We Knew Her When...
Xtina is definitely not the only Disney alum on this list, and she even served on The Mickey Mouse Club alongside Britney Spears. At 17 she lent her voice to the song “Reflection” from the animated film Mulan, which earned the young singer a nomination for Best Song at the 1998 Golden Globes. Her 1999 self-titled debut album topped the charts with fun, catchy, inoffensive pop that didn’t get much darker than the inside of a genie’s bottle. Yes, “Genie in a Bottle” made her a teen music, going on to become the best-selling single of the year. Follow-up single “What A Girl Wants” was met with similar success, and also lent it’s title to an Amanda Bynes teen movie. In 2000 she released her own Christmas album, and even sang “The Christmas Song” at George W. Bush’s White House.
But Then:By 2002 she was “Dirrty”! Similar to Janet Jackson before her, Christina fired her old management and took greater creative control on new album, Stripped. The 21-year-old began co-writing “down and dirty” songs intended as a move away from her previous teen-pop sound. She penned the song “Miss Independent” during this period, and even though it went on to become a single for Kelly Clarkson, the message was clear: Christina was in charge!
“When you’re part of a pop phenomenon, you have so many opinions shoved down your throat,” she was quoted as telling USA Today at the time. “People try to tell you what you should do, how you should act, what you should wear, who you should be with. At the time things started happening for me, it was popular to be the squeaky-clean, cookie-cutter pop singer. But that role didn’t speak to me, because it’s so boring and superficial.”
Her look changed greatly in this period, as she dyed her familiar blonde dresses black, got several tattoos and piercings, and began posing nude on magazine covers. She dubbed this provacative new persona “Xtina”, and it caused quite a stir among fans used to her more conservative incarnation. To make the message even more obvious, the lead single was titled “Dirrty” and featured a vid which has regularly been ranked among the raunchiest of all time.
#TeamXtina member Lily Elise is preparing to release her new EP. Here is a video of her first time performing an acoustic version of her amazingly beautiful lead single "Generator".
(Christina was mentioned in the beginning + end of the video)
