Christina's Fire Within

Apr 20 2010 By Rick Fulton

FIRST she was a Genie, then she got Dirrty and now she's Bionic.
Christina Aguilera has been one of pop's best chameleons - dressing up, or hardly wearing anything, years before Lady Gaga.
But it's been four years since Christina released her last studio album and the likes of Gaga, Katy Perry and Ke$ha have taken her brash attitude as the norm.
When Christina wore leather chaps there was an outcry - now Gaga can walk around in pants and a basque.
Christina, 29, may be a married mum of one but she's ready to rejoin the battle, despite claims by Akon that she's "insecure" because of Gaga's success.
But Christina has been at the top for a decade and has just finished her first film - Burlesque - co-starring Cher, another of music's biggest exhibitionists.
And she is ready for a chart battle with fourth album Bionic.
She said:

"There's that fire in me that wants to take it all on and take on the world and face any challenge that life has to offer because I know that I was born to do this and I'm a born performer.
When you have that energy and that fire in you, there's no way that you can't take it to its fullest and make it shine."

Since her last studio album, Back To Basics, hit No1 in the UK, Christina has married Jordan Bratman and had a baby, two-year old Max. He's already used to his mum's ever-changing wardrobe.
Giggling Christina revealed:

"Max sees me in so many different looks and hair and make-up, and he always knows Mommy. I think he just knows Mommy is a chameleon and that's that."

She made the album before starting work on Burlesque but Christina admits being a mum and making her first movie made the album what it is.
Writing on her website, she sets out her stall:

"I am a woman who wears many hats and carries many responsibilities.
The sound is not necessarily easy to define because I am not easy to define. I can be serious. I can be playful. Sexual. Loving. Tough. Hardworking. Honest."

She sees Bionic as a new beginning.

"I had a really hard time being light before,"

explained Christina, who has spoken in the past about her troubled childhood and abusive father.
She wrote about her childhood in I'm OK on her second album, Stripped, and Oh Mother on Back To Basics.
Christina said:

"I'd get a little weird about it being too clichéd. My first record was very clichéd pop - what everyone else wanted. Stripped was inspired by a lot of pain and Back To Basics still had some sort of relation to my past.
The new album is just about the future ... my son in my life, motivating me to want to play and have fun."

Her sense of fun was also pricked making Burlesque, which wrapped last month. She plays small-town girl Ali, who seeks singing fame in Los Angeles.
There she stumbles upon The Burlesque Lounge, owned by Tess (Cher). She becomes a waitress and dreams of performing.
Cher, of course, was dressing in next to nothing a decade before Madonna. And remember that barely-there costume she wore at the 1986 Oscars with the big feathery headress?
It was no wonder Christina and Cher became firm friends and went to the Golden Globes together earlier this year.
Christina said:

"Cher has been incredible. She has just, since day one, embraced me with open arms and it's just meant the world to me.
Her emails of encouragement and support are like unwrapping little pieces of candy and getting the best sensation from it.
I feel like we're old girlfriends and we'll talk and talk and talk and she just has stories for days and I just find her the most fascinating person I may have ever met. I really, really adore her."

It seems right that they are in a film about the ultimate in sexy dancing.
Christina agreed:

"Sexuality is power and power is sexuality in many ways.
I think women are made to feel ashamed sometimes for being able to express their sexuality and the whole world of burlesque, I think, is a very sensual, beautiful thing. I love, again, the female body. I love how it moves."

Christina, who was born in Staten Island, New York, claims her character Ali is very like her.
She said:

"She's had a rough past. Her mother dies when she's very young, she's been in foster homes and she's had a lot of different things come her way.
"So, I definitely could relate to pain as a child and all the chaos that I grew up in, living in an abusive household and whatnot, gave me great motivation to provoke my tears and my emotions for those scenes where I had to pour it on.
It was very painful to go through and feel a lot of those things that brought up a lot of painful memories."

Sony Studios' Clint Culpepper already reckons Christina will be the new Barbra Streisand - mixing music with acting.
Christina said:

"But, look, this is my first film. I'm a huge fan of all those that have come before me, including Cher in particular, been there, done everything before anyone or any of us, you know. Compared to her, I'm still a newcomer."

With Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, Christina was a child star on Disney Channel's television series The New Mickey Mouse Club from 1993-1994. Still a teen, she recorded Reflection for the animated movie Mulan.
She was still only 19 when her debut single Genie In A Bottle went to No1 in the US and Britain. But it took Christina until Stripped and her radical image overhaul to emerge from Britney's shadow.
Her Dirrty image and the video with her wearing leather chaps made her the naughty girl to Britney's nice.
But Christina kept her head, marrying and having a child without all the drama of her rival. Now comes that movie debut to move things on again.
The film helped in another way - getting rid of some extra pounds Christina was keeping from Max's birth.
She laughed:

"I feel like I've never danced before in my life until this movie.
It got me into shape and any leftover baby weight I might have had was gone by the time shooting started."

Bionic is out on June 8.

Source: DailyRecord
Credits: CrissXCross