Posted July 14, 200619 yr http://i6.tinypic.com/1zvvhvl.jpg Christina Aguilera has freckles. You probably never knew this, because she covers them with makeup. "I'm glad you didn't notice them," she says, smiling and gazing into her merlot in a Beverly Hills hotel bar. "I never really like my freckles to show—it's my own thing." Freckles aren't the only thing Aguilera's uncomfortable exposing. Talking to her is an elaborate game of bait-and-switch: After every personal revelation—about her abusive childhood, her politics—she dives behind a smokescreen of neat evasions and polite replies. It's what makes her confounding as an artist and so damned hard to pin down as an interview subject. And it cuts to the heart of Stripped, Aguilera's second album (not counting her Spanish-language Mi Reflejo and a Christmas disc.) It's a beguiling mix of refreshingly personal ballads and pop-icon gloss. "It's about being emotionally stripped down from anything you may have thought of me," she tells me, with a touch of faux-naiveté. "And it's just me telling my own story. I say it on the record: no hype, no pretense, no gloss." Of course, that's only half the truth. There's a ton of hype, pretense, and gloss involved in packaging a pop icon, even a newly "stripped" one. During recording last year, she worried aloud to another reporter that the title might be misinterpreted as innuendo. Then she dropped the "Dirrty" video. (Did we misinterpret that?) It seemed to play right into the hands of the world's celebrity voyeurs. Still—give her credit—"Dirrty" was also a balls-out bid to reinvent her image. It's just that Aguilera saw no need to ditch the hair extensions, makeup, designer clothes, and personal trainers to do it. “I’m not sitting there with a guitar in a dark room singing chants or whatever,†Aguilera admits. “Yeah, there’s production and stuff that goes into it. And yes, I’m wearing makeup on the cover of my album. But as far as the music really coming from the heart, that’s what I’m talking about. I put my heart into it, it was my baby. It wasn’t ‘Genie in a Bottle, Part II.’†2003 has been a busy year for the former pop genie: In the past few months, Aguilera’s posed for a new Versace ad campaign (to be launched in the fall); adopted a women’s shelter in Pittsburgh; been taunted by tabloids and mounted the biggest tour of her life—co-headlining in the U.S. with Justin Timberlake. Aguilera aspires to the kind of career control Madonna mastered—and it looks like she’s on her way. During the gap between her self-titled 1999 debut and Stripped, Aguilera fired her manager and took charge of her career. That meant taking charge in the studio, too: She cow rote and executive produced the album, hiring songwriter Linda Perry (of 4 Non Blondes and Pink fame) to work on the best tracks. Moreover, she seems intent on bringing the music down to a more personal level. Aguilera’s intimate performance of “Beautiful†on Saturday Night Live in March proved she’s plenty capable of authenticity. The song expresses a kind of grief and self-loathing/loving that any girl can relate to—coupled with an intelligence that runs far deeper than many of her pop peers. In between the dirty stuff, she’s singing directly about her life—specific people and instances—and also about the real-life traumas women and girls suffer at the hands of men. Hardly your typical teen fare. Then again, the former Musketeer says she never even liked pop music that much in the first place. “I listened to my Mariahs (lol) and Whitneys and whatnot,†Aguilera says, hunching over in her army fatigue pants and boxing shoes. “And I respect some shit that crosses over, like Prince and Madonna.†(Yes, contrary to what you’ve hear, Aguilera does swear.) “but as far as bubblegum pop and manufactured s.hit, no. There’s no way. I wasn’t going home and listening to the Backstreet Boys when I got done with ‘Genie in a Bottle.’ “That’s why I got so fed up. I came from such a teen-pop phenomenon explosion. I was getting to live my dream of having fans and an audience who sung back my lyrics, but after a while, it was like, this isn’t what I want to be singing. And I was really held back on a leash by my record label to sing a certain way, to not riff so much, to not ad lib, to not really go for it vocally on my first record. I felt caged, and that’s why I called my album Stripped. It was me shedding that skin of being told what kind of artist I should and shouldn’t be. I was just going to be me.†Finding out exactly who that is proves to be pretty tricky. She dropped a few clues the first night we met, at a fashion show in Hollywood, just as the invasion of Iraq was heating up. While holy hell broke loose overseas, the fashion elite—including Paris Hilton and steady retinue of models—turned out to check their cell-phone messages and gawk at one another. Aguilera was the guest of honor, hiding in a dressing room until the end of the show, when she appeared on the runway in a hot-pink gown so tight she had to hold an assistant’s arm to hop up a single step. (awwwwwwww) The singer confesses that she wasn’t nuts about the dress. “I felt like I was going to the damn prom, you know what I’m saying?†she says conspiratorially. But Aguilera dressed up pretty for a good cause: The fashion show’s sponsor, Gillette, donated a chunk of cash to the Pittsburgh women’s shelter she recently sponsored. After her turn on the red carpet, she was herded through the packed theater with her entourage. As she walked through the crowd, faces froze and whispers turned to silence—and then back into whispers. In this cult of beautiful people, Aguilera was the godhead—and she didn’t appear to be enjoying it. She hung her head as if to say, don’t look at me. And as soon as she could do so without offending anyone, Aguilera made a swift exit and went home to sleep. “You do get so much put upon your shoulders to act a certain way,†she says the next day, sounding tired. “And as a female, it’s a lot more pressure. I was talking to the kid in Good Charlotte, Benji, about this. I’m kind of introverted and I usually don’t talk so much. Whenever I walk into a room, I kind of walk with my hat down low.†Even now, in the bar, Aguilera is tucked in a corner with her trucker cap angled again the room. “A lot of people expect me to walk up to them and be like, ‘Hi! How ya doing?’ and I’m just not like that. I’m more of a shy, keep-to-myself kind of person. Especially when you’ve had years of people wanting so much from you.†“I’m different in an interview,†she admits. “It’s more intimate and personable.†In fact, it might be the merlot, but Aguilera does seem to be opening up. Talk turns to politics, and I think we’re on to something juicy. A certain pop diva comes up in conversation—the one with the rocks and the actor boyfriend. Aguilera’s eyes roll. “I just read this article where they asked her, ‘So what are your views on the war?’ And she said, ‘Oh, I don’t really think about that kind of stuff. I leave it up to him’—and she points to [her boyfriend]. I understand if you say, ‘I’d rather keep my opinions to myself,’†Aguilera says, exasperated. “But to admit you don’t have any opinion of what’s going on in your country and the world? I was just like, wow. So what, I’m just here to look pretty and entertain? It’s just deeper than that to me, you know?†I do know—and I’d like to know a little more. I ask her how she feels about touring with Timberlake and vamping it up on the fashion runway during a time of international conflict. Suddenly, she bunts. “We all have our own opinions, which I prefer not to speak about, just because everyone has their own opinion. You can look at it like, how superficial are we for going to this fashion show while our country is at war, but I feel like that’s what entertainment is for. You can’t sit in front of the TV 24 hours and watch CNN. Sometimes we need to take a break or we’re just going to go insane.†Then I notice what Aguilera is wearing around her neck. It’s a silver pendant in the shape of a gun. “It goes with another necklace I’m not wearing that says UNITE,†she ways. “So the gun and the UNITE kind of contradict, but they kind of go along with each other.†In other words, she’s a support-the-troops girl? A “yeah…†is the strongest reply I get. Case closed. Next subject. Stripped is a deeply personal record, in its way. With the song “I’m OK,†Aguilera has come out as a survivor of an abusive father. It’s a revelation that adds a deeper sense of purpose to her music and a strange new dimension to hypersexual image. “I’m sorry if this sounds cheesy or whatever, but I love the fact that an reach people, and I do have messages in my music, through domestic violence, what I went through. Back in the day—I was 15—I was praying on my balcony in Wexford, PA, I said, if I make it, one of my goals is to give back and really try to spread the word and build shelters. I’m getting to it now, in honor of my mom, in honor of other people going through it that need that voice to tell them it’s OK.†Of course, many draw a direct link between domestic violence and objectification of women in the media. If Aguilera is aware of the possible contradiction she presents, she doesn’t let on. She presents “Dirrty†as nothing short of a Madonna-esque expression of female sexual power. “Look at all these hip-hop videos where girls are swinging on poles and having champagne splashed on them. They’re obviously being objectified. They’re not in the forefront, they’re not demanding these guys to step off. They’re in the guys’ environment. In my video, I’m in my environment. The guys have entered my world because I allowed them to. Anybody who looks at that and is like, ‘Oh my god, that’s horrible for women,’ I think that they have almost been brainwashed by society. I’m not being objectified. “I do like to empower women to be comfortable with their bodies, their sexuality. We’re always taught to have our legs crossed and sit a certain way—boys are allowed to be rambunctious. I’m going on about this topic, but it’s true.†Of course, it’s easy to be comfortable with your body when you’ve got a perfect one. I tell her this, and she turns bashful: “Not really, but thank you. I just entered the world of realizing you can’t eat everything you want all the time.†The widespread—and sometimes vicious—reports of her weight gain have hung over Aguilera in the press for months, but she seems unbothered: “I do lie having more meat on my body. I’m very comfortable being thicker.†At moments like this, she seems just like any other young American woman making her way in the world: insecure, then c*cky; ambitious but terribly concerned with others’ views of her. It’s kind of like the freckles thing. She’s scared to show them, but she wants to show them—and maybe, someday, she will. “I’m growing into my freckles,†she says, and it almost sounds like she means it." LOVED the article. It's so different. Gotta hand it to them hipster magazines!
July 15, 200619 yr Thanks for that :) I love the pic used on the cover!! :wub: Love, Kirsty xx She looks like old Christina doesn't she? :wub:
July 16, 200619 yr She looks like old Christina doesn't she? :wub: She most certainly does!! :wub: Love, Kirsty xx
July 16, 200619 yr Which look do we all prefer by the way? Brunette Christina, blonde Christina, or black hair Christina? Perhaps a new thread is necessary. :o :lol:
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