14 DAY TRIAL // Since she announced her upcoming album, “Bionic,” and started to put out promo materials, a single and a music video, Christina Aguilera has taken some pretty serious fire from certain segments of the public on the basis that she was trying to rip off Lady Gaga in both sound and looks. In the latest issue of Billboard magazine, whose cover she also graces, XTina defends her music and new sound by saying she doesn’t have to prove to anyone she’s still relevant: she simply is.
Since she dropped the video for “Not Myself Tonight,” Christina has polarized the public opinion: on the one hand, there are the fans who say she’s paying homage with it to iconic Madonna. The other camp, situated completely at the opposite pole, says she’s shamelessly ripping off both Madge and Lady Gaga because she’s no longer relevant as a music artist, as we also informed you a short while ago. You can’t just wipe the past decade of making great music like that, Aguilera tells Billboard.
To those who belong to the second camp, Christina feels she has nothing to prove. Fans know better either way. “I’m in it for the long haul, and a decade later in my career, I have nothing to prove. To anyone who wants to be negative, it’s like, ‘I’m obviously relevant enough to you for you to care and to talk and to evoke negative feelings inside of you.’ At this point in my career, I’m over any and all weird comparisons or negativity,” the singer explains.
As for talk of how her music is not faring as it would have had, say, a few years ago, Christina says she’s not in it to make hits, but for the music itself. “There was actually a song that the label really wanted me to record, and I just said ‘no,’ because it didn’t fit on the album – it wasn’t creatively inspiring to me. They said, ‘It’s a hit, it’s a hit!’ And absolutely it’s a hit for someone. But it’s not for me, because when it jeopardizes my integrity too much I can’t do it. The hit thing… (sigh) ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’ was a [expletive]ing hit, you know what I mean?” she adds.
Billboard is not the only magazine that features either an interview or a photospread with Christina. Both GQ Germany and Latina magazine have pieces on the famous singer, with the former even including a series of portraits bound to get people talking, since in some pics she’s only wearing thigh-high boots and gloves.