Christina Aguilera

Christina Maria Aguilera was born into a family of Fausto Wagner Xavier Aguilera from Ecuador and teacher of Spanish Shelly Loraine Fidler. The head of the family was a military officer for the moment; he was stationed in Canada and Japan, where his wife and two daughters lived with him. Her parents divorced when Christina was seven. The mother took the girls to Pennsylvania where they settled in a town under Pittsburg. Christina's mother married again. Fausto Aguilera wrote to his daughter, but she refused from any communication with him as her father was often rude to Christina and her mother, sometimes even physically abusive. Her problematic childhood became one of the constant themes of Aguilera's creativity, including the song Oh Mother from her last album Back to Basics. Since her early years Christina listened to Madonna, Aretha Franklin, and Whitney Houston. She strived to become a singer, winning all the local talent competitions. But Aguilera's gift had a darker side – her peers envied her, so they bullied and ostracized the girl, even slashed the tires of their family car. In the end, Christina's family had to move to another town.

In March 1990, Aguilera took part in the Star Search, but lost the competition. Nevertheless, the beginning artist became a local star. In 1993, Christina was chosen for the Mickey Mouse Club, where she collaborated with such future pop-stars as Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears. After the end of the show in 1994, Aguilera started recording demos and sending them to various studios. In 1994, she sang the Reflection song for the Disney production of Mulan. This work resulted in a contract with the RCA Records. In August 1999, the artist's debut album titled Christina Aguilera hit the shelves. It generated such danceable hits as Genie in a Bottle, What A Girl Wants, Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You) and I Turn To You. These extremely cute songs, decorated with Aguilera's rich vocals, made the young singer everyone's favorite. In 2000, Christina reminded of Latin heritage to listeners with the disc Mi Reflejo. Later, Ricky Martin invited her for the record of the track Nobody Wants To Be Lonely from the work Sound Loaded. In October 2000, Aguilera recorded the Christmas album My Kind Of Christmas. In 2001, for the film Moulin Rouge she sang a winding cover for Lady Marmalade along with Pink, Lil' Kim and Mya, accompanying the song with a sexy video.

Partying with the manager, who did not consider her wishes in the work, the artist drastically changed her image to the sexually provocative one and dyed her hair black. The album Stripped featured a stylish mixture of such genres as pop-rock, jazz, hip-hop, soul and some others. The disc was a more mature and interesting work then Christina's debut, but her image change was perceived negatively in the USA. Nevertheless, such wonderful singles as Dirrty, the classical ballad Beautiful, Fighter, Can't Hold Us Down and The Voice Within helped the Stripped album stay in the charts all over the world for the next two years. In 2004, Aguilera cut her hair short and dyed it platinum blonde, changing her image again. This time she chose the Hollywood glamour of 20s-40s. Her disc Back to Basics of 2006 was fulfilled in the retro stylistics with a touchable influence of blues, jazz and soul. The singles Ain't No Other Man and Candyman became world hits, while the support tour for the album was acknowledged to be the most successful one in 2007. The same year Christina was announced to be pregnant from her husband Jordan Bratman, whom she married in 2005. On January 2008, Aguilera gave birth to their son Max Lion.

Keeps Gettin' Better: A Decade of Hits (2008) was the first greatest hits album by Christina Aguilera. The compilation featured the biggest hits from all of the singer's studio albums released to date, as well as two new singles (the title track Keeps Gettin' Better and Dynamite) and two re-made tracks (Genie in a Bottle and Beautiful). The album showed a lot of growth in Aguilera, from her vocals, to her writing style. Aguilera’s sixth studio attempt titled Bionic turned out to be another proof of her talent and incredible skills. That record pleased listeners by a wonderful atmosphere and a truly innovative sound: such famous musical producers as Tricky Stewart, Linda Perry and many others took place in the creation of Bionic. The long play proved to be an extremely strong work and it satisfied the singers’ fans’ expectations.