks here: Understand, ANOM, Make's Me Wanna Pray, Without You, etc. But there are some whack tracks: Slow Down Babby, FUSS, et. There is maturity, but also a few filler tracks.

Disc 2, the best in my opinion. Songs like Candyman, Hurt, Welcome, etc makes this disc shine. Theis CD has a little bit of everything. So I'm sure it will do well.

lastdecember said:

so shall we go ahead and lock up the org then?




i just hate when people throw that arguement when reviewing shit....its. just. an. opinion.

if folks want a one disc emancipation let them voice it. if you wanna ramble on and on about x-tina's latest album, let you.

August 17, 2006, Critic’s Notebook
Honey They’ve Shrunk the Pop Stars (but Christina Aguilera Fights On)
By KELEFA SANNEH

To hear Christina Aguilera tell it, she has spent most of her recent career fighting for her rights. In nearly every interview, she talks about the importance of being true to yourself and being fearless. You can hear it in her music, too, which is full of mildly rebellious rhetoric. Or as she put it in a recent single: “Thank you for making me a fighter.”

Precisely what is she fighting for? Let’s see. She has affirmed in song the importance of being “beautiful in every single way.” She has insisted on recording both sentimental ballads and jumped-up club tracks. And in “Still Dirrty,” from her new double CD “Back to Basics” (RCA/Sony BMG) she demands that she be allowed to make mildly smutty music videos whenever she wants. Make no mistake: in Ms. Aguilera’s Bill of Rights, she is granted the freedom to “wear lingerie outside of my clothes.”

There’s nothing unreasonable about these demands. You might even say that for someone like Ms. Aguilera these aren’t rights at all: they’re responsibilities. If she’s a fighter, it’s because she’s fighting for the right to be what she already is: a pop star. She’s demanding that she be allowed to do her job.

This demand is the main theme of “Back to Basics,” a double CD that contains a roughly even number of great songs and lousy ones. The first disc is full of rationales, ranging from the self-referential (“I’m going back to basics,” she sings, in the introduction) to the paradoxical (“I pay no mind/To the negative kind,” she claims). Perhaps this is the weird but (in hindsight) predictable result of our hyper-tabloid culture. In print, online, on television, celebrities are constantly being asked to explain themselves. So we shouldn’t be surprised when they comply.

The second disc, largely written with Linda Perry, ends with a couple of songs clearly meant as odes to Ms. Aguilera’s husband, Jordan Bratman. But even these literal-minded love songs seem like explanations: having told us how much she has changed, the singer now wants to tell us why. “Never felt like I needed any man,” she wails, in the beyond-bombastic finale, “The Right Man.” But she’s not really addressing her husband; she’s addressing listeners who are confused about all the mushy stuff. Even when she’s singing a love song, Ms. Aguilera sounds a bit defensive.

Can you blame her? These days, pop stars — especially female ones — decline our demands for explanations at their own peril. Look at Janet Jackson, whose career still hasn’t recovered from the Super Bowl incident in 2004 and (more to the point) from her silence after it. And you can bet that when Ms. Aguilera’s former counterpart, the besieged Britney Spears, finally makes another album, it will be full of complaints (about her treatment at the hands of the tabloids), justifications, counter-arguments and — best of all — juicy details.

“Back to Basics” arrives at a time when pop stars — again, especially female ones — are under siege. With album sales down and singles more important than ever, many aspiring divas find themselves living hit to hit. After failing to ascend the singles chart, the seemingly unstoppable singer, dancer and actor Christina Milian was dropped from her label, Island Def Jam, barely a month after releasing a heavily promoted album. (Rihanna, her lightweight former label mate, has had much better luck on the charts: she’s a smaller personality, but she makes bigger hits.) The punky loudmouth Pink is on the ropes, and bulletproof Beyoncé suddenly looks vulnerable; by contrast the all-but-faceless flirts in the Pussycat Dolls are riding high. This is the era of the incredible shrinking pop star.

Lest we forget, Ms. Aguilera has something that most of her rivals don’t: a freakishly huge voice. But so what? As pop stars have shrunk, perhaps their vocal ranges have shrunk too. Mariah Carey made her big comeback not by belting but by cooing (“We Belong Together”) and murmuring (“Shake It Off”). Another big-voiced star, Kelly Clarkson, also learned how to hold back: her career-defining hit, “Since U Been Gone,” isn’t a showoffy ballad, it’s a singalong rock song.

To Ms. Aguilera, this state of affairs means one thing: market share up for grabs. She seems intent on establishing herself as a modern anomaly, a pop singer who really — really, really — sings. Much of the first “Back to Basics” disc was produced by DJ Premier, a pioneering hip-hop producer; his barebones staccato beats give her plenty of room to ululate. His productions include “Ain’t No Other Man,” the album’s glorious, mile-a-minute hit single, which proves once again that no one can roar like Ms. Aguilera.

Her decision to work with the low-key Premier was also a decision to snub some of the big-name producers on whom pop stars often rely. In one song she rails against a big-name producer who is also a former collaborator, Scott Storch, taunting, “Looks like I didn’t need you.” Indeed Ms. Aguilera looks as if she’s well on her way to achieving what really matters: an impressive first week of sales. (For what shall it profit a pop star, if she shall gain the whole world and lose her own SoundScan figures?)

There is a lot about “Back to Basics” that simply doesn’t make sense. (Suffice it to say that her homages to World War II-era pop music resemble skits more than songs.) And yet Ms. Aguilera’s sometimes risible righteousness — her insistence that she’s fighting for her rights — makes more sense than ever.

With every statement of purpose and every expression of pique, with every ostentatious ad-lib and show-stopping high note, she is serving notice that the fight will go on. She is fighting for the powerless, the voiceless, the prideless; all the downtrodden drudges who are tired of being told what to do. Perhaps you’re familiar with these pitiable creatures. They used to be known as pop stars.

*****

I was wondering who she was referring to in that song...

JackieBlue said:

Well not to defend Aguilera, i think any artist that cuts a slightly different record or a double record, or does something against the norm, they are gonna get blasted. Now my idea of going against the grain, is not Justin Timberalke working with Timbaland, thats called playing it safe, though he may think its groundbreaking, maybe in his mind it is. I give Aguilera a little more clout with this record, maybe for the lack of Production involvement, maybe for it being a double record, and most of the material not really sounding like it would fit todays radio, but i see her growth as an artist alot more than Mr.Timberlake who seems to get a "free pass" in this department. In reality im not really sure where this record will land, it will give her more critical success but mainstream i think will largely ignore it, though "aint no other man" is a top 10 single and im sure Christina will sell about a million of this record, it is a tough sell, in price mainly for an audience that loves her which is younger and not looking to spend extra$$ on a record especially when its not "hip" or "Norm".

I like it.

Favorite song on disc 2 is "Candyman". I also get a little worked up listening to "Nasty Naughty Boy".

Working it out on David Letterman...

http://www.youtube.com/wa...yWxC3tAL60

I like the album! Most of the songs are really fantastic. She´s sings amazingly.

jthad1129 said:

It's my favourite track too.

Sdldawn said:

That means George Martin, Ringo Starr and me must all be junkies!