While listening to Stripped all the tracks seem to blend together into one harmonious unit, so it becomes a long, uninterrupted screeching marathon.  Her voice is by no means angelic but rather harsh and piercing. I could insert a pun about her genital piercing(s), but I won't.

A lot of people write albums describing their romantic or sexual escapades. This could be the reason why her album is so long. A more realistic reason however, could be quantity over quality.  Stretching far past your usual conventional pop albums, Stripped is a never-ending journey into Christina's life and back.  It is difficult to give her credibility about her insecurities judging by her topless cover art.  Even her song about feminism, "Can't Hold Us Down" becomes ridiculous when coupled with her outrageous image, perhaps more suited to a glorified pornographic performer. It's hard to be empowered without clothes on after all.

The lead single, "Dirrty", immediately transferred Christina from slutty pop princess into slut.  The song is quite memorable. It merely relies on background grinding and chiming sounds for music but that's all it needs with Christina's vocals.

Unfortunately, "Dirrty" is by far one of the most unrepresentative debut singles from an album.  Instead of having an album full of thumping industrial hits, it is dispersed with bland fraternal ballads.  Apparently, the lyrics for the album, Stripped are supposed to be smothered in meaning.  However, co-incidentally I'm sure, many also have grimy double meanings. The album, almost completely devoid of music, consists mainly of vocals as layered as Christina's make up.

Everything from the pointless Alicia Keys 'duet' to the pointless Spanish interludes, reeks of excessiveness. The album overall has very high production values but appears overdone for effect. The music itself will probably become very dated once Christina's novelty nudity wears off. This would be fine for any other disposable pop album but this is supposed to be a serious effort which, unfortunately, comes off as desperate.

It's a feeble effort from such a talent. Her voice is very strong but maybe she has been exercising her throat in the wrong way.


Christine Aguilera  -  Stripped
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