Christina Aguilera: a candid interview about rediscovering her mojo to create 'Liberation'
The singer/songwriter suffered a six-year hiatus, but is now back and in full creative swing with her new album, ‘Liberation’, which debuted at No 6 on the American Billboard 200
In the 20 years since Christina Aguilera’s arrival helped usher in a new era of pop, the performer has shown she is unafraid of transformation.
Aguilera famously torched the bubblegum teen-pop image crafted for her with a pair of leather chaps and edgier genre-blending music that announced a young woman in full control of her agency. It shocked America and the then 21-year-old singer was slut-shamed by critics, peers and even Tina Fey.
At one point she took her cues from the styles of the 1920s-1940s, committing wholly to a vintage pin-up look to match the modern take on vintage jazz, soul and blues she was exploring.
She’s assumed the role of a cyborg, channelled Marilyn Monroe and Marilyn Manson – for the same project – and re-emerged as a blissed-out earth mother.
Shape-shifting has always been a part of Aguilera’s charm, but her real appeal lies in that voice.
With a fiery range that recalled early Whitney Houston, Aguilera was able to separate herself from the pack of pop ingénues reaching superstar status during the early 2000s.
For a generation who hit puberty during the great Y2K pop explosion, Aguilera was an essential voice with music that tackled self-empowerment, feminism, sex and domestic violence – subject matter her contemporaries were shying away from.
Just look at the lasting impact of 2002’s “Stripped,” her most ambitious work to date and an album that has since become a blueprint for the likes of Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato – young singers who have all come of age in front of the public and sought to shed their manufactured image the way Aguilera once did.