14 DAY TRIAL // Christina Aguilera is now promoting her upcoming album, “Bionic,” by doing media rounds, including giving magazine interviews meant to tease fans and offer them more details on the material. The entire marketing campaign is marked by unwanted comparisons to Lady Gaga and allegations that Aguilera is trying to rip her off in what concerns both sound and looks.
In the latest issue of Out magazine, of which gossip blogger Perez Hilton got an advanced copy, scanned it and posted it on his Twitter page, Aguilera addresses the above controversy by dissing Gaga. The magazine makes no secret about which side it’s taking (at least with this issue) so, when the topic of Lady Gaga is brought up, Christina first tries to laugh it off and only then gives the interviewer a piece of her mind: for all the fuss Gaga is getting, she’s still a newcomer who’s “fun” at best, Christina says.
“Not to mention Lady Gaga in an article about pop music in general and Christina Aguilera in particular would be like writing a thesis on omelets and leaving out the eggs. Gaga, like her or not, now dictates the terms of the pop conversation. She’s the star around which the pop universe spins. Plus, the two have history. Rivalry’s nothing new to Aguilera […] but, as it relates to Lady Gaga, one might think comparisons to be especially tedious. ‘Oh, the newcomer?’ Aguilera chuckles. ‘I think she’s really fun to look at’,” the Out piece reads, citing Aguilera. It then goes on to say that comparisons to Gaga have irked Christina since 2008.
They’re meritless too, since there can be no comparison between two stars where one is freshly out on the market, while the other has been making music for a decade now. At the same time, the two are drastically different as regards the music they make as well, no matter how much the media tries to put them in the same pot. Whereas Gaga is all about seizing the moment and making a temporary splash, Christina aims for long-lasting value by making art, the magazine further says.
“Gaga writes hooks with nursery rhyme simplicity, easy to hum and hard to forget. Aguilera foregoes hooks for vocal virtuosity, though she admits, ‘it’s a little more off-putting to the general public because it’s not easy to sing along to.’ Gaga talks about art and sings about cell phone reception and disco sticks. Aguilera isn’t given to public pronouncements outside her narrow area of expertise and sings about vulnerability and expectation, loss and strength, abuse and acceptance. Gaga IS her art, she claims. Aguilera says, ‘I used to think MY ART IS ME, and it’s just not like that. You can’t be that egotistical.’ Gaga is topiary, highly pruned and stylized. Aguilera is a jungle, wild and overgrown,” the Out editorial on Christina Aguilera further says.