HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE (CHRISTIAN MARIA)? AND OTHER SONGS OF MIXED-UP HEARTS

Drawing of Author. Illustration © Hilado.

Though the media climate in late 1980s and 1990s America was seemingly tailor-made for more traditional teen popstars, their mannerisms and their music, despite the relatively recent advances in global technology (which had made media consumption easier than it had ever been before), said climate in the early 2000s looked, functioned and felt like a whole new and nearly unrecognizable world - for reasons both forced and fully organic. Originating in New York in the early 1970s, gaining its mainstream footing in the 1980s, and undergoing multiple cataclysmic events and upheavals throughout the 1990s, by the year 2001, Hip-Hop and its accompanying culture had found itself wholly and ravenously embraced by American youth and surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, a sizable amount of those same famished youth were now white. Initially an outlet for Black and Brown teens living amongst the ghettos of the South Bronx, Harlem, Brooklyn, the Lower East Side, and Queens, a surge of high-profile songs and celebrities in the aforementioned 1980s and '90s would catapult inner-city icons like Public Enemy, N.W.A., Biggie Smalls, Snoop Dogg, IceT, and Tupac Shakur into the stratosphere and into the suburbs, turning the decidedly radical rappers into generic symbols of juvenile rebellion (at least in the minds of white teens and their parents). In other words, the taste of our nation's kids had changed and dramatically so, leaving little room on the airwaves for the more sugary and Swedish synthdriven styles of yore. But with external change often comes the chance for personal and professional development or reinvention, and luckily, the former girls of teen pop were ready to step fully into womanhood by stepping up and stripping down, for better or for worse.

Britney Spears on the set of “I’m A Slave 4 U” in late 2001. Illustration © Hilado.

Once the Western world's reigning pop champion and undisputed sweetheart, the soon-tobe 20-year-old Britney Jean Spears was growing restless and understandably weary following the end of what most critics, commentators, and fans alike would go on to call a banner year for the teen titan: 2000. That Spring, Spears and her label Jive Records would launch her then-largest endeavor to date Oops!… I Did It Again, a striking forty-five-minute force of unabashed bubblegum nature. And while Oops!… stuck largely to the script set by her debut - January 1999's colossal …Baby One More Time - sharper, more bombastic production from the likes of Rami Yacoub and her then-quasi-mentor Max Martin, as well as selections from Rodney Jerkins and slightly more risqué lyrical themes, ultimately lent the album its own identity. Quaint timing aside, Oops!… I Did It Again would move over 1.3 million copies in its opening week alone, making Billboard chart history and setting off a veritable firestorm that few before her had ever been able to sufficiently achieve. But unbeknownst to the general public, the adolescent Spears' moderately amorous but still meek and mild-mannered persona was merely that, and the Kentwood, LA native (whom, according to storied photographer David Lachappelle specifically requested her now infamous 1999 RollingStone cover's anomalous imagery) was content with being creatively and emotionally stifled no more. Starting sessions for her as-yet-titled third album in early 2001, Spears, armed to the teeth with new material from Yacoub, Martin, and Jerkins in addition to The Neptunes and then-partner Justin Timberlake, was on a mission to take the spotlight off of the spectacle that had formed around her post-Oops!… and place it firmly back on who and what mattered most: herself. Speaking with MTV News' Corey Moss in October of 2001, the songbird briefly reflected on her mounting artistic autonomy, her songwriting, and the recording process for the upcoming LP: "This is the first album I have every really written and taken my time on," Spears said. "So when I actually listen to the whole album, it's just that much more special. I don't know if I'm the best songwriter in the world, but I had a lot of fun doing it and hopefully I will get better and grow."

But while the 19-year-old Spears began to publicly struggle with her transition from household name and high-schooler to independent adult, 20-year-old Texan Jessica Ann Simpson was inversely faced with a management team that wanted to meet the changing tides and times not by allowing their budding starlet more musical freedom but by forcing her to become someone else entirely. A veteran of the Southern Gospel and Contemporary Christian Music circuit by the age of 16, Simpson already had two full-length albums under her belt by the fall of 2000. But despite multiple local and international hit singles and an auspiciously warm reception to her presence offered by the overfed pop-listening crowds, Columbia Records were purportedly less than satisfied with her performance. Smart, wellcrafted, and replete with lush balladry, Simpson's first major label release (and second release overall) November 1999's Sweet Kisses sought to differentiate the singer from much of her contemporaries by purposely catering to older audiences via the disc's laser focus on Simpson's mature church-backed crooning. Ironically enough, it was the album's. third single, the upbeat dance tune "I Think I'm In Love With You," that would lend Sweet Kisses its biggest sales boost after the candy-coated video took MTV's Total Request Live and other teen-led airwaves by storm in the Spring of 2000, helping the CD reach its eventual double platinum status. But when it came time to start work on her mainstream sophomore effort just months later, Tommy Mottola, Columbia's then-chairman and CEO, decided that Simpson didn't need to simply sell her records; she needed to directly compete with her increasingly sexy peers to boot. From the beginning, Simpson, the eldest daughter of an erstwhile Baptist youth minister, had made it clear that unlike the coquettish Spears and the ensuing Aguilera, she was dedicated to staying and appearing chaste until marriage. Highlighted in the April 2000 issue of American Cheerleader magazine, author Alyssa Roenigk wrote: "In an industry overrun with all the wrong messages, Jessica represents everything that is positive about today's youth - she doesn't drink, doesn't smoke and believes in abstinence and commitment. Her first pop album, Sweet Kisses, reflects her convictions while showcasing a voice that is way beyond her years." But the hawkish Mottola was prone to receiving exactly what he wanted in spite of any internal reservations, and the dutiful Simpson diligently began preparing for her upcoming sound and image overhaul anticipated for arrival a year after the success of "I Think I'm In Love With You" in the spring of 2001.

Christina Aguilera on the set of MTV’s TRL Presents: Christina Aguilera Stripped in NYC in late 2002. Illustration © Hilado.

Not many in the music world would easily dismiss two multi-platinum-selling albums, a sold-out global arena tour, an in-demand line of merchandise, and back-to-back numberone tracks in both English and Spanish. Yet, for 19-year-old would-be R&B and Hip-Hop diva Christina Maria Aguilera, it was fairly easy to do so, considering it all came at a rather staggering price. Reared primarily on classic Blues, Soul, R&B, and Jazz records in the smaller-sized suburb of Wexford, Pennsylvania, the teen prodigy never fully intended on becoming a full-fledged popstar. But her handlers weren't exactly concerned with her intentions nor her health, for that matter. Skyrocketing to fame on the strength of her selftitled debut album - August 1999's Christina Aguilera, which featured radio-ready juggernauts like "Reflection," "Genie In A Bottle," and "What A Girl Wants"- Aguilera's more reserved nature and vocal prowess were readily accepted and revered as Teenage America's answer to the near-absolute dominance of older adult-contemporary powerhouses like Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Toni Braxton, and Whitney Houston. Standing in stark sonic contrast to the brighter, more buoyant offerings on Spears and Simpson's debuts, Aguilera's assortment could be best described in three decisive words: cool, calm, and collected, further cementing her stature as the emerging Generation Y's serious but still syrupy girl-next-door. But regardless of the record's wide-ranging appeal and commercial achievements, RCA, the label at the helm of said project and the minimelodist's career, had spent the last few years focused (and even rumored millions) on the task of keeping Aguilera under impenetrably strict control and by October of 2000, the physical and psychological strain had begun to show, resulting in the starlet filing a massive lawsuit against her then-business-turned-personal manager the late Steven Kurtz just weeks before her 20th birthday. Following a much-earned months-long sabbatical, Aguilera quietly returned to the studio to commence the creation of her fourth album in late 2001. No longer beholden to Kurtz and company's expectations and musical vision, the now-20-year-old was free to let loose and openly explore an array of collaborators, genres, and topics that were previously deemed "too urban," too tawdry or too morose for a fixture in Twist and Tiger Beat. To friends, fans, and family alike, the thought of the considerably venturesome Aguilera experimenting with or actively pushing certain societal boundaries was significantly less than surprising. Still, no one, including Aguilera herself, could've foreseen what would await her socially and commercially upon the release of her aptly titled fourth album in the Fall of 2002. Sitting down with journalist Jennifer Vineyard that October, the restive songstress candidly expressed why she originally felt the need to take such a tremendous risk in the first place: "I feel like it is a new beginning, a re-introdution of myself as a new artist in a way, because for the first time people are really seeing and getting to know how I really am. I got a chance to show of all these colors and textures of my love of music and of my vocal range. Coming off of the height of being a part of such a big pop-craze phenomenon, that imagery of that cookie-cutter sweetheart, without it being me, I just had to take it all down and get it away from me."

And dramatically distance themselves from their prior compulsory pop princess statuses they did. And naturally, it would be the eldest of the three who officially took the lead. Sent to U.S. radio on April 17th, 2001, "Irresistible," a slinky and sultry slice of Pop & B produced by esteemed Swedish duo Anders Bagge and Arnthor Birgisson, served as an introduction to a whole new era for Simpson and provided a whole new subject for her to sing about; sex, or at least the desire for it. In a well-publicized long-term relationship with Motown boyband 98 Degrees' Nick Lachey, Simpson had freely discussed her more conservative values and her beau's respect for her boundaries in the papers since 1999. However, as the years progressed and Columbia's lust to launch a challenger for Jive Records' Spears continued to climb, certain lines for Simpson inevitably began to blur. Arriving a month and a half after "Irresistible," the single, Simpson unveiled Irresistible the album, a mildly sweatier, funkier take on Sweet Kisses, complete with noticeably breathier vocals and the occasional Hip-Hop beat. Although Simpson's discography ultimately didn't take such a heavy-handed turn, her public likeness had definitely done so and irrespective of her drive to show the industry and world that she was "all grown up" (as she shared in the June 2001 Cosmopolitan article "Jessica Simpson Sizzles"), the results were lamentably mixed. Debuting at a respectable #6 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart, Irresistible and its corresponding visuals fared reasonably well amongst her established fanbase (via equitable support from the above-named TRL) but simultaneously faltered at the hands of leery critics, secular and churchgoing. Simpson, already prone to being analyzed by critics in a more apathetic manner than her peers, was now firmly in a Catch-22: In order to be regarded as an "adult act," one must act like an adult. But acting like an adult for a one-time child star (no matter what age) is habitually viewed by the society that made said child famous as transgressive. In a July 2001 review of Irresistible for Christian publication Plugged In, contributor Bob Waliszewski uttered this: "The same artist who recorded "Heart of Innocence" on her last disc makes no such claims of purity here. If anything, Irresistible copes with temptation by yielding to it which, in conjunction with Simpson's general immodesty (Plugged In has decided not to post a picture of Jessica's album cover on its Web site due to her see-through blouse), models a dubious sexual ethic. Can't she see that the same Lord she worships with "His Eye Is on the Sparrow" also established the moral line she's determined to straddle? A huge disappointment.” But Simpson's brushes with others' projections about her sexuality didn't necessarily start with Irresistible or at the behest of the domineering Mottola. Accusations of Simpson's "immodesty" began nearly a decade before at the pulpit.

Possessing a staggering range of four-and-a-half octaves, the pubescent Simpson's voice was practically primed for praise and worship music, but as is usually the case with young women and girls involved in the church, simply existing can come with severe scrutiny or sanctioning from the congregation and said scrutiny and sanctions are almost always made in favor of the community's men. An avid journal writer and collector since the mid1990s, Simpson revealed the extent of her othering in her first memoir, February 2020's Open Book: "In seventh grade the pastor at our church nearly grabbed my mother after I performed at the service. "Jessica can't sing in front of the church because—" he paused. "You could see her breasts." "Her breasts?" "Her nipples!" he said, trying not to yell for all to hear. "Well, why the hell are you looking?" my mother asked. She was always that tiger mom. She had her own resentment about putting so much into the church and not getting credit. Any slight to her family gave her the release valve of anger. "She will make men lust!" "She's thirteen!" Mom had to explain the nipple controversy and I thought I'd done something wrong. "I'm just catching the spirit of the Lord," I said. The compromise was big vests for summer and roomy blazers for winter. Anytime I sang, I had to cover myself.” But while the details of Simpson's ordeal are undoubtedly unique, she wasn't the only sometimes southern sweetheart with whom the press had an axe to grind. Hitting stores five months after Irresistible on the morning of Halloween 2001, Spears introduced the globe to her grown-up self through her self-titled Pop and Dance manifesto Britney. More eclectic - and sensual - than both predecessors, Spears aimed to make a record that appealed to "an older generation", and with club-friendly bangers like "I'm A Slave 4 U" and "Boys" or the light and breezy R&B-stylings of "Lonely" and "Let Me Be," it wouldn't take a leap in logic to assume that she had effortlessly met her goal. Yet, unfortunately, much like Simpson's Irresistible, Britney would struggle heavily on the charts and with critics, culminating in a string of ill-supported and ill-received singles in the United States. No stranger to controversy, the 19-year-old Spears had successfully weathered dozens of gales and gusts in her relatively short time on the stage, but with the launch of the Britney album and its highly provocative "I'm A Slave 4 U" video, those previously simple to subdue hiccups had quickly turned into a large-scale, global furor (whose impact would be felt for several years to come). By the end of 2001, Spears was no longer Teen America's lovable leading lady; she was on the path to eventually becoming pop public enemy number one, and we (mostly) have the nation's adversarial relationship to puberty and female autonomy, sexual or otherwise, to blame. Initially signed to Jive Records at the age of 15 as an American foil for fellow teen dynamo Swedish powerhouse Robyn (after said Swede refused to join the label), Spears had difficulty establishing her creative and personal boundaries and power from the outset. In a 2008 RollingStone article, "The Tragedy of Britney Spears," Vanessa Grigoriadis shed an alleged light on what frequently commenced behind the scenes in her early days: "For years, everyone manipulated Britney," says a close friend. "There was always a little game. If she didn't want to come out of the trailer, the label would come to me, saying, 'Please talk to Britney, make sure she performs, and we'll take you on a shopping spree.'" Spears would spend the bulk of her days from 1998 to 2000 being fiercely micromanaged by her team, having even the right to handpick her own panties taken away, as relayed to Grigoriadis by yet another close friend. But when it came time for her to live just a little bit on her own terms, crowds responded in shock, disquietude, and awe. For the November 9th, 2001 issue of Entertainment Weekly, Chris Nashawaty's "Britney! The Confessions (And Confusion) of a Teenage Sex Kitten" inadvertently broke down some of our culture's long-standing hangups about (exiting) girlhood in a few short words: "Like a boxer who's actually a soft-spoken pussycat outside of the ring, Spears is a complex contradiction: Is she a girl or a woman? The fact that her particular contradiction traffics in sex has helped make her both a times-22 platinum superstar and a lightning rod for parental concern.”

Historically, the collective political and cultural sway of parents and the idea of parenthood have always held phenomenal weight in the United States of America, but their sheer sovereignty in the 2000s has continued to go unrivaled in the two decades since. To put it quite mildly: "concern" was an exceptionally massive understatement. It goes without saying that Spears and Simpson received their fair share of ire from the moms of their legions of still-small supporters. But in 2002, the hot-blooded and supposedly hottempered Aguilera would make an unprecedented move and end up baring the most brutal of their brunts. Emboldened by her battle with Kurtz, along with a host of other trials and tribulations, Aguilera would unleash Stripped, a soaring and, of course, sexy feministic marvel on October 22nd, 2002. Featuring a laundry list of early aughts who's-whos (like Redman, Lil' Kim, Scott Storch, Questlove, and Dave Navarro), Stripped propelled Aguilera from staid teen heartthrob to bonafide bigwig virtually overnight. Equal parts somber, soothing, and seductive, Stripped's distinctive mix of R&B, Hip-Hop, Adult Contemporary, Neo Soul, Pop, and Rock struck a chord with listeners from sea to shining sea and helped Aguilera bag an additional five hits for her hitherto packed roster.

Sadly, much of Stripped's aural accomplishments would be enormously overshadowed by a force both in and out of the now 22-year-old Aguilera's influence: Stripped wasn't big just because of its renown on radio but because of Aguilera's penchant for creating tabloidprompting controversy. Suffering from recurrent nightmares, anxiety, and an assembly of other personal woes, by 2002, angry outbursts, chronic lateness, and curt remarks had become commonplace for Aguilera and so much so that they almost jeopardized the release of the record. Reminiscing on her time co-writing and producing songs during the Stripped sessions, famed singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer Linda Perry said this to W Magazine in 2022: "I had to put some rules down with her. I had a start time of 10 AM and sometimes she wouldn't even show up till 10 PM. One day, she did that to me, I picked up my stuff and started walking out. Her manager was like, 'Where are you going?' I'm like, 'I'm out. I got a life. I'm not gonna sit here at the studio waiting for an artist to show up, it's their career.' Christina got all upset, and I said, 'and I'm taking 'Beautiful' with me!' They looked at me like, 'No!' Then Christina came out, she was crying and apologizing. I'm like, 'Okay, let's not do that again'. And she never did." As expected, paparazzi, pundits, gossip columns, and late-night television show hosts pounced - and with glee - over the reveal of Aguilera's envisioned and apparent antics. But it wasn't necessarily her behavior that set parents' and teachers' worried imaginations ablaze in the early 2000s. It was the concurrent debut of "Xtina" that did. An unabashed flirt, Aguilera was never shy about sharing her crushes with teen magazines and the like, but with her pre-Stripped PR team, openly discussing sex and sexuality was forbidden (regardless of Aguilera having been 18 when her career first took off). Invigorated by her newfound independence, Aguilera made frank dialogue and depictions of sex a notable part of her persona and got tongues wagging immediately. Kicking off with her too-hot-for-TRL video for Stripped's inaugural single "Dirrty," directed by David Lachapelle and ending in a girl-on-girl shower scene, Aguilera fragrantly embraced Y2K taboo and decidedly, all of the immense backlash that would assuredly come with it.

People Magazine Parody. Illustration © Hilado.

Undeterred by the dip in sales and lack of critical goodwill, Simpson and Spears soldiered on and embarked on profitable headlining tours in late 2001, but popular sentiment only seemed to worsen as the months and years rolled on. From country to country and medium to medium, Simpson, Spears, and especially Aguilera had either become every parent and pedagogue's waking nightmare or a magnet for blatant mockery, even by their own peers. Signing to Wind-Up Records in 2001 and bursting onto the Billboard Charts in 2003, Evanescence and their lead singer Amy Lee promptly staked their claim as the new, heady Nu-Metal band on the block with the glowering "Wake Me Up." And yet, Lee, planted firmly in the realm of Hard Rock, Goth, and Heavy Music, would customarily find herself being tasked with giving commentary on the prevalence and repute of the abovementioned Pop girls by the press. "Everybody's Fool", Evanescence's final single from their debut LP Fallen had - like their three previous singles - garnered effortless critical acclaim for its sound and its lyrics. Its lyrics which bluntly referenced Lee's views on the state of young girls' health and her antipathy towards Spears and Teen Pop, which she believed negatively impacted it. Though Lee mostly remained coy about the track's intended targets and how she hoped they'd react, she did share these thoughts with The Age in the summer of 2004: "At this point, everybody knows that Britney is fake," Lee says. "The song is not about Britney Spears; it's about a lot of people in this industry. It's so fake, the whole Hollywood thing. 'Look at how perfect I am!' Nobody looks like that. It's all fake and it's really hurting a lot of girls' and women's self images. Where are all the normal people?" Apparently, some of those normal people were a bit too busy trying to keep the influence of Aguilera out of their homes and securely at bay. Still a firm favorite amongst the kids, the Bop and J-14 posters that once lined their walls were now being replaced by saucy spreads in Blender and Maxim magazine. Mothers and other authority figures were understandably unhappy, and in 2003, six of them took to daytime TV talk show host Jenny Jones to express their fears and disgust. 2000s-era talk shows like Maury or Jerry Springer weren't particularly known for their handling of sensitive topics (nor were they even designed for that). But one episode of The Jenny Jones Show titled "My Teen Is Obsessed With 'Dirrty' Christina Aguilera" arguably pushed pop culture coverage to formidable extremes. Structured like your average tabloid-style talk show installment, Jones would interview a series of distressed moms looking for guidance on how to discipline their unruly offspring. What was different is that said offspring were not bigoted, violent, expressedly lawless or otherwise anti-social. What was different is that this group of "obsessed" teens were all teen, tween, and elementary school-aged girls. And their primary offense? Loving and attempting to dress like Christina Aguilera. Dressed in crop tops, mini-skirts, booty shorts, thick makeup, and sky-high platform heels (minus seven-year-old Sherry, who Jones nicknamed "Little Christina"), one by one, each girl would state her case as to why she idolized Aguilera and wanted/needed to be seen by boys and their peers as "sexy." And one by one, the girls would be met with a shower of boos, expletives, physical and sexual threats from audience members (once again minus the seven-year-old Sherry). Volatile home lives, conspicuous exploitation, and nonexistent parental boundaries aside, the hour-long chapter would end with four of "nasty woman" Aguilera's six underage disciples receiving age-appropriate makeovers (complete with a set of "happy" tears from 15-yearold Jessie) and gentle advice from a licensed child psychologist. But the psychic damage had already been done. The entire country had just been given free access to view, speculate about, and chastise a group of female children forced to perform at their most vulnerable (mirroring the experiences of those children's heroine, no less). It is undeniably normal, beneficial, and healthy for parents and adults to actively monitor and be troubled by the media and messaging that their kids and the youth as a whole are being bombarded with. But there was a key perspective sorely missing from the discourse surrounding the mores and merits of Spears, Simpson, and Aguilera's artistries and career trajectories, and it was perhaps the second most important voice of all; it was the voices of the population being second most affected by those artistries and trajectories, the fans themselves.

Typically stereotyped as cursory and inconstant, young fans of young entertainers’ motivations and resulting devotions to said entertainers are regularly studied - and commented on - but nevertheless little understood. The more fundamental reasons, such as romantic attraction, admiration, and general enjoyment of their music, are quick to make headlines. But the sheer breadth of possible motivations can be mind-boggling and can either come with or be an outcome of devastating consequences. And sadly, singer of the 1963 smash “It’s My Party”, the late Lesley Sue Goldstein or Lesley Gore as she was known to listeners, was a young entertainer who knew those less-examined reasons all too well. Upon its impact on shelves and radio, “It’s My Party” and its companion album I’ll Cry If I Want To sold with flying colors and rendered Gore an overnight star amongst her fellow adolescents. Customary of the time, just months after “It’s My Party” climbed the charts, Gore quickly followed up I’ll Cry If I Want To with the lead single of her second album, Lesley Gore Sings of Mixed-Up Hearts, but it was the record’s second single that would steal the show and cement Gore as a Pop icon, trailblazer and mournfully, a partial confidant to droves of neglected and battered youngsters. A dark and defiant screed against an autocratic male suitor, Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me” rolls and rumbles its way through its 2:31 runtime, gripping and pulling its audience into a dense web of raw teen angst virtually unheard of in 1964. A Quincy Jones production, the track rivaled the success of “It’s My Party” but left a daunting impression on fans who were trying their best to survive against aggressive partners and systems of their own, culminating in “You Don’t Own Me” becoming an anthem of the then-burgeoning feminist and civil rights movements. In a 2017 tribute to the late Gore in Curve magazine, Gore’s significant other Lois Sasson weighed in on the outpouring of grief that came Gore’s way at the height of her fame as a 17 and 18-year-old in the early 1960s: “Lesley got letters from young people that broke her heart and frightened her, begging her to take them away form abusive homes, poverty, illness. All these requests from kids who thought because she had a hit record she could solve their problems. And she answered every one of them. It took a lot out of her, but it made her responsible. Her fame wasn’t all joy, but she realized she had a responsibility.” The 1970s would see Gore enter her mid-twenties, move behind the scenes and into the political sphere. But her legacy of singing and representing the worldviews of an unsung demographic would spread well into the 2000s and beyond via a few of her successors and pioneers in their own rights.

Tense, moody, and wanton, the Britney album did not move as many copies as ...Baby One More Time or Oops!… I Did It Again - as Spears herself had predicted - yet more so than the albums before it (and the ones after it), it managed to capture why multitudes of young girls had swiftly pledged their allegiance to her: on stage and in the studio, it was largely she who represented them. Long gone were the days of Spears having to do homework or other mundane functions of childhood, but Spears’ overt wrestling with the rigors of her rapidly transforming role, societal expectations, and her conflicting emotions and ambitions on Britney and elsewhere instinctively spoke to those at home wrestling with the very same things. And for the girls, boys, those in-between or outside of the lines facing even more formidable odds and foes, Aguilera’s Stripped would offer a much-needed balm and callto-action. Lambasted by reporters and conservatives in 2002 for its unexpected unleashing of Aguilera’s alter-ego of sorts, the bawdy and willful Xtina - or Xxxtina, Stripped only contained two sexually explicit songs, the remaining 18 focused squarely on Aguilera’s tenuous emotional state and her recovery from a childhood spent working to make ends meet and dodging the violent whims of the men around her. A then-unparalleled view into the life and testimony of a “cranky, profane and fearless” popstar and survivor, Aguilera’s fans championed Stripped for its sheer vulnerability. But that vulnerability would subsequently put a strange and substantial target on her back, and it would extend to just about any girl who dared to openly relate. Voicing her distress via email with Jane Magazine in September of 2004, a 19-year-old college student and Aguilera devotee named Rachel sent this question to photojournalist Esther Haynes in hopes of hearing back from Aguilera and gaining a possible solution to her problems: “‘Even if you don’t dress sexy, just being a Christina fan makes you scum because she is considered scum, too,’ Rachel summarized. ‘What advice can Christina give her fans who push the boundaries and face negativity, all for the sake of making a change for what they believe in?’” Fortunately, Aguilera would be forwarded Rachel’s request and offered a lengthy and enthusiastic response that ended with this declaration: “…So, if I had this Rachel girl right in front of me, I’d say: If you choose to push people’s minds and their limitations, in general you’re gonna have criticism. And you have to be strong enough to back up what you’re saying, back up what you believe and stand up for it stronger and louder.”

Jessica Simpson on the set of “Irresistible” in early 2001. Illustration © Hilado.

MUSIC AS EMOTIONAL CURIOSITY

As a child, change of any magnitude can be difficult. And it can be especially difficult when the change is happening "too soon," or if you're experiencing said change alone. Though we once had an hour-long class on basic sex education that covered a fair amount of ground (if I remember correctly), menstrual cycles, bra fittings, sexual arousal, and curiosity weren't yet a part of my friends' worlds. But somehow, in the fourth grade, it was already a part of mine. The summer before, I had had a growth spurt, my voice had deepened, and my thoughts and dreams about boys and boybands were becoming more and more frequent and more and more intense. According to my mother, the community at large - and lecherous men on the bus and train - I now had a woman's body and a teenager's brain, but I was 9, and I had no clue what to make of it or what to do with it and neither did my classmates. I was 5 ft 6, covered in acne, and filled with desires that I and my still cherubic comrades couldn't yet comprehend. Again, social isolation would rear its ugly head. But again, there was music. Whereas a new crop of teen stars (i.e., Hilary Duff and Avril Lavigne) had emerged and begun to dominate my boombox by the time I turned 10 in 2002, I continued to look towards the now-21-year-old Britney and 22-year-old Christina for comfort. At ages 9 and 10, expressing an interest in men and boys could often lead to ridicule and rejection. But in the confines of my bedroom and within the boundaries of song and dance, I was free to mentally explore and to vent my frustrations. "I tell 'em what I like, what I want, and what I don't/But every time I do, I stand corrected." Bowing out at #86 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on Billboard's Bubbling Under Chart, Britney's "Overprotected" and "I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman" never quite caught on with audiences, but to my fifth-grade self, there wasn't a more perfect soundtrack to my schoolyard woes. I wanted to embrace my new passions and obligations, but I had no outlet and little context for doing so. "All I need is time/A moment that is mine/While I'm in between." Music would aid me as much as it could in my ascent into (early) puberty, but when I left the house or ventured off campus, my chagrin would follow me closely in the form of perturbed editorials and fake concern on newsstands. "Too Sexy? Too Soon?" I hadn't envisioned my pre-teen years being capable of taking such a toll (as no episode of Lizzie McGuire had covered any of this). And neither did my mother. As the months progressed, my guilt, confusion, and inner turmoil grew, and my 45-year-old devout catholic and liberally conservative single parent was approaching her breaking point. Me, her 11-year-old daughter was formally rebelling. And though I had a variety of rationales that ran the gamut from ordinary to grievous, I also won a little bit of inspiration from a familiar source: the aforesaid Xtina. Dripping in tattoos, piercings, occasionally lewd accessories, and now experimenting with an array of jet-black ensembles and jet-black hair for the Stripped tour, Xtina was unfathomably chic and unafraid.

MUSIC AS EMOTIONAL ANTAGOMISM

Obviously, my mother didn't see it that way. But in hindsight, I shouldn't have expected her to. During my mother's childhood in the 1960s and '70s, the women's liberation movement radically transformed the place of women and girls in American society and confronted archaic attitudes on work, finances, politics, and sex. But what constituted as tasteful then wasn't what counted as tasteful or chic in the 2000s. And what is and was acceptable to a Black Catholic mother is a whole other story. One Saturday afternoon, I decided to sit down with her and directly ask her about said story. It is easy for me to wax poetic on the inclinations or judgments of hypothetical and unfamiliar parents. It's far less uncomplicated when it's my own. Amongst the many topics we talked about over the course of an hour, two key boundaries seemed to show up repeatedly: our generational divide and our apprehension or appreciation of certain eras. Reminiscing, she shared her overall lack of surprise with Britney's metamorphosis: "I read stuff and stuff was coming out of the internet or whatever and stuff like that, people.. moms didn't like it and thought it was too sexy and stuff, saying that these guys were going from being, you know, teen idols to sex vixens and stuff like that. I didn't listen to them, but yeah, I'm like 'yeah, okay, whatever.' Yeah, and stuff like that. Yeah. But to me, like I said earlier, with Britney, 'I'm A Slave 4 U' didn't surprise me because she always had kind of a sexy image like you know, kind of a yeah from even '…Baby One More Time' with the belly out and the skirt and you know and stuff like that so to me it wasn't she just kind of popped it up just a little bit." Interestingly, her observations on Christina's evolution took a different turn. When asked about Stripped, she said: ".. with Christina that was a 360 to me and stuff like that. And the thing was she had like I said she had this funky air to me of a singer-singer. Yeah the singer type." Further elaborating, my mother revealed why Stripped and the Stripped tour had essentially made her uncomfortable: ".. that was the thing to me, so when she started dyeing her hair and showing her booty and shaking it up and all that stuff like that I was taken aback and I think a lot of parents was taken aback because of the way they thought of her at the time and stuff. I was just like questioning it. Okay. I was thinking. That's what I thought. Yeah, you know, they're becoming sexy. To me, you know, Britney always was. But to me, Christina wasn't. And I think it was her trying too hard to be sexy and to be you know 'you're cool and funky and hip and' no, no, no, no, no! Yeah to me that was not her." Continuing our conversation, we eventually turned our attention to my strife in elementary and my rebellious phase in middle school. At first concerned for my safety and health and puzzled by my regular inquiries about obtaining a tattoo or piercing, she would later recall trusting the process in the end and accepting that I was atypical and that had to be okay. Still intrigued by my mother's recollections, I wanted to ask a series of more questions, but pushing past the hour mark in our interview, she instead left me with the age-old adage "once you're older, you'll understand."

MUSIC & SEXUALITY

At 32, it is enticing to say that I have advanced. I have advanced, I have made full peace with my body, and my adulthood has mostly been gleeful and unblemished by the ghosts of my unusually turbulent girlhood. That would be enticing to say, but it wouldn't be entirely true. Every now and then, when I let my mind wander, I revert back to being 9, 10, and 11, bruised, isolated, and brimming with shame. What's different now is that I finally know I wasn't experiencing all those fearsome changes alone. Weeks ago, I asked other millennial women what they endured; their responses were eye-opening. Music worker Rachel Golman wrote: "Being a pre-teen during this time was particularly brutal. We were bombarded with tiny women exercising & dancing for multiple hours a day and told that our growing bodies should like just like theirs if we wanted to be desirable or be worthy of going outside in society. My friends and I were huge Britney girls and I think growing up we really internalized that we didn't look just like her. As young women with growing bodies (and when the only jeans in stores were low-rise), it was hard to wrap our heads around how we desired to look like our favorite pop stars and what our bodies were doing. I had good female role models in my mom and teachers and dance teachers, but it was still an internal battle to know I'd probably never receive the kind of adoration and attention that came from looking like a pop star. Obviously the high rise jean picture of Jessica Simpson came out later than this time but it also felt a little soul-crushing to see a woman built sort of like me called a heinous cow. I remember when Stripped came out, everyone suddenly turned on Christina and started calling her a big ho even though she was just dressing evocatively. Also she was what like 20 and in incredible shape? Why NOT show off that body? But it was somehow so scandalous. Some of the girls around me started emulating her and we, in turn, also thought those girls were skanks even though we were like 12. It seems like there was no winning -- you needed to show enough skin and be just gorgeous ENOUGH, but go too far and suddenly you're a skank. I feel like even my mother kind of fell into this trap and thought Christina and the girls who emulated her were gross. As I've grown I realize this is kind of the trap of being a woman - do anything too much and it's a problem. Personally, professionally, whatever. I think we were expected to be beautiful and agreeable and anything else turned you into a diva or a skank." And mother and student Anji Thomas nobly disclosed: "I was 14 years old in 2002. I remember coming to terms with my own sexuality, and grappling with normal teenage sexual urges around this time in my life. My mother was very opposed to me listening to Britney or Christina, and I often snuck listening to them on the radio through my Walkman. I remember feeling like these feelings that I was having were dirty or unnatural, because of how much sexiness in women was being villainized in media. I also found myself feeling sexual attraction towards images of these pop stars that were just a few years older than me, and that was very confusing, because I was taught that feelings like that were nasty, and so it had to mean that I also was nasty." Some little girls like dolls. Some little girls like clothes and jewelry. Some little girls like shoes or makeup. And some little girls sincerely love their favorite pop stars. I was in the latter group and it's still shaping my life to this day.

Interview with Doreen Hill.

THANK YOU

Thank you kindly to Doreen Hill, Anji Thomas, and Rachel Golman for their contributions and Lee Jacob B. Hilado for all of the above illustrations.

This artifact includes lyrics and passages from the following copyrighted sound recordings: “Maria” by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, “Overprotected” performed by Britney Spears (written by Max Martin and Rami Yacoub), “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman” performed by Britney Spears (written by Max Martin, Rami Yacoub, and Dido)

MORE ABOUT KIMBERLEY HILL

Hailing from Long Beach, CA, Kimberley Hill is an award-winning musician, producer, composer, freelance music writer, and proud Digital Music student at Hostos Community College of The City University of New York. When not on campus, she can be found rumm aging through a bookstore, in a recording studio or at a convert venue somewhere in NYC.

PRE-INTERVIEW LETTER

Mother,

As I grow older and older and the times continue to change, I often think more and more of the past. Not only my own but that of so many others that I meet. I frequently ask myself questions, too. Who and what made us who we are, and who and what will be remembered as a result of that? As a musician, what singers, songs, and albums shaped my music and why? And what can I do to help keep at least a bit of their music and those memories alive indefinitely? For the Multigenerational Engaged Storytelling Institute, I would love to orally and aurally go back to part of my childhood and revisit an incredibly tense but transformative time both for me and for a lot of millennial women at large: the early 2000s.

As you know, I was a far cry from being an actual woman at the time (as I was still firmly an elementary school girl). But I was also deeply influenced by the sounds and stories of so many who had already crossed that threshold into adulthood and with gusto, namely pop stars Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, and Christina Aguilera. Ideally, I would want to discuss their presence in my life and their subsequent effect on my conceptions of womanhood, femininity, feminism, sexuality, and artistic autonomy. But like bodies of water, conversations and recollections always flow where they need to and want to be. For the Multigenerational Engaged Storytelling Institute, will you sit down and discuss what it meant to be a mother of a curious but malleable millennial with me?

Regards,

Kimmie