In a recent interview with The Sun, Ora said that she's always wanted to make a new version of the classic song "Lady Marmalade," and if she ended up doing it, she would enlist Miley Cyrus, Charli XCX, and Iggy Azalea for the collaboration. "I'm trying to round up the troops - I think it would be me, Miley [Cyrus], Charli XCX - she'd be fun - and Iggy [Azalea]," Ora said.
Ora revealed that she's always been a fan of the song, which was originally released in 1975 by the group Labelle, but was of course covered in 2001 by Christina Aguilera, Pink, Lil Kim, and Mya. It's unclear if this is actually going to happen, but the fan reaction would almost certainly be all over the place.
Thoughts?
Do you think these 4 women would be able to accomplish what the previous 4 did? I could think of 4 completely different women that could bring that song justice. Hopefully people decide to leave it how it is... perfection.
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With her new album, "Lotus," debuting at No. 7 on this week's Billboard 200 chart, Christina Aguilera has once again transmitted her bold pop stylings to a wide audience. It shouldn't be a surprise: the 31-year-old has been commanding the spotlight for nearly two decades, first as a Mouseketeer, then as a pop superstar, and now as a reliable voice in the world of film, television and music. Aguilera has said that "Lotus" is a rebirth, but rarely has a pop music career been so alive for so long.
In honor of Christina Aguilera's return to the spotlight and the arrival of "Lotus," check out the 10 moments that have thus far defined her career. Read all about the multifaceted achievements of the singing star, and tell us what you'll always remember about Xtina in the comments section below.
1) “Lady Marmalade” With Lil’ Kim, Mya, P!nk, and Missy Elliott at the 2002 Grammy Awards.
It’s hard to top this electrifying group performance at the 2002 Grammy Awards. This song also won the Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals that year.
2) “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” at the 2007 Grammy Awards
Many years before Season 2 contestant Juliet Simms brought down the house with this iconic song, Christina blew it out of the park. It was also the year of the white pants suit. Ah, memories.
4) “Genie in a Bottle/ Come on Over” Medley at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards
It all started with a little song called “Genie in a Bottle.” When the post- Mickey Mouse Club Christina debuted her new song at the 2000 VMAs, she did it with this creative mashup (and, of course, wearing red spandex pants).
Xtina has become famous for covering Etta James’s classic “At Last.” The pop diva even sang the legendary song at Etta’s funeral last year. This 2003 performance was especially impressive.
Yes, there were ass-less chaps. We’ll get to those in a minute.
The world met Christina Aguilera in that teen-pop-saturated year of 1999. The former All-New Mickey Mouse Club kid stood out among the flaxen-haired, dimple-cheeked masses because of her voice. It was bigger, stronger, and more dimensional than anything we’d heard since Mariah Carey. So we listened. And what we heard within the mix of sexualized coming-of-age fluff like “Genie in a Bottle” were girl anthems about empowerment, individualism, and standing up for yourself. “Fighter,” “What a Girl Wants,” and “Can’t Hold Us Down” championed a woman’s rights to call the shots and reject the double standards set forth by sexism and patriarchy.
As she sang in “Can’t Hold Us Down”: “Am I not supposed to have an opinion?/Should I keep quiet just because I’m a woman?” Those are some lyrics we’re happy to have stuck in our heads to a catchy tune—and even better, stuck in the heads of young girls around the world.
In Christina’s world, women are never reduced to pining for a man or cowering from his abuse. They’re loud-mouthed, opinionated bitches (a title she owns, Tina Fey-style) who get what they want when they want it. It’s a ballsy message Madonna could get behind. She also has a softer side: Her song “Beautiful” is a powerful celebration of individuality and difference, with a video featuring young people of all genders, sexual orientations, and backgrounds, proclaiming their common beauty. No matter how you dress up the package, her message is one of the more feminist in popular music today.
Aguilera has often talked about the Catch-22 of being a female performer who’s pressured to showcase her physical attributes while being criticized for doing so. “How do I not be exploited whilst selling my sexuality? For me it’s a matter of opinion about how far is too far. … I am not an object. I am in control. I’m in the power position. I decide who I am and it’s too bad if you don’t get it—or want it,” she told Cosmopolitan. The lesson: Giving into a short-shorts trend or stuffing our bra at some point in our lives doesn’t mean we can’t evolve into self-aware feminists. As humans, we experiment and explore the extremes of ourselves to see where we feel most at home within our bodies. Aguilera simply did it in the public eye.
So as Aguilera evolved, she may have made mistakes—and when we say mistakes, we mean those ass-less chaps from the “Dirrrty” video. But most young women have a pair of ass-less chaps in their past—metaphorically speaking. Learning from them is what matters.
Feminist Lessons Learned
Take control of your own image: What we like best about Aguilera is her evolution—from pop pawn to “Dirrrty” girl to retro pinup to mom who’s not afraid to still be sexy. Having the confidence to go through growing pains in public and never apologize for them is downright admirable.
As soon as she wielded a bit of control over her career (a quadruple-platinum debut album will do that), Aguilera challenged the status quo, consciously projecting a sex-positive feminist image of herself. In a sense, she became a modern-day Riot Girrl. Just as Bikini Kill and its ilk called for the emancipation of women’s sexuality during the grunge-rock era, Christina shrugged off the suggestion that it’s something to be ridiculed. As she told Cosmopolitan, “If a man does this kind of thing, he’s allowed to get away with it. If a woman does it, she’s labeled a slut or whatever. That’s not going to stop me. I’m just going to show that it’s the wrong way of thinking.”
Activism is sexy: For as long as she’s had money and pop-star cachet, Christina has been an activist, advocating on behalf of women and children. She was named the Ambassador Against Hunger for the United Nations, and is a spokesperson for World Hunger Relief, a global campaign that targets maternal and child hunger worldwide. “A child dies every six seconds of hunger, which is a huge statistic for me. After having my own child I just had to do something about it and help change that situation,” she told The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Her philanthropy doesn’t end there. She drew from the personal pain of being the witness to and victim of domestic violence as a child and made it a rallying cry—something the best feminist icons have always done. “I’ve suffered too much hurt in my life to be in that place again. I’m through being the victim,” she told Blender. She promotes self-confidence and courage to women in domestic violence safe houses around the country—most notably in her hometown of Pittsburgh, where she’s given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the city’s The Women’s Center and Shelter. She’s become a regular visitor there, donating her time, money, and music to help the women who most need a feminist icon in their lives.
Outrageous moments are nothing new to the MTV Video Music Awards, the two go together like bread and butter.
We suppose things are bound to get a little wild when you throw the biggest stars in the world into a room for the express purpose of having a good time. The VMA's are unlike any other awards show around because the point isn’t to have a quiet, dignified gathering to honor the best album by a 100-piece orchestra; it’s to rock out and give props to the hottest things in music in a particular year.
Instead of sleepy applause and thanking the academy, you get the Queen of Pop locking lips with her heir apparent or living legend Diana Ross getting a little grabby with an overexposed Lil Kim. That’s just how we roll here at MTV.
While just about every VMA moment is pretty outrageous, a few definitely stand out and have withstood the test of time to burn themselves into the collective consciousness of we connoisseurs of pop culture. Help us decide which of these eight incidents is the most outrageous moment in VMA history.
Award shows are all about fashion. We drool over the glamorous gowns actresses sport for the Oscars and the Golden Globes and scour the Internet to see who dressed like a fool at the Grammys. But what happens when the traditional rules of award show attire go out the window?
The MTV Video Music Awards, that’s what!
At the VMA's, sexy is key and anything goes. It's all about who can get the most ink for wearing the wildest outfit. Seriously, what other awards show can say someone wore a meat dress to their festivities?
From pacifiers and pasties to dresses that also serve as advertisements and men in pink pleather and roller skates, wild outfits are the norm at the VMA's. But who takes the cake for the most outrageous outfit ever?
The ‘90s shattered the conventions of the music video. Suddenly every musician wanted their video to be the biggest and splashiest of all. Budgets roared to insane levels – Michael and Janet Jackson’s 1995 video for "Scream" is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most expensive ever, costing around $7 million – and video directors became stars themselves (hello, Hype Williams, David Fincher and Mark Romanek).
So by the 00s, a video had to be on point to get much attention at the MTV Video Music Awards. The concept had to be solid, the costumes needed to be out of this world and the special effects had to be through the roof. You want a brothel featuring some of the biggest pop starlets in the world? You got it – Christina, Pink, Mya and Lil Kim are waiting. Care to see Rihanna control water with her bare hands? Just don’t forget your “Umbrella.”
It’s a lot to live up to. But so far eleven videos can call themselves the best videos of their respective years. Which one is the best of the decade? We’ll leave that one up to you guys.
