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"Aguilera Reaches For The Stars And Stumbles" |
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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 |
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Ouch. That's what New York Daily News had to say about Christina Aguilera's double-album, or as Christina calls them, her "two babies." The review says that the albums are "needy, overstated, self-indulgent and will not end."
The entire review follows.
Puttin' on airs
CHRISTINA AGUILERA
"Back to Basics"
(RCA)
Christina Aguilera opens her new album with both eyes fixed on the greatest musical innovators of all time.
"What made the soul singers, the blues figures, the jazz makers, the ground breakers?" she asks in the album's opening cut. "I'm ready now to face it. I wanna understand."
Translation: "I wanna be one of the greats, too. And now I'll show you why I deserve to be."
Toward that pursuit, Aguilera made sure to deep-six her role as innocent plaything from her first CD. She just as eagerly ditched the skank-with-terrible-fashion-sense that was supposed to establish her as an "adult" on her second album.
Now, for her third CD, Aguilera has done everything to be taken seriously short of singing about a desire to adopt starving African children.
She ballooned the disk to a double CD, forked over a significant part of the production to left-field, hip-hop cult figure DJ Premier, and made sure to bite off a daunting number of historical genres, from '20s jazz to '30s blues to orchestral art song.
It's a massively ambitious sprawl of a CD that, unfortunately, bumbles into becoming pop's most groaning white elephant since Yes' "Tales From Topographic Oceans." It's needy, overstated, self-indulgent and will not end.
On the surface - where the album stubbornly stays - you will find a meager dash of dynamism. DJ Premier uses jazz horns in a passably muscular way in the best tracks, especially the appealing single "Ain't No Other Man." And no one can doubt the gymnastic appeal of Aguilera's voice. She has the burliest pipes of her generation.
Too bad she uses them to drive through every song like a Mack Truck. There's no nuance, just one crescendo topping another.
Aguilera's lyrics are equally imbalanced. There's no attempt to universalize anything. Every line refers to her life literally, covering such me-me-me subjects as the price of fame, the wrath of doubters and her desire to be worthy of the classic stars.
For the album's second disk, Aguilera worked with pop producer Linda Perry, but the music they came up with is even more arty and ambitious than that on the first. By turns, Aguilera imitates Billie Holiday, Mae West and Bessie Smith. Too bad her mimicry has about as much conviction as a skit from a '70s variety show. Think Cher dressing up as a gypsy, a tramp and a thief - minus the irony.
If Aguilera really wanted to equal music's icons, she should have looked to their character, rather than simply over-milking her craft. As it is, she ends up sounding less like a legend than like Mariah Carey gone snooty. |
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