Two months ago, singer Christina Aguilera was unknown to all but a handful of Americans — people who had seen her in the past two seasons of the Disney Channel’s New Mickey Mouse Club, or who’d heard the theme to Disney’s animated film Mulan and were stunned to discover the powerful voice came not from Celine Dion or Mariah Carey but from a skinny kid from the outskirts of Pittsburgh.
Now, the word is out on the 18-year-old Aguilera: Her first single, Genie in a Bottle, is No. 1 in the nation and has sold almost half a million copies since its June 22 release. The video has been among the most requested on MTV’s Total Request Live show, and Aguilera is the subject of more than 30 Internet sites. Her self-titled CD is due in stores today.
She has already been booked for several TV concerts featuring other popular teen acts, such as UPN’s Summer Music Mania scheduled for Aug. 31, which will also feature Tyrese and fellow Mouseketeer Britney Spears.
A singer of substantial skill, Aguilera has been compared by many in the industry to her two most apparent influences, Carey and Whitney Houston, and likened to a new Monica. She was featured on several Lilith Fair dates accompanied only by piano.
Songwriter Steve Kipner, who co-wrote Genie in a Bottle, said he was impressed by Aguilera during recording because she did not need coaching to improvise complex r&b; lines, a skill he says he generally sees only in older artists.
“She’s internalized all the riffs from Chaka Khan to Etta James to Mariah and made them her own,” Kipner said.
While this skill may not be immediately apparent on the high-gloss Genie, a song even Aguilera admits is more commercial than challenging, it’s apparent on the album’s sweeping ballads and bluesy midtempo cuts, which she says she prefers.
At a recent photo shoot in an austere Hollywood Hills mansion for Mademoiselle magazine — which has already dubbed Aguilera one of its top people to watch in the new millennium — Aguilera appears observant, quiet and more than a little overwhelmed by all of the commotion being made about her.
When a call comes for Aguilera from her manager, he screams the good news that she has just been booked on The Tonight Show (airing Friday). Aguilera smiles politely then asks, “Which one is that?”
She’s not kidding; she really doesn’t know. It’s not because she never watches TV, but because she’s young. Really young.
While Aguilera’s new CD features her as a wholesomely sexy young woman, the real person is more of a child, watching something unfold before her that might be bigger than she ever imagined in the not-too-distant past when she spent hours in the bathtub, singing to a shampoo bottle.
“Kids used to come over and ask if I could play and my mom would tell them that was my play, singing all by myself,” Aguilera said. “I guess I was weird.”
One person who did not think she was weird was her mother, who honored Christina’s wishes to perform early on by involving her with block party performances near their home in suburban Pittsburgh. That led to local media coverage and eventual invitations to perform for the mayor and at professional sports games.
At 9, Aguilera performed on TV’s Star Search — and lost. She remembers crying backstage, but laughs now, saying, “I think I’m over it.”
But the price of fame was high in Wexford, Pa. Aguilera said that after her Star Search debut, her mother’s tires were slashed by jealous parents, and many classmates started ignoring her.
A year after that, Aguilera went to an open audition in Pittsburgh for the New Mickey Mouse Club. Two years passed before she heard anything. Aguilera was 12 when she began flying to Orlando to film the show during summer breaks. Once again, she said, her success made her a school outcast, driving her to switch schools.
While working as a Mouseketeer, Aguilera caught the attention of Steve Kurtz, who asked to be Aguilera’s manager and who sent a tape of the little girl with star power to RCA Records.
RCA began working on her album, enlisting some of the top names in songwriting, including Diane Warren, Carl Strunken and David Frank; all of the songs on the album were recorded when she was 17.
Aguilera smiles at the manicurist, and they chat about Disneyland, and about Jennifer Lopez, whose nails the manicurist recently did.
“You did Jennifer Lopez?” Aguilera cries, mouth dropping open. “Oh my God. I love Jennifer Lopez!”
She adds, “I think what draws me to Jennifer Lopez is that I feel proud of my Spanish roots, and the fact that she’s Hispanic and going out there, I can relate to that.”
Aguilera’s father, with whom she has little contact and about whom she is reluctant to speak, is from Ecuador. Her mother is an Irish-American who studied to become a Spanish translator. Aguilera grew up listening to her parents speak Spanish and says she plans to release a Spanish album — a salsa album, she hopes.
In the wake of what has perhaps been the nation’s biggest media frenzy around Latino musical acts, Aguilera has escaped being lumped in with Lopez, Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias (her dream man, by the way) not because she has denied her roots, but because her label has tried to avoid pigeonholing her.
And while Martin’s conspicuous emergence onto the mainstream charts was trumpeted in headlines nationwide, Aguilera’s emergence as the nation’s next potential diva is perhaps a more important development for Latinos in mainstream music because her talent has been the focus, rather than her ethnicity.
“She’s of Latin descent, yes,” RCA’s Ron Fair said. “But I think she represents millions of kids across America who are of Hispanic descent but are completely American.”
Aguilera said that on her next album she plans to write more; the most inviting hook in her current hit was actually one Aguilera improvised in the studio.
Further down the road, Aguilera said, she’d like to produce music for other artists. She’d also like to record a duet one day with Carey. But most of all, Aguilera said she can’t wait for the day she walks down the street and people recognize her.
“I know a lot of people would hate that,” she said. “But not me. I’ve been waiting all my life for this moment.”
