2024-12-27T01:01:34-0600

Christina Aguilera before and after weight loss transformations. Christina María Aguilera born December 18, 1980, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born in Staten Island, New York and raised in Rochester and Wexford, Pennsylvania, she appeared on the television series Star Search and The Mickey Mouse Club in her early years. Cristina Aguilera is a soprano, having a vocal range spanning four octaves (from C3 to C♯7). Since the start of her career Aguilera's voice has been compared to that of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. David Browne writing for The New York Times noted that Aguilera's vocal performance was highly influenced by Carey and Houston, sharing that Aguilera has been one of the foremost practitioners of the overpowering, Category 5 vocal style known as melisma, and Ms. Carey, Ms. Houston and Ms. Aguilera, to name its three main champions, are most associated with the period from the late '80s through the late '90s. A journal by Ann Powers for the Los Angeles Times pointed out the influences of Barbra Streisand, Gladys Knight and Aretha Franklin on Aguilera's vocal style, opining that the Aguilera's Streisand-esque tendencies [help] her [Aguilera] figure out how to become the 'great singer' she's been dubbed since she released her first single, the wise-beyond-its-years 'Genie in a Bottle', at 18. Sasha Frere-Jones wrote in The New Yorker, Aguilera doesn't need to reincarnate Sarah Vaughan to be a serious singer. She already is one, in the tradition of nineteen-nineties pop and R&B, skillfully deploying melisma for razzle-dazzle. In 2003, Aguilera was placed 5th on MTV's Best Voices in Music Ever list, while ranking atop both COVE and Latina magazine's best Pop and Latina vocalist of all time in 2004 and 2013 respectively. However, Aguilera has also been criticized for her excessive use of melisma and oversinging on songs and in concerts. John Eskow of The Huffington Post named Aguilera a main proponent for oversouling, described as the gratuitous and confected melisma. Lucy Davies, a writer for BBC Music, opined that although Aguilera had a stunning voice, she could be more varied, simply by cutting out some of the 'y-e-e-eeeh, woah yeh's'. Longtime producer Linda Perry, who wrote the song Beautiful, revealed about the recording sessions with Aguilera, I tried to keep it straight. I told her to get rid of the finger waves. Every time she'd start going into hoo-ha, I'd stop the tape. I'm like, 'You're doing it again'. Perry ended up using the song's first take adding, She had a hard time accepting that as the final track. She's a perfectionist. She knows her voice really well, and she knows what's going on. She can hear things that nobody else would catch. An editor from Entertainment Weekly, Chris Willman, stated that the oversinging on Aguilera's albums was inspired by Carey, writing that the Mariah venerators don't get away with it so easily. Aguilera, for one thing, has a slightly nasal tone that really only becomes obvious when she's overselling a song. Aguilera has reinvented her public image on numerous occasions throughout her career. In the later 1990s, her then-manager Steve Kurtz marketed her as a bubblegum pop entertainer to capitalize on the genre's financial lure, which earned her recognition as a teen idol. Aguilera introduced her alter ego Xtina during 2002 and 2003, which presented an increasingly provocative persona. During this time, she dyed her hair black, debuted several piercings, and participated in several nude pictorials for publications. In 2004, Aguilera embraced a more mature image with retro-styled hair and makeup, which was inspired by classic movie stars including Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich and Mary Pickford. This reinvention was named Baby Jane in 2006, an alter ego which was taken from the 1962 film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. Aguilera received widespread criticism over her curvy figure from gaining weight in 2012. She later received favorable media attention after a significant weight loss in 2013. Wax figure of Aguilera at Madame Tussauds in London Aguilera is considered a pop icon, and has frequently garnered comparisons to Britney Spears. David Browne of Entertainment Weekly noted that Aguilera is too eager not to offend in her mild-mannered music, making her good girl pretending to be bad, although noted that Spears' artificial-sweetener voice was a welcome change of pace from Aguilera's numbing vocal gymnastics.