Aguilera, Christina

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Christina Aguilera

Singer, songwriter

Pop vocal star Christina Aguilera conveys sophistication and poise, self-assurance and grace as she sings and swings her way through the lyrics of popular songs. Aguilera started her career as an American teen idol, but that image concealed her true identity as a precocious and introspective woman on the brink of self-discovery. Aguilera spent her adolescence as a girl-next-door song-and-dance performer, went through a coming-of-age phase in which she experimented with a highly sexualized image, and finally made the difficult transition from youth icon to adult performer.

Aguilera was the oldest child of Shelly and Fausto Aguilera. She was born December 18, 1980, in the New York City borough of Staten Island. Her father, an Ecuadorian-born sergeant in the U.S. Army, kept his family on the move during her early childhood. Aguilera was home schooled, as the family spent their time in Texas and New Jersey and lived overseas in Japan. Her mother, a musician, played both violin and piano, and Aguilera's own love of music was nurtured at an early age. Her passion soon turned to her salvation as her father experienced emotional difficulties and developed a bent for physical violence and verbal abuse against his family.

Aguilera learned very quickly to find an escape from her dismal home life by focusing on music. Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music became a childhood favorite. She enjoyed listening to the title song and singing it as well, and the film became an uplifting experience for the young musician. When she was six years old her parents parted ways. The separation developed into a difficult divorce, and Aguilera lived with her mother and younger sister in Wexford, Pennsylvania, outside of Pittsburgh, for the next eight years. When the promising young diva was 14, her mother married paramedic Jim Kearns; overnight, Aguilera and her sister inherited a new sibling, a stepbrother named Casey. Not long afterward a new baby brother joined the family.

Aguilera's first hit recording appeared on the music charts when she was 18 years old, although her career as a professional performer dated back to elementary school. She was an entertaining singer even as a small child, and by the age of six she was performing for relatives. She exhibited unusual style, sophistication, and poise for her years, and by the age of eight some saw her as a prodigy. She appeared on television's Star Search talent contest but failed to win, and although she fought back tears she congratulated the singer who bested her. The loss never hindered Aguilera's career, and by age ten she was singing the national anthem at major league sports attractions in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was 12 when she auditioned successfully for a spot as a Mouseketeer on the New Mickey Mouse Club program in Orlando, Florida. The show, a reprise of Walt Disney's original 1950s show, was the spawning ground for a generation of new "bubblegum" pop singers, including Britney Spears, J. C. Chasez of 'N Sync, and others. The Disney show continued for two years, after which Aguilera's career took her to venues around the world, including Tokyo, Japan, and Brasov, Romania.

Although she was already a veteran entertainer, her true "big break" came in 1998 when she auditioned successfully to sing the song "Reflections" in the Disney Studios' animated film release Mulan. Aguilera won the audition because of her exceptional range. With her powerful voice and her bent for clear vibrato, the tiny (five-foot two inches tall) blond singer hit the song's high E with ease, and "Reflections" became a hit tune, rising to number 15 on the singles charts. RCA record executives signed Aguilera to a recording contract.

Major Hits

Aguilera taped her first full-length album for release in 1999. She spent 45 days on tour to promote the album's single release, "Genie in a Bottle," which soared to number one on the pop charts. The hit single spurred album sales, and the full-length CD climbed the record charts, leaving Aguilera with no time to look back as her career jumped into high gear. Early in 2000 the release of a second single from the album, What a Girl Wants, also became a major hit and sent the album into platinum sales. By the middle of 2000, the album had logged more than ten million sales worldwide, and "Genie in a Bottle" became a hit video as well.

For the Christmas holiday in 1999, RCA released Aguilera's Christmas Song album, featuring Etta James and a complete 70-piece orchestra backing the two on the recording. Also in 1999, Aguilera received an invitation to appear in "Christmas at the White House," a Turner Network television special with President Bill Clinton. Clinton enjoyed Aguilera's performance and invited her to appear again in a millennium special, also televised from Washington, D.C. Appearances by Aguilera were in such high demand that she was forced to decline the millennium invitation in Washington in order to honor a previous commitment to appear in an MTV music special from New York for the traditional New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square. Ladies Home Journal magazine featured Aguilera in a New Year's retrospective of the most fascinating women of 1999, which was televised on the CBS-TV network.

Aguilera, her celebrity on the rise, appeared at football's Super Bowl in January of 2000. She headlined the halftime gala along with popular singer Enrique Iglesias. The following month she received two Grammy Award nominations, for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance of 1999, and for Best New Artist of the Year. She admitted her astonishment at winning the Grammy for Best New Artist. Her adolescent appeal, combined with a mature talent, earned her immense popularity, and she was inundated with offers for magazine interviews, appearances on talk shows, and assorted performance opportunities. With attractive blue eyes and a petite figure, Aguilera adorned magazine covers, including those of Teen People, Latina, and Entertainment Weekly.

For the Record …

Born December 18, 1980, in Staten Island, NY; daughter of Fausto (a military officer) and Shelly (a musician) Aguilera; married Jordan Bratman (a recording industry executive), November 19, 2005.

Accepted as Mouseketeer, New Mickey Mouse Club, 1993; performed song "Reflections" on soundtrack of film Mulan; signed to RCA label, 1998; released album Christina Aguilera, 1999; released Spanish-language album Mi Reflejo, 2000; released album Stripped, 2002; released album Back to Basics, 2006.

Awards: Grammy Awards: for Best New Artist, 1999; Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, for "Lady Marmalade," 2001; Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, for "Beautiful," 2003.

Addresses: Record company—BMG Entertainment, 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036. Website—Christina Aguilera Official Website—http://www.christinaaguilera.com.

By age 19, her resume of appearances bridged several generations, as she boasted appearances on Good Morning America, The Donny and Marie Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and The Rosie O'Donnell Show. She sang on Saturday Night Live, and she held the distinction of making the only appearance by a woman on Men Strike Back, a VH-1 response to the cable channel's popular diva telecasts that featured popular female singers. She was a featured performer and personality on numerous awards shows, including the World Music Awards and the Essence Awards. At the ASCAP Pop Awards she introduced her version of "At Last," a classic done previously by Etta James, for whom Aguilera expressed great admiration. Aguilera was in demand for television specials such as Disney Summer Jams. She spent the summer of 2000 as the star of a "Sears and Levi's present Christina Aguilera" tour.

Aguilera had maintained a strong connection with her Ecuadorian family background and developed an enormous following among Latino teenagers. Early in 2000 she recorded a Spanish-language album, Mi Reflejo (My Reflection), learning the words phonetically in order to overcome her lack of fluency in the language. It had been her wish to record a Spanish language album even before her first English language release, and the album included Spanish versions of several of her original English language hits. She had spoken Spanish as a child, and she studied the language both before and after recording. The album's title song was a Spanish version of Aguilera's 1998 Disney hit "Reflections," and the single release "Genio Atrapado" was a Spanish version of her English language hit "Genie in a Bottle."

Leila Cobo of Billboard praised the album, predicting that Aguilera's style might generate a new type of Latino music—a modern genre with rhythm and blues overtones. David Gleason of the Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation also predicted a prominent posture for Aguilera as a unique new Latina star, singing rhythm and blues instead of salsa. Several Spanish language Aguilera singles registered strong performances on the Latin music charts in 2000 and 2001, but by that time the singer was pursuing a new aspect of her musical personality. The album Stripped appeared in 2002, and it presented to music buyers a very different Christina Aguilera from the ex-Mouseketeer they had known up to that point.

Beautiful

Appearing on the cover with only her long hair for a top covering, Aguilera claimed that the album's title referred to her emotions. However, noted Stephen Thomas Erlewine of All Music Guide, "Most things about Stripped suggest sex." The album featured major contributions by hip-hop producer Scott Storch, who gave Aguilera's self-penned songs a tough urban edge. Stripped, though a major hit by the standards of ordinary singers, failed to repeat the chart-topping performance of Christina Aguilera, and its most successful single was also its least typical: "Beautiful," a ballad penned by songwriter Linda Perry, earned Aguilera a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

After the polarized response to Stripped, Aguilera took some time off to plan her next move, although she was never completely out of the headlines. The happiest event in Aguilera's life during her four-year hiatus from recording was her marriage on November 19, 2005, to recording executive Jordan Bratman at the Auberge du Soleil resort in California's Napa Valley.

Aguilera's third official studio album (2001's Just Be Free was an unauthorized collection of early demo recordings), the two-disc Back to Basics, was released in 2006. Gone were Aguilera's teen star and sexpot images, replaced by a 1940s-inspired look that made her somewhat resemble classic movie star Jean Harlow. Musically, too, Aguilera underwent a makeover. The album looked back to a variety of classic pop and soul styles, fusing them with modern electronic beats. Madonna loomed as a strong musical influence on Aguilera, and songwriter Linda Perry returned as an important creative contributor. Gone, however, was Storch, kissed off by Aguilera on the dance-oriented first disc in a song called "F.U.S.S." and replaced by a group of several producers that included Perry. "It's an album to build a career upon," noted the All Music Guide's Erlewine, and with it, a teen star grew up. In 2007 Aguilera was back in style with a 41-city North American tour that saw her make ten costume changes in the course of a 90-minute set.