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[Review]
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Christina Aguilera "Stripped"
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"After a three year hiatus Christina returns."
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| Best Tracks: I'm Okay, Soar |
Christina Aguilera wants to let you know that people go through hard times but in the end everything's gonna be alright. And she takes almost 80 minutes
to make sure that you realize this. After being out of the limelight for three years (almost an eternity in pop years) Christina has returned with a new look (being naked),
new sound (Alicia Keys-type soul sound) but the same old thign that you can find on any other pop or soul album out there. "Stripped" really wouldn't be
that bad of a CD if it didn't feel so tired and worn out. The album doesn't just borrow other sounds from other much note-worthy pop albums but also almost shamelssly
rip them off. The rip-offs range from Alicia Keys (who lends her piano skills to "Impossible" so you can't really blame her for that.) to Mariah Carey ("The Voice Within","Soar",
"Walk Away") to Pink ("I'm Okay") to Janet Jackson ("Loving For Me"). The album also misses the more energetic tracks that made her debut CD alot more fun leaving us with
The tired "Dirrty" whose only saving grace is Redman and the ever-so-slowly moving ladies anthem "Can't Hold Us Down" in which Lil Kim feels like she's fallen asleep at the mic.
It's not to say that Christina has totally lost all of her grace as an artist. She still has amazing voice that has certainly matured alot since we last heard from her.
And thier are a few slight glimmers on the album that catch you by surprise like her autobiographical "I'm Okay" where she talks about her father's abuse towards her and
her mother. And even though the song "Soar" is another one of many 'You can't get through these hard times' type songs her voice does carry the song unlike any of the other
16 other songs on the CD.
The album had promise with producers like Glen Ballard (Dave Matthews Band's "Everyday"), Linda Perry (Pink, Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Alicia Keys who I
felt might move Christina in a new, more creative direction. And in a way they did, they moved her away from the bubblegum-pop sound of her first and into a re-hash of everything that's ever
been done in the female-pop genre. Musically, it's very good, the composition of piano and an occassional Dave Navarro appearance feel much more refreshing than the boring, cliched lyrics (this time penned by Christina herself).
The album basically covers a very small range of subjects (Love, Loss of Love, Neglect.) and that may be one of it's biggest setbacks with how overly long the CD is. Christina promises at the start of the album after a montage of news clips about her that this album is "No gloss, No hype", which is both hypocritical and compeltely untrue considering how glossy the album feels and how she's being marketed now (i.e. her new video and how she's topless on the cover of her new album.) So, in the end, the album may feel worth the wait to girls under 16 but for everyone else it will probably feel uninspired and make them want to go searching for thier old Janet Jackson
or Mariah Carey CDs.
