Christina Aguilera: Liberation review – #MeToo makeover hits high and low notes | Alexis Petridis6/14/2018 Aguilera's eighth album includes some great collaborations with Kanye West, Demi Lovato and Anderson.Paak The most striking track on Christina Aguilera's eighth album is called Fall in Line. On the surface, the collaboration with the similarly leather-lunged Demi Lovato looks like one of her trademark anthems of self-empowerment rebooted for the age of woke pop: Beautiful or The Voice Within given a #MeToo makeover, complete with an introduction that features a collage of little girls' voices and a climax with Aguilera doing her nut in time-honoured, lung-busting, ad-lib-heavy style. But it's more interesting than that. For one thing, the music is more engaging than the standard soaring piano ballad to which she's previously set this sort of thing. The rhythm proceeds at a funereal pace, the Feeling Good-esque orchestration is underpinned by a gloomy electronic bass pulse, the parody of hip-hop misogyny – in slowed-down, screwed style – is so accurate that you could easily miss its satirical intent. For another, the lyrics avoid cliche and carry the authentic tang of hard-won experience. Aguilera and Lovato alike sing them like they mean them: “All the youth in the world,” warns one line, “will not save you from growing older.” Continue reading...
0 Comments
“From Cradle to Stage” features interviews with the moms of Pharrell, Adam Levine, Tom Morello, and more
|
Maureen Lave
Archives
January 2019
Categories |