Christina Aguilera’s 25th anniversary Spotify gig is a necessary reminder

Recently. Well, I say recently. But it was quite some weeks ago now, because I’m late and lazy. But, ‘recently’ Christina Aguilera celebrated 25 years of her self-titled debut album with a lil’ live session with Spotify, where she performed a few of the songs from it. And only recently—as in ACTUALLY recently—did I watch and listen to it. And y’all. It was a very pleasant 30 minutes.

Aguilera sang through re-arranged versions of her hits “Genie in a Bottle”, “What a Girl Wants”, “Come on Over (All I Want Is You)” and “I Turn to You”, in addition to deep cut “Obvious” and—of course—the Disney classic “Reflection” from Mulan.

Now. I know, I know. Aguilera has become somewhat of an acquired taste, because of how she tends to oversing. An unfortunate thing, given that...she can sing. But this Spotify gig is a much needed reminder of how good Aguilera a singer is and of her musicality—the latter of which I don’t think she gets a lot of credit for.

Aguilera is known for her belts and oversinging. But it’s when she sings soft and high where her voice for me truly shines. Those last 15 seconds at the end of “Reflection”? THAT is where it’s at for me. I cannot tell you how many times I rewound that. As somebody who ranks “Loving Me 4 Me” and “Without You” in their top 10 favourite Christina Aguilera songs—hearing her so high and flutter pleased me greatly.

The 25th Anniversary of Christina Aguilera | Spotify

Aguilera has had to court her fair share of shit. And it’s been unfortunate that at every turn in her career where she’s released something, there’s always been some type of obstacle she’s had to contend with. When she debuted, it was the Britney comparisons. With Stripped, it was her image in the music video for “Dirrty”. With Bionic, it was Lady Gaga comparisons, false starts, a sense that she and RCA Records didn’t know what they were doing, and then what became the general failure of that entire album. With Lotus, it was Aguilera’s weight gain. Then came Liberation, which failed to ignite mass commercial interest in her music in the wake of Bionic and Lotus. And in the midst of these releases, there were countless stories doing the rounds about her attitude, her looks, constant division about the way in which she sings, cultural appropriation—none of which helped.

After albums marred by some types of mess, it’s just nice to see Aguilera be able to do something with her music and have it just be put out there, mess free. For people to really sit in how good her voice still is, how good her earlier songs were / still are, and that Aguilera does in fact still take her music seriously. The arrangements of every one of those songs was amazing. We got a really nice balance between familiarity and newness, whilst playing to the strengths of the backup singers and musicians—each of whom were amazing. The set, the vibe, the mood, the tone—everything was just spot on.

As somebody who has always followed Christina and owns a couple of her albums (Stripped and Back to Basics), it was really nice to have a reminder of what made me get into her music. Because unfortunately, her music hasn’t always been at the forefront of what she does, even when all she’s done is...release music. So, celebrating her debut album and just making it all about her revisiting and reworking older songs, breathing new life into them and putting the music first was a great choice. I’m sure some pressed play on the video, cocked their heads and said ‘She looks different’. [Raises hand]. It distracted me at first, because she does look VERY different. It’s mainly the teeth. Everybody is getting veneers now and it really changes a person’s face. But as soon as Aguilera starts singing, you’re just locked into the performance and the vibes. It was kinda mesmerising.

Fans have been saying that Christina should do this for Stripped too. And I think she should consider it. But we’ll get to that.

The 25th Anniversary of Christina Aguilera | Spotify

It’s tough to know what the future holds for Aguilera as far as music releases go. Her Spanish album Aguilera—which I really liked—was very well received. It even won her a Latin Grammy. It gave her career the favourable boost that it needed, but not at large. So I do wonder how a new English language album for a wider audience would fare now, because it’s been over a decade since her last. I wonder if Aguilera is already in that space that acts such as Mariah Carey is currently in, where it’s all about pushing the old catalog, as opposed to trying to make new shit work, because new shit is SUCH a risk in this climate for certain acts. It’d be a shame to see Aguilera try to fit her music into the current landscape. But at the same time, Aguilera’s refusal to follow trends and then choose to follow them so late is what played a part in her ending up where she did with Bionic—which I don’t think she’s ever fully recovered from. So, I guess we’ll see. Much like Carey, Aguilera is still able to sell tickets for tours, has a very active and dedicated fanbase, and audiences beyond her fanbase still like her old shit, so she’ll be okay no matter what. Also, a bitch can still sing. Aguilera has options. I, for one, would like a new album from her. But I need it to be A&R’d correctly, for it to be executive produced within an inch of its life and for Aguilera to just do what works.

If there is one thing Aguilera has shown us by still being in the game, is that she’s resilient. And that she’s done enough of the work and made just enough of the right choices to have a 25 year career. And this Spotify anniversary concert was a necessary reminder of why she is still here and why she should keep going.

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💿 Album reviews: My Kind of Christmas | Bionic | Lotus | Liberation