May 15, 2010
Christina Plans A Dramatic "Bionic Tour"
The ‘Not Myself Tonight’ singer, whose previous Back To Basics jaunt featured a cabaret band and three-ring circus, said that everything about her tours needs to be big and fun.
She told GQ: “I can’t live without drama. On my last tour I had a whole entourage of circus acrobats. I need big hair, big make-up – and where ever I can have fun I’m there!”
The 29-year-old also said that her biggest role model is Cher, with whom she worked on upcoming film Burlesque.
She said: “Who could be a bigger role model than [Cher]? She’s seen and done everything. When we were shooting the film I soaked up every line she said and every move she made like a sponge. She’s my mentor and friend.”
Christina Aguilera releases new album Bionic on June 7.
May 14, 2010
The 6 Most NSFW Videos Of 2010 (So Far)
We don't know what makes us more uncomfortable -- Mamaguilera headed south on a girl tied to a cow-print chair ORRRRRR trying to lip-synch with a ball-gag in her mouth? Either way, this is one salacious clip that proves Christina might be a young mommy, but she's still dirrty as all hell.
Billboard Magazine Cover Story: Christina Aguilera
"I'm in it for the long haul, and a decade later in my career, I have nothing to prove," Aguilera says. "To anyone who wants to be negative, it's like, 'I'm obviously
relevant enough to you for you to care and to talk and to evoke negative feelings inside of you.' "
Rather than reflecting a desire to keep up with her successors, the singer says the new album is an expression of her femininity in all its forms: wife, mother, singer, actress. (After marrying Jordan Bratman nearly five years ago, Aguilera gave birth to the couple's first son, Max, in 2008.) " 'Bionic' to me is the definition of the superhuman abilities we as women have in everyday life," she says, adding that the outré spirit of much of the music is a reaction to "feeling stifled" by the supposed exclusivity of any of those roles. "I've grown and changed, and I've learned so much. I've never felt more confident, more secure, more sexy in my life than I do now."
There's no doubting that change: From an early stint on "The All New Mickey Mouse Club" (alongside Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake) to the boy-crazy bubble gum of "Genie in a Bottle" to the supremely raunchy "Dirrty" to the Andrews Sisters homage "Candyman," Aguilera's career has been a study in contrast.
"For me this album is simply a continuation of Christina's genius," says Aguilera's manager, Live Nation Entertainment chairman Irving Azoff. "Every time she breaks new ground and does amazing stuff. And she has the courage to sit there and say, 'What's good for the longtime brand? What's going to work in the live show?' She doesn't play the game of trying to create a record of what someone might expect. She grows as an artist every time, and this one is just another indication of that."
"There's two things you need to know about Christina Aguilera," says Polow Da Don, whose credits on the album include "Not Myself Tonight" and an especially spirited number called "I Hate Boys." "The first is that, as far as her singing goes, she's a professionally trained animal. And the other is that she knows exactly, absolutely what she wants."
Sia Furler, an Australian singer/songwriter (and former Zero 7 member) who co-wrote several songs on "Bionic," says she didn't perceive any anxiety on Aguilera's part in regard to the album's relatively left-field roster. "I don't think she thought it was a risk," Furler says. "She was just excited to get to work with the artists she loves. There's this misconception that she's a middle-America kind of person. But she's a little hipster. You go back to her house and sit by the fire with some wine, and what's playing over the sound system? The Knife and Arthur Russell. She doesn't listen to pop music."
"I get off on working with creative energy," Aguilera says emphatically, her hands punctuating her point. "That's when I'm most at home and feel happiest. And all these people brought about new sides of me. It was a big collaboration-fest, and it felt so good and rewarding in the end, because I was just so happy with the work and the new territories that I ventured out to."
The singer describes her love of Le Tigre's records, which she calls "loud and fun and in your face," and says her collaborations with Furler-particularly "You Lost Me," a stripped-down tear-jerker-constitute "the heart of the album." According to Aguilera, she assembled the album not through RCA's A&R department but by contacting her partners directly-in several cases only after Bratman convinced her they'd pick up the phone. ("I get starstruck about people I love," she says a little sheepishly.) Azoff calls the process "a good networking thing," though he allows that Polow Da Don "was a label suggestion."
"Going into [each of these partnerships], I said, 'I'm a really big fan of yours, and I'm interested in stepping into your world and what you do,' " Aguilera says. " 'I want to combine that with my sound, and let's see what happens.' I feel like I can do so much with my voice. I would be so bored sitting on a stool singing ballad after ballad just because I can."
Though she admits that having had huge hits during her career is precisely what enables her to insist they're not important to her, Aguilera says, "I promised myself after my first record I would never put out something that I couldn't feel and that didn't come from an honest, genuine place."
Which isn't to say that "Bionic" is some kind of impenetrable art-music experiment-far from it. "I do have songs on there where I went into them saying, 'OK, let's make a more commercially driven record,' " Aguilera acknowledges. "That's maybe where 'Not Myself Tonight' comes from. But I always have to have an integrity factor with it. There was actually a song that the label really wanted me to record, and I just said 'no,' because it didn't fit on the album-it wasn't creatively inspiring to me. They said, 'It's a hit, it's a hit!' And absolutely it's a hit for someone. But it's not for me, because when it jeopardizes my integrity too much I can't do it. The hit thing . . .," she trails off with a sigh. " 'Who Let the Dogs Out' was a fucking hit, you know what I mean?"
Not surprisingly, RCA's "Bionic" campaign projects an image of Christina the Superstar, not Christina the Little Hipster. "Christina Aguilera fans are excited about Christina," RCA Music Group GM Tom Corson says. "They want her to make records that inspire and compel them. It's always interesting when an artist stretches; that's what they have to do from an artistic standpoint. And the real fan is definitely interested in that as part of her discography. But I think the casual fan cares more about how great the records are than about the stories behind them."
"This is a fierce, strong, sexy, feel-good album, and I think the various collaborations represent Christina flexing her artistic muscles," senior VP of marketing and artist development Scott Seviour adds. "But ultimately what they did was to help bring out the different sides of her." He laughs. "I think the main message of our marketing campaign is: 'It's a Christina Aguilera record.' "
According to Seviour, the label's rollout began in mid-March on Aguilera's website with a slow reveal of the single's title, lyrics and cover art. "Then after a week we flipped the site from black to white, presented the album cover and streamed a 15-second snippet of 'Not Myself Tonight.' That took us from zero to 60 in a quick amount of time," Seviour says. "The blogs picked it up and all the fans were chattering. Instead of going to radio and saying, 'Here's your song,' we wanted to build a base for it, since it had been a second since the last single. That way we re-energized the fans and they felt like they were a part of it."
"Not Myself Tonight" shipped to radio March 30, earning most-added honors at top 40 and rhythm in its first week on the air. "Pop radio really celebrated her return," RCA Music Group executive VP of promotions Richard Palmese says. "They acknowledge that she's a special artist, a worldwide superstar who heats up their playlists." He adds that the choice of "Not Myself Tonight" as the album's lead single was an easy one. "Radio today demands tempo-at times probably more than we would like them to," he says. "So especially going into the spring and summer, we knew early on that we wanted the first single to be tempo-driven."
Hype Williams' video for the cut premiered April 30 on Vevo, and it's currently embedded at Aguilera's website. Seviour says the site is set to relaunch May 20 with a social-networking element and a direct-to-consumer store that will sell music, fragrances, exclusive pieces of Stephen Webster jewelry-"basically anything and everything in Christina land," as Seviour puts it.
"We've definitely made a conscious effort to make a lot of noise," Corson says. "You can't take anything for granted in this marketplace. It's punishing, and many other artists have come into the Christina slot, for lack of a better word. So you're only as good as your last hit. I think an artist like Christina has more equity than that; she's not completely hit-driven. But you've got to be competitive. You've got to come back to win."
Fortunately for his client, Azoff says, "it's real easy to find people who want to work with Christina Aguilera. There's a lot of respect for her out there. And the great thing for us is to sit down and see everything that's available in the time period, sift through all the offers and, without cloning her, you do as much as possible."
Seviour lays out what he calls a "wall-to-wall schedule of release-week TV" that begins June 6 with a performance at the MTV Movie Awards; includes appearances on "Today," "Late Show With David Letterman," "Live! With Regis and Kelly" and "The Early Show"; and ends June 13 on VH1 with back-to-back episodes of "Storytellers" and "Behind the Music." Additionally, Aguilera appeared May 7 on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and is reportedly set to perform on this season's "American Idol" finale May 26. (An RCA representative declined to confirm the latter booking.)
"She's in demand constantly," Corson says. "She's an old-timer and everyone recognizes that. Hopefully this will provide an opportunity for people to rediscover, 'Oh, my God, I forgot that she doesn't need Auto-Tune!' She's one of our great performers, looks amazing, thinks through everything. Many artists are compared to her, not the other way around."
On July 15 Aguilera will launch a 20-date North American tour at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.; other stops on the Live Nation-produced trek include the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, N.Y., and the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, Calif. Leona Lewis will open all shows, and fans who purchase tickets at LiveNation.com through June 4 will receive a code to download "Bionic."
Aguilera will also make her movie debut later this year in "Burlesque," a musical directed by Steven Antin (brother of Pussycat Dolls creator Robin Antin) that co-stars Cher, Stanley Tucci, Kristen Bell and Alan Cumming. Aguilera plays a struggling dancer who moves to L.A. to follow her dreams and soon discovers-well, you can probably imagine where it goes from there.
"The idea of sensuality and women being expressive of that and looking at an old 1920s art form-it was like, 'Hello, sign me up!' " Aguilera says. "It had my name written all over it."
"Christina's had plenty of movie offers in the past, but this was the first one that made sense," Azoff says. "And it's a very different look for her. You'll be pleasantly shocked."
But will Aguilera's fans be shocked by the new sounds she samples on "Bionic"? Sia Furler isn't worried. "Christina could shit in a bottle and her fans would still love it," she says with a laugh. "They're rabid motherfuckers, totally crazy cakes. I mentioned her once on my Twitter and had like 5,000 more followers within minutes. If this album sells less than the last one, it's not a reflection of the record-it's a reflection of the industry."
Kathleen Hanna of Le Tigre thinks that Aguilera's hipster-approved collaborators might even earn the singer a few new fans in indie-identified Pitchfork country.
"People have been super-supportive of us working with her," says Hanna, who spent most of the '90s fronting the seminal riot grrrl band Bikini Kill. "A few years ago there was a rumor going around that we were working with Paris Hilton, and people were ready to kill us. Obviously, Christina and Paris Hilton are totally different entities. But people seem genuinely excited about this. It's like maybe it gives them permission to admit they like Christina."
In Corson's view, Aguilera's dance-punk outing is just one of many avenues he sees her exploring during the course of her career. "If you ask people in our industry, 'Will Christina Aguilera be singing in 20 years?,' they'll all say 'yes.' It wouldn't surprise me if we see her do a standards album, a jazz album, a blues album. It just depends on where her creative whims take her."
Back at Sony Pictures Studios, Aguilera's winding her way through one of the longest stories she's told all night. It began during a brief Q&A session when a fan asked her if she was glad "Genie in a Bottle" had been her first single. Somehow, though, Aguilera's gotten a long way from home.
"They told me to talk," she says after several minutes, pointing toward the VH1 execs at the back of the room. "So sorry if I keep going on and on." The crowd's response? A roar of encouragement.
"Going into [each of these partnerships], I said, 'I'm a really big fan of yours, and I'm interested in stepping into your world and what you do,' " Aguilera says. " 'I want to combine that with my sound, and let's see what happens.' I feel like I can do so much with my voice. I would be so bored sitting on a stool singing ballad after ballad just because I can."
Though she admits that having had huge hits during her career is precisely what enables her to insist they're not important to her, Aguilera says, "I promised myself after my first record I would never put out something that I couldn't feel and that didn't come from an honest, genuine place."
Which isn't to say that "Bionic" is some kind of impenetrable art-music experiment-far from it. "I do have songs on there where I went into them saying, 'OK, let's make a more commercially driven record,' " Aguilera acknowledges. "That's maybe where 'Not Myself Tonight' comes from. But I always have to have an integrity factor with it. There was actually a song that the label really wanted me to record, and I just said 'no,' because it didn't fit on the album-it wasn't creatively inspiring to me. They said, 'It's a hit, it's a hit!' And absolutely it's a hit for someone. But it's not for me, because when it jeopardizes my integrity too much I can't do it. The hit thing . . .," she trails off with a sigh. " 'Who Let the Dogs Out' was a fucking hit, you know what I mean?"
Not surprisingly, RCA's "Bionic" campaign projects an image of Christina the Superstar, not Christina the Little Hipster. "Christina Aguilera fans are excited about Christina," RCA Music Group GM Tom Corson says. "They want her to make records that inspire and compel them. It's always interesting when an artist stretches; that's what they have to do from an artistic standpoint. And the real fan is definitely interested in that as part of her discography. But I think the casual fan cares more about how great the records are than about the stories behind them."
"This is a fierce, strong, sexy, feel-good album, and I think the various collaborations represent Christina flexing her artistic muscles," senior VP of marketing and artist development Scott Seviour adds. "But ultimately what they did was to help bring out the different sides of her." He laughs. "I think the main message of our marketing campaign is: 'It's a Christina Aguilera record.' "
According to Seviour, the label's rollout began in mid-March on Aguilera's website with a slow reveal of the single's title, lyrics and cover art. "Then after a week we flipped the site from black to white, presented the album cover and streamed a 15-second snippet of 'Not Myself Tonight.' That took us from zero to 60 in a quick amount of time," Seviour says. "The blogs picked it up and all the fans were chattering. Instead of going to radio and saying, 'Here's your song,' we wanted to build a base for it, since it had been a second since the last single. That way we re-energized the fans and they felt like they were a part of it."
"Not Myself Tonight" shipped to radio March 30, earning most-added honors at top 40 and rhythm in its first week on the air. "Pop radio really celebrated her return," RCA Music Group executive VP of promotions Richard Palmese says. "They acknowledge that she's a special artist, a worldwide superstar who heats up their playlists." He adds that the choice of "Not Myself Tonight" as the album's lead single was an easy one. "Radio today demands tempo-at times probably more than we would like them to," he says. "So especially going into the spring and summer, we knew early on that we wanted the first single to be tempo-driven."
Hype Williams' video for the cut premiered April 30 on Vevo, and it's currently embedded at Aguilera's website. Seviour says the site is set to relaunch May 20 with a social-networking element and a direct-to-consumer store that will sell music, fragrances, exclusive pieces of Stephen Webster jewelry-"basically anything and everything in Christina land," as Seviour puts it.
"We've definitely made a conscious effort to make a lot of noise," Corson says. "You can't take anything for granted in this marketplace. It's punishing, and many other artists have come into the Christina slot, for lack of a better word. So you're only as good as your last hit. I think an artist like Christina has more equity than that; she's not completely hit-driven. But you've got to be competitive. You've got to come back to win."
Fortunately for his client, Azoff says, "it's real easy to find people who want to work with Christina Aguilera. There's a lot of respect for her out there. And the great thing for us is to sit down and see everything that's available in the time period, sift through all the offers and, without cloning her, you do as much as possible."
Seviour lays out what he calls a "wall-to-wall schedule of release-week TV" that begins June 6 with a performance at the MTV Movie Awards; includes appearances on "Today," "Late Show With David Letterman," "Live! With Regis and Kelly" and "The Early Show"; and ends June 13 on VH1 with back-to-back episodes of "Storytellers" and "Behind the Music." Additionally, Aguilera appeared May 7 on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and is reportedly set to perform on this season's "American Idol" finale May 26. (An RCA representative declined to confirm the latter booking.)
"She's in demand constantly," Corson says. "She's an old-timer and everyone recognizes that. Hopefully this will provide an opportunity for people to rediscover, 'Oh, my God, I forgot that she doesn't need Auto-Tune!' She's one of our great performers, looks amazing, thinks through everything. Many artists are compared to her, not the other way around."
On July 15 Aguilera will launch a 20-date North American tour at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.; other stops on the Live Nation-produced trek include the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, N.Y., and the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, Calif. Leona Lewis will open all shows, and fans who purchase tickets at LiveNation.com through June 4 will receive a code to download "Bionic."
Aguilera will also make her movie debut later this year in "Burlesque," a musical directed by Steven Antin (brother of Pussycat Dolls creator Robin Antin) that co-stars Cher, Stanley Tucci, Kristen Bell and Alan Cumming. Aguilera plays a struggling dancer who moves to L.A. to follow her dreams and soon discovers-well, you can probably imagine where it goes from there.
"The idea of sensuality and women being expressive of that and looking at an old 1920s art form-it was like, 'Hello, sign me up!' " Aguilera says. "It had my name written all over it."
"Christina's had plenty of movie offers in the past, but this was the first one that made sense," Azoff says. "And it's a very different look for her. You'll be pleasantly shocked."
But will Aguilera's fans be shocked by the new sounds she samples on "Bionic"? Sia Furler isn't worried. "Christina could shit in a bottle and her fans would still love it," she says with a laugh. "They're rabid motherfuckers, totally crazy cakes. I mentioned her once on my Twitter and had like 5,000 more followers within minutes. If this album sells less than the last one, it's not a reflection of the record-it's a reflection of the industry."
Kathleen Hanna of Le Tigre thinks that Aguilera's hipster-approved collaborators might even earn the singer a few new fans in indie-identified Pitchfork country.
"People have been super-supportive of us working with her," says Hanna, who spent most of the '90s fronting the seminal riot grrrl band Bikini Kill. "A few years ago there was a rumor going around that we were working with Paris Hilton, and people were ready to kill us. Obviously, Christina and Paris Hilton are totally different entities. But people seem genuinely excited about this. It's like maybe it gives them permission to admit they like Christina."
In Corson's view, Aguilera's dance-punk outing is just one of many avenues he sees her exploring during the course of her career. "If you ask people in our industry, 'Will Christina Aguilera be singing in 20 years?,' they'll all say 'yes.' It wouldn't surprise me if we see her do a standards album, a jazz album, a blues album. It just depends on where her creative whims take her."
Back at Sony Pictures Studios, Aguilera's winding her way through one of the longest stories she's told all night. It began during a brief Q&A session when a fan asked her if she was glad "Genie in a Bottle" had been her first single. Somehow, though, Aguilera's gotten a long way from home.
"They told me to talk," she says after several minutes, pointing toward the VH1 execs at the back of the room. "So sorry if I keep going on and on." The crowd's response? A roar of encouragement.
Latina Mag: Christina Opens About Her Father
These days, singer Christina Aguilera is a happy wife (to Jordan Bratman) and mom (to 2-year-old son Max).
One person not in her life? Her estranged father Fausto Aguilera. Their relationship, Aguilera tells Latina magazine, is "pretty nonexistent. I'm in a place in my life where I just don't see a reason for it."
The pop star has said that Fausto, a former U.S. Army Sergeant, was emotionally and physically abusive; he and her mom, Shelly Kearns, split when Christina was just seven, and she rarely saw him after that.
"To remember the chaos that [my mother] went through, the abuse, I don't know how she did it," Aguilera, 29, tells Latina. "But it's amazing how much you can trick your mind into surviving when you have to."
"There's always room for forgiveness," the "Not Myself Tonight" songstress adds. "And I do forgive--but you grow up and make choices for your family."
In 1999 -- when Aguilera first became a teen pop rival to Britney Spears -- she reunited with Fausto after 12 years following an NYC concert. "We spoke for the first time in a long while. Really, he's a stranger to me," she told Rolling Stone at the time. "He's apologized," she added. "I think he had a lot of guilt."
Things are infinitely better with Bratman, whom she married in 2005. "Jordy was the calm in the storm when everybody else was driving me crazy," she tells Latina.
"I had a lot of older people around me who were conniving--and these people do that so you cling to them. He was the person who reached down, pulled me out and made me see reason. I'm very lucky to have him."
The June issue of Latina hits stands May 25.
GQ Magazine: Queen Christina
At Prince’s party, all Earth-based reality is negotiable. And there, moving smoothly behind the crowd-parting prow of an all-business bodyguard, is a petite, platinum-blond synthesis of the whole retro-futurist, glam-louche, New-Old-Hollywood spectacle: Christina Aguilera.
In recent years, Aguilera’s look has been changeable to near unrecognizability: from blond to raven-haired to redheaded, coquettish to slutty to whatever it is you are when you’re in a soul-kissing-Madonna sandwich with Britney Spears. But however you described her, words like elegant and classic probably went unmolested. Not tonight. Though she’s club-casual in white V-neck cashmere hoodie, dark jeans, and leopard-print high heels, Aguilera’s spit-curl coif, bright red Kewpie doll lips, and sparkling ruby barrette suggest an R&B Jean Harlow. This is Aguilera 3.0: a Jazz Age Broadway-baby songbird. And from the looks of things—let’s see if I get this right—girlfriend is working it. “I really try to live out whatever I’m doing with the music in my life,” says the formidably self-assured 25-year-old. “Like now, even when I’m only going to be in the studio, I never go without bright red lipstick.”
Aguilera’s new album, Back to Basics, due to drop in a couple of months, blends a vintage-soul sound with state-of-the-art beatsmanship to form a throwback/hip-hop showcase for her outsize voice. Interweaving a Weimar-cabaret theme, it is decidedly a concept album. “In the end, it’s really cool to just follow a set vision,” she says. “I think it makes for a better product.” And the vision is a bold one, if not in ways previously associated with the buttless-chaps-clad provocateur.
To promote the album, Aguilera is planning a tour of jazz clubs, including the blue-chip Blue Note, a New York institution. Hearing this news, some may imagine the ghost of Ella Fitzgerald scatting foul oaths in the wind, but it’s also kind of awesome. Imagine for one second Aguilera’s former rival Britney Spears attempting something like this—the idea is insane, a joke. But with the nuclear-voiced Aguilera, who got nasty in public with much grimier originality than Spears’s Hefnerian pigtails-and-letter-sweater cliché, it’s nearly credible. After all, Aguilera has offended much stronger sensibilities than jazz snobbery in her career.
Whatever ruckus she’s raised, it certainly gets her respect here at Teddy’s, where a famous visage or an ultraviolet wrist stamp is all that prevents sudden ejection onto dusty Hollywood Boulevard. A cocktail-table nook is discreetly emptied of patrons as we coast up through the parting throng and alight there, Aguilera sitting down beside her new husband, Jordan Bratman. She looks content and certainly sounds it. “I’m in the happiest place that I’ve ever been in my entire life,” Aguilera had told me. “I’m very peaceful. I don’t feel kind of agitated or upset about everything.”
Although the two are clearly pop royalty, there’s a real knockabout vibe to the young couple, laughingly nudging each other and sipping Cristal, and this has a lot to do with Bratman. A nice little Jewish guy from New York, the 28-year-old music-marketing exec doesn’t immediately strike one as the sort to land a sexpot alpha female. He ambles unassumingly through the modelizing throng, a serene smile on his roundish, stubbly face. In a room where many men wear a thousand bucks in hair products alone, he’s rocking a red Yankees baseball cap and camouflage pants.
But he’s clearly a cuddle magnet for Aguilera, who prior to this has always seemed so alone out there, such a ferocious band of one. Now she’s on a conga line of two, following behind Bratman, hands on his shoulders, butt wiggling to the house music as they leave the nook for the balcony. Flanked by security hulks as champagne flutes periodically manifest from the ether, they are joined by a few pals, including Justin Timberlake and another guy Aguilera refers to as “an old Mouseketeer friend.” Before long, His Purple Badness takes the stage.
In a shimmering orange sport jacket and turquoise guitar, Prince shares vocals with a belting, Afroed soul sister and two preposterously hot backup singers in go-go skirts with Ikettes moves. Aguilera has met The Artist before, and at five-two could even look him in the eye (“He actually seemed smaller than me,” she says). When a deeply intoxicated white guy is pulled from the crowd and forced to…dance, sort of, Aguilera and Timberlake crack up, bending over the railing. “Man, that’s a cool step,” Prince says as the guy exits. “I’m stealin’ that.”
And when I look over at the petite singer beside me taking in the petite singer onstage, I realize something. Maybe it’s the distorting proximity to stardom, maybe it’s the neuron-addling Cristal, but for a moment the idea seems perfectly plausible. A giant talent in a tiny body. A flair for the brash and theatrical. A flagrant lewdness that’s part of the art.
Is Christina Aguilera the female Prince?
Billboard Magazine, On Stands May 17
Christina Aguilera continues to show off her thigh-high Christian Louboutin boots on the latest cover of Billboard magazine, on stands May 17.
Amidst comparisons to Lady Gaga, the 29-year-old singer states, “I’m in it for the long haul, and a decade later in my career, I have nothing to prove. To anyone who wants to be negative, it’s like, ‘I’m obviously relevant enough to you for you to care and to talk and to evoke negative feelings inside of you.’ At this point in my career, I’m over any and all weird comparisons or negativity.”
Christina claims making hit songs is not what inspires her: “There was actually a song that the label really wanted me to record, and I just said ‘no,’ because it didn’t fit on the album – it wasn’t creatively inspiring to me. They said, ‘It’s a hit, it’s a hit!’ And absolutely it’s a hit for someone. But it’s not for me, because when it jeopardizes my integrity too much I can’t do it. The hit thing… (sigh) ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’ was a f–king hit, you know what I mean?”
Aussie singer, Sia, who is working with Christina is also quoted in the article saying, “Christina could s–t in a bottle and her fans would still love it.”
She amaze me!
Great interview!
Christina Aguilera's Stroke Of Genius
May 13, 2010
"Burlesque" Starring Christina Aguilera
Steve Antin (Author), Stephen Vaughan (Photographer), Willa Mamet (Photographer), Cher (Introduction), Christina Aguilera (Foreword)
This title will be released on October 5, 2010.Pre-order now!
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Product Details
Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: Universe (October 5, 2010)
Language: English
May 12, 2010
Christina Gives Hope To Haiti
PORT AU PRINCE -- WFP’s new Ambassador Against Hunger Christina Aguilera visited two schools in quake-stricken Haiti on Tuesday to meet the children receiving food aid through WFP school meals programmes. Donate and add your voice to hers!
The world-famous singer helped serve meals of rice and beans to children at the Ecole Lysee Fritz Pierre Louis in Port-au-Prince and at the Ecole Saint Terese de Darbonne, in Leogane, a badly damaged town south of the capital.
Christina Aguilera Visits School Children in Haiti
Aguilera met with WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran while in Haiti to discuss the hunger response after the earthquake. WFP's operation in the Caribbean nation is shifting away from emergency relief to programmes such as school meals, nutrition schemes and food-for-work projects to help the national recovery effort. See story: Food Aid Helps Small Towns Rebuild
During her time with children of Leogane, Aguilera also sang ‘Happy Birthday Haiti’ to highlight how reconstruction efforts in the country are giving this long-suffering nation the chance of a new start.
The singer’s appointment as a WFP Ambassador Against Hunger was announced last week during an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
“A child dies every six seconds of hunger which is a huge statistic for me,” Aguilera told Oprah Winfrey. “After having my own child I just had to be a part of it and do something about it and help change that situation.”
GQ Magazine: Christina Aguilera Interview
Oh, the album is mainly dedicated to the robotic elements of my voice. I love electronic music, I always wanted to do more of it. Your first experiences with techno and electro?
With 15 I listened to “Firestarter” by Prodigy. I loved it’s hardness and the voice (sings “Firestarter” with British accent). I always thought, such a techno album is what I want to do some day. I like the mechanical. Let’s talk about competition in your business. I think everyone who says he doesn’t care about competition is a liar.
I don’t think about this word at all. Everything that has no relation to my personal idea of music and creativity is irrelevant. (she doesn’t look into your eyes. She says she has panic to look at someone directly because that’s too intimate.) Interesting, you always hear that from men. Women rather ask if people like something or not.
Not me. If I had done everything people wanted me to do I wouldn’t be at the place I am now, whether as a woman or man. When I’m recording, I virtually lock myself up in my studio. I do not listen to anything else. That means you haven’t heard or seen anything about Lady Gaga in the last month? People already compare Bionic to Lady Gaga’s sound.
I bet they are. (Pause. Longer pause. But what should she answer? She sips furtively at her starbucks cup) Lady Gaga is pretty often naked. Do you have to boost your own ‘gaganess’ to top her?
I can only talk about my own sex. I never felt sexier. Sex always has been a big part of my life and work. But today I feel better than ever in my skin. And now I understand how I get exactly what I want. The Ring you’re wearing on a picture is from Parisian designer Bethany Vernon and connects thumb and forefinger. They say it’s either a yoga or a sex ring, depending on the application?
(Thinks about it briefly, then she says very proudly) Aaaaaaah, you mean my blowjob ring? Not a simple yoga ring?
No, no! Works with lubricating cream. It simplifies the position of your hand. Of course I never used it but I thought it looked amazing. And I like my female hands with this ring. I like to look at female hands. In general I prefer to have a look at women. According to a men magazine most of the women would, if they had an affair with a woman, choose you…
Amazing, such a compliment. By the way, I prefer to look at female than male strippers. Male strippers don’t work. They are hilarious. Women think strippers like the Chippendales are in truth embarrassing.
By any means. If I had a female affair, it would be with Madonna. You kissed her before, how did you like it?
It was short. It was a show kiss?
No, not at all. It was just short. (She blushes a bit under the make-up, it must have appealed to her.) They say you adore Cher so much, you would even drink her bathwater.
Who could be a bigger idol? She has done everything, seen everything. During the shooting, I absorbed every sentence she said, every move she made like a sponge. She’s my mentor and my friend. You are obsessed with costumes just like her?
I can’t live without drama. On my last tour I had a lot of circus acrobats. I need big hair, big make up and whenever you can have fun somewhere, call me! I get bored quickly. “Burlesque” is made for me: women, sex and dancing, that’s where I’m present!
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