Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics

Unlike most artists - who let their personality dictate the direction of their music - Christina Aguilera’s always been one to let the direction of her music dictate her personality. Or rather, the direction she wanted to take her music in.

Her eponymous debut was the kind of bubblegum schlock indicative of the time frame and age demographic in which it was released. Yet she wanted to inject more sex appeal into her image so she made sure her lyrics were laced with as many sexual innuendos and double entendres as she could get away with.

By 2002, she became desperate to shed that wholesome, girl-next-door image pinned on her against her will and so she used the genre-hopping, experimental chaos of Stripped as an excuse to experiment with her sexuality and overall image via various dye jobs, body piercings, and clothing of a more provocative nature.

4 years later, Christina’s finally seemed to have settled into her own “natural” skin and is now comfortable portraying herself to the public as the new millennium’s Marilyn Monroe of sorts. No more piercings and streaks and barely-there attire. Now she fancies platinum blond curls, cherry red lips and vintage couture - a style that coincides quite well with the “theme” of her new album Back to Basics. This go-round, Christina’s attempting to take pop music back to a simpler, more sophisticated time where real talent succeeded and the music spoke for itself.

The album is (in)conveniently split into two discs; disc 1 being the more “modern disc”. The production roster consists of Rich Harrison, Kwame, Mark Ronson, and DJ Premier and has the quartet splicing their best vintage soul and jazz samples with their hardest backbeats, drum loops and synthesizers for a mostly spot-on amalgamation of old and new.