First her eponymous debut album: part of the teen pop movement (it was indeed a designed movement) of the late ’90s, which was a reaction to Mariah Carey (the then-Goddess of music, now the Historic, Living Goddess of music) fully embracing hip-hop and blackness, and simultaneously embracing and owning her sexual expression (which in a lot of ways explicit sexuality is constructed in blackness). Max Martin, who is on record discussing this, wanted to create a sound that fused soul and rhythm & blues (black music), with European dance (“white” music, white in quotations because all contemporary music comes from black America) to mass market to white audiences in America and Europe (now disaffected because they feel they were fooled by supporting Mariah Carey before). And that’s what he did. As Mariah Carey was in a way a pariah of white, Christian America after her completed evolution in 1997, this opened up the music market to a now massive audience of white America, particularly young/tween white America that needed *safe* female artists that could “sing” to fill that void. Enter all the young blonde-haired, some blue-eyed, not sexualized, but still youthful and contemporary white female singers/artists/dancers that could fill that void. You could argue the same thing for Janet Jackson, and Boys II Men. Christina Aguilera sought to escape this racist (which is different and separate from bigotry), sexist (which is different and separate from misogyny) capitalist movement, but because she didn’t fully comprehend it, and still doesn’t, so she did what she could. Which led her to Stripped. And I’ll try to keep the rest of this short.

Stripped by-and-large is explicit blackness, while her eponymous debut is implicit blackness (and actually that is the career/artistic model that Mariah Carey created unintentionally). At one point she literally donned blackface (“Can’t Hold Us Down” video in particular, hell all of the videos, the album cover she’s a dark gray in black and white…), began featuring rappers on her music (and unlike Mariah Carey did not have a genuine appreciation and understanding of rap and hip hop) and expressed explicit sexuality (except hers was more raunch and Dita Von Teese, while Mariah Carey’s has always been solely Marilyn Monroe). Her album sold half of her previous album (in some part because it was not as good), and the first single “Dirrty” didn’t even crack top 40. White, Christian America largely rejected it (sexualized and black), and black-/African American, Christian America didn’t really care (I will say I loved and love “Dirrty”, and I am African American). Some songs on the album were authentic and spoke to her true artistry: “Fighter”, a rock song with soul/rhythm and blues infusions that allow her to be white and express her authentic appreciation of black culture pre-1980, pre-hip-hop; “The Voice Within”, a piano ballad that seeks to find inner strength which she can clearly relate given her upbringing; and “Beautiful”, a piano and classical contemporary ballad that achieves the same effect. I could go on and on and on, but you get the point.

If Christina Aguilera became a white female artist that can truly sing who fought for the deconstruction of white supremacy, patriarchy (she’s arguably not a feminist) and capitalism from her white female perspective through music, she would have found her voice. But trying to moderate all of these competing forces within and outside of her, has produced the artistic confusion we see today. But hey, at least she is an artist, or at least strives to be an artist, and not just a singer, or vocal performer.