Before her twenty-first birthday, Christina Aguilera claimed
multiple platinum records, three Grammy Awards, and record sales
well over twenty million copies. A former child actor on the Disney
series The New Mickey Mouse Club, Aguilera made her first
recording as a fourteen-year-old on a duet with Japanese singer
Keizo Nakanishi. While the song was successful in Japan, Aguilera
returned to the life of a high school student in Pennsylvania
before gaining a recording contract with RCA Records in 1998.
Her first single, "Genie in a Bottle," sold over two million
copies in 1999 and its Spanish-language version, "Genio Atrapado," helped
Aguilera become a rare crossover success from the pop mainstream
to the Latino market. Her first album, Christina Aguilera, was
also an immediate hit and eventually sold over eight million
copies in the United States alone. Capping off an astounding
debut, Aguilera took home the Grammy Award for Best New Artist
in 1999, beating out competition that included her former Mickey
Mouse Club cast mate Britney Spears.
Like teen singer Britney Spears, Aguilera
endured some criticism as her records sold in the millions.
While reviewers acknowledged her impressive vocal abilities—especially
in comparison to Spears—images of the sexually provocative
teenagers made others question the appropriateness of their
videos. The protests peaked around Aguilera's appearance in
the video for the 'Lady Marmalade' track for the movie Moulin Rouge in
2001.
Aguilera countered the criticism head
on; as she told Allure in a May of 2002 interview, "Everybody
said, 'Don't do "Lady Marmalade," it's too urban for you!' But
I wanted to do it. The girls [Pink, Lil' Kim, Mya, and Missy
Elliott] were great to work with—it was like, 'Let's play
dress-up for a day!' If you're doing a video for a movie like Moulin
Rouge—I mean, it's about a whorehouse—you have
to get up there in some fun costumes. I love taking chances."
At the 1999 Grammy Awards Aguilera pulled an upset win over
Britney Spears to claim the award for Best New Artist. Her album
had only been out a few months at the time of the award, and
most expected Spears to walk away with the Grammy. Aguilera herself
appeared shocked at getting such recognition just months after
her album's release.
The following year she claimed her second Grammy Award—this
time from the Latin Recording Academy—for her Spanish-language
release, Mi Reflejo. Although she had to record the album
phonetically because she did not speak Spanish, Aguilera looked
at the experience as a chance to reconnect with her father's
side of the family. The album was a major success and sold over
three million copies in the year after its 2000 release. That
year Aguilera released another platinum-selling album, My
Kind of Christmas, a collection of holiday standards.
|
