Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics Gets a 7/10

I've been hearing quite a lot about Christina Aguilera's new album 'Back to Basics', so of course I did what any wallet worshiping unscrupulous music lover did and downloaded the whole thing.

What? It's not like it was the Chili Peppers or any thing.

I'm a little surprised and only slightly disappointed.

The first disc has a more modern feel to the tracks which are hip-hop infused pop with a quite a bit of 60's Classic Motown influence. It's ok, but not really my bag, but the tracks are well done, and aren't terribly redundant which speaks to Aguilera's solo production talent.

The 2nd disc is lovely to me, and is really that 40's/30's throwback that I was expecting from the promotion. In the 'Intro' on disc one she insists that the album is in tribute to the greats that came before and she handles that angle acutely. This is where Christina shines! Besides 'Hurt' - the song that attracted me initialy, I found that Christina's 'Thank You' was one of the most ingenious and personal works of pop music I've heard in a long time.

One thing I think a lot of start ups right now believe in is that their music must be relatable en masse to eventually be popular. So generalization and genrezation (yep new word, lol) becomes the goal of the work. But personalization is (in the end) what's key...like-ability follows it. Look at The Peppers, Nirvana, early stuff of the hip hop and rock legends. The content was of personal situations in one way or the other. I don't want to say most acts out there are trying too hard to appeal, but they're getting caught up in producing a certain sound instead of writing, exploring and expanding the richness of their musical horizons.

So I'll give my props to Christina. She was bred as a pop tart competitor, it seems she has realized it and kept (relativley) under the radar producing solid albums. She has managed unlike a certain other blonde pop starlet to bring her life into her music and let it expand her creativity, not let it overshadow it. Give this one a chance.

7/10*'s