Christina Aguilera’s appearance at the Hope For Haiti Now telethon may well be my favorite of all. It’s a lovely song (from her upcoming album, I believe) and one of the most breathtaking vocal performances of the night.
I’ve always been impressed with Aguilera as a vocalist. She pretty much blows all of her peers away and does it seemingly without trying. It’s hard to believe such a big voice belongs to a skinny white girl.
I’m fascinated by Christina Aguilera.
OK, that’s overstating things. Truth is, I haven’t spent much time at all thinking about Christina Aguilera, but when I do pause to ponder her career I find it quite intriguing.
She released her self-titled debut 10 years ago as a Mickey Mouse Club graduate following in the footsteps of the mightily popular Britney Spears. That album, as processed and packaged as a can of Spam, did little to differentiate her from Spears. I remember sharing the popular opinion that she was a wannabe hoping to catch a bit of the teen pop wave Britney had started.
Here’s a song that I’m tempted to refer to as a guilty pleasure based on who’s performing it, but that wouldn’t be accurate. Far from guilt-worthy, this is an extremely well-written and well-performed song that’s close in spirit to the work of some of my favorites.
I don’t really know what to make of Christina Aguilera. When she hit the scene as a kind of response to and capitalization on the Britney Spears phenomenon, I dismissed her as another pop tart with looks in place of talent. But the truth is she was a victim of her marketing. She’s got a voice better than any of the mega-stars out there, and puts the showier artists like Madonna to shame.
Meet Me In Montauk 