The show that Grammy award-winning pop diva Christina Aguilera brought to Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall on Saturday, March 31 might have been part of her Back to Basics Tour, but like the 2006 double-album it’s named after, there was nothing “basic” about it. The ninety-minute, hi-tech spectacle featured 15 costume changes, a supporting cast of 20 dancers and musicians, over 600 lights, and an array of Cirque du Soleil-inspired acrobatics and special effects. In a recent teleconference interview to promote the tour, Aguilera said that she feels presenting anything less would be shortchanging her audience.
"Nowadays, I don't think it would be fair to my audience to just kind of sit on the stage with a mike,” Aguilera said. “If I play an arena, I want my audience to be able to look around and enjoy a show from all aspects. I think it's only fair to my audience to fill up the space and to give them a real show.”
Aguilera’s luck crapped out the last time she was scheduled to perform at Boardwalk Hall. In August 2003, the Justified & Stripped Tour, featuring Aguilera and Justin Timberlake, was derailed in Atlantic City when a lighting grid collapsed prior to the show. No one was hurt, but the accident caused over $1 million in damage to the show’s lighting, sound and video equipment, and forced the cancellation of several dates on the tour.
Much of the current show’s staging is inspired by the vintage jazz, big band, soul and blues themes the 26-year-old singer explores on the critically acclaimed Back to Basics album. Artistically, it’s Aguilera’s most impressive album yet – eons beyond the corporate pop of her self-titled debut, and even more ambitious than 2002’s Stripped.
“I always just do what I feel,” Aguilera says. “With my first album, I kind of had to play by the rules and go accordingly to what my label wanted me to do. A few million records sold later, I was able to do what I wanted with Stripped, which was kind of my own interpretation of my coming-of-age record. It was the first time that I felt that I could really be myself, write my own material, and express myself as the woman that I'd grown into at that point.
“While I was on tour with Stripped, I started diving deeper into this place of inspiration. Blues, soul, and jazz music were always an inspiration for me, and I really felt that it was time to dive into that world, getting to know it better.”
Aguilera has always had an affinity for jazz and blues standards. A native of Staten Island, she began performing in local talent shows while growing up in suburban Pittsburgh. At 9-years-old, she appeared on Star Search singing Etta James’ “A Sunday Kind of Love,” but lost the competition.
“There's a lot of sadness in old music and in blues. It originates from pain and I think that's really beautiful,” Aguilera says. “I talk openly about my past and what I've gone through – abuse being something that was very real in my household, and a lot of chaos growing up as a child. I think that I naturally just gravitated towards music that I could really feel on a deep level – and that meant sadness. I was able to connect with that at a really young age.”
In 1992 she joined the cast of the Disney Channel’s The New Mickey Mouse Club. Her co-stars included Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and JC Chasez. In 1998 Aguilera recorded the song “Reflection” for Disney's animated film “Mulan.” It led to a record deal with RCA and the release of her self-titled debut album in 1999. The album hit #1 on the strength of the single, “Genie In A Bottle” and its follow-up, “What A Girl Wants.”
With remarkable ease, Aguilera’s public persona has evolved from a Britney pop clone, to a “Dirrty” party girl, to a retro-chic diva. Like Bette Midler in the ’70s, and Madonna in the ’80s and ’90s, Aguilera admits she enjoys reinventing herself on every album.
“I do get bored easily and not only is it important for me to challenge myself and evolve as an artist, but it's important for me personally,” she says. “I think that life is all about changing and trying to continue your growth as a person. I'm not the same person that I was on Stripped, and I wasn't the same person on Stripped that I was when I first came out. To me, it's just a constant evolution.”
As part of that growth process, Aguilera says that she would like to branch out into acting.
“Movies and film is something that I do intend on doing,” she says. “Like music, it's another art form and I want to take it seriously. So I've been reading scripts, but I really want to make sure it’s the right role. If I want to act, I want to do just that. I don't want to play myself as a singer.”
Music will remain her first love, however. Aguilera says she already has ideas for the direction her next album will take.
“I can't give away what [it is] because there always has to be that element of surprise,” she says. “But I am extremely driven and it'll always be inside of me to keep that focus on the next thing. It's not really about knowing exactly where the next album will be five years from now, 10 years from now, or the third or fifth album from now, but it's more about just keeping my focus and keeping the ultimate game plan of bettering myself and constantly evolving and changing and seeing what the next ‘me’ has to offer.”
Posts
