Christina Aguilera

Christina Aguilera 

Early Life

Born on December 18, 1980 in Staten Island, New York, Christina Aguilera was actually predestined as an American pop singer. Approvingly, the young, beautiful and energetic Christina Maria Aguilera grew up as a talented and famous singer of 2000s. She was born to an Ecuadorian father, Fausto Aguilera, and an Irish descent mother, Shelly Kearns, who are both fluent in Spanish. Growing up together along with her four siblings, Michael, Casey, Rachel and Stephanie, Christina realized from the beginning of her life that she really wanted to be a singer. 

Early Life

Since her five years of age, Christina had known all the songs from the "Sound of Music", all of which she sang at the neighborhood block parties. Just a short period of time after that, she, as the youngest person ever, performed the National Anthem at professional sporting events in the area of Pittsburgh, where she lived with her mother after her parents' divorce. Seriously wanting to build her career in entertainment, ten-year-old Christina went to an open audition for "The Mickey Mouse Club" but was rejected. She only got a favorable reply two years later. There, she became a "musketeer", working with the not-yet-famous Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Keri Russell. After two years of singing, dancing, and performing in Disney, in request of manager Steve Kurtz, Christina sent a demo tape to RCA exec, Ron Fair. 

And so the story goes at 15, she finally had a record deal with the "talent hunter" manager. Lucky for Christina, she got an interesting offer from her friend at Disney to sing "Reflection", the lead song for 1998's animated film "Mulan", which was later nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture. One year later, in 1999, she was widely popular for her self-titled album "Christina Aguilera" that reached the top of the Billboard Hot 200 and Canadian album charts with selling rate in U.S. reaching 8 millions. The album's well-known singles, "Gennie in the Bottle", "What a Girl Wants" and "Come on Over Baby (All I Want is You)", additionally sat on the top of the 1999 and 2000 Billboard Hot 100. Another song from the "Christina Aguilera" album entitled "I Turn to You" even became the top 5 in the United States. The beginner later on won the 2000 Grammy Award for Best New Artist. 

Career

In 2001, Christina released "Nobody Wants to Be Lonely," her collaboration song with Latin singer Ricky Martin which went to the top 5 in the U.K. and Germany and became the top 40 in Canada, Switzerland and Australia. The experiences she got had made her more and more creative in producing new works. In the same year, she had another collaboration with Mya, Lil' Kim and Pink for "Moulin Rouge!" (2001) soundtrack "Lady Marmalade" that won her a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. The song was also popular in Australia with "Moulin Rouge!" soundtrack becoming the 2001 Best Selling Album in that country. Together with her co-performers, Christina won two awards at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, one for the prestigious Best Video Of The Year and the other one for Best Song From A Movie Soundtrack. 

Possessing a powerful voice and ability to sing a capella, Christina, who considers Julie Andrews, Whitney Houston, Etta James and Billie Holiday as her most important musical influences, released a Latin album "Mi Reflejo," which led her to win the 2001 World's Best Selling Latin Female Artist at the World Music Awards. She even received 3 BRIT Awards nominations; Best International Female Solo Artist, Best International Album, and Best Pop. Influenced by her annoyance towards public images that often accused her of being an expert pretender to hide her pain, in the year of 2002, Christina released the album"Stripped." In this album, she offered her new and real image as a highly-sexualized woman influenced by mixing hip-hop and porn star style. She became brave enough in exploiting her physical and sexual attraction in her video clips. 

Despite the controversy surrounding her "Dirrty" video included in the album "Stripped," which was banned from several national TVs, Christina was nominated for five Grammys in 2004, including Song of the Year for single "Beautiful"; Best Female Pop Vocal Performance also for "Beautiful"; Best Pop Collaboration with Vocal for "Can't Hold Us Down"; Best Pop Vocal Album for "Stripped"; and Best Remixed Recording for "Beautiful" remixed by Peter Rauhofer. Above all, Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake's "Justified and Stripped" tour had favorably topped the Rolling Stone 2003 Readers' Poll for Best Tour. Rolling Stone Magazine also wrote the singer's "Dirrty" video as the Most Played Music Video of All Time. In addition to those accomplishments, her "Fighter" video got six nominations for the 2004 Music Video Production Association Awards for Best Pop artist.

source:aceshowbiz.com