Stripped

'I will never hide what I really feel.' While her message and stance are clear enuf - she's a feminist intent on acknowledging her mistakes ('I keep going right back / To the one thing that I need to walk away from') - Aguilera is, musically speaking, nearly impossible to classify: R&B, rock, hip-hop, Latin folk, jazz. Tho the influence of this record has certainly been recognized, it's quite the experience listening to it all the way thru: its aesthetic really has gone on to become an ubiquitous presence. Even artists as seemingly self-contained as Solange and Amy Winehouse owe something to Stripped. More importantly, as long as it is, the album is simply a pleasure to listen to. She's also dead serious: fuck those who said it's 'almost' for grown-ups.

This album is all over the place in a good way. Everytime I think damn this is a good song, it's written by Linda Perry. She is a chameleon too. The bad songs are really bad, but the good songs are incredible. Her voice is amazing. how was she lumped in with Britney? they are two separate animals.

Surprisingly varied and fun, but too long. Cut the weakest third and you'd have a real solid album.

There were a few decent tracks on here but I forgot to note them down and the rest of the album was so overly long and uninteresting I can't be bothered to listen to it again to highlight them. Oh well.

Really wanted to listen to this and rate it highly since so many of the users on here are so blindly opposed to modern pop music.

Unfortunately, unlike Lauryn Hill, or Taylor Swift, this album doesn't really say anything, or present anything musically interesting.

This is a solid pop album, that being said I am not the biggest fan of pop so I didn’t find this album super interesting. Her vocals are great but some aspects of the album just give generic pop vibes which is fine, I think it sounds good but I feel like some parts of the album or missing the sauce and get a little stale. Definitely some good grooves and great moments, but Im not sure this is an album I will revisit often. I think 1hr 15mins is a little long and could have been cut down a bit. I feel like I am writing a negative review but I actually enjoyed this album more than I expected. The r&b elements are really enjoyable and well done. Her girl boss attitude is great too and exudes confidence. Latin influence is a great touch when leaned into

Once again, I have to preface this by saying she is a very gifted singer. Now that that acknowledgment is out of the way: Why in the fuck would we possibly need to hear TWO Christina Aguilera albums before we die? But there are no Tool albums. Cool.

This album is painfully late 90s/early 00s pop. Along with Justin Timberlake, I think Aguilara is the biggest offender of the white artist "blaccent" phenomenon in pop music during that time. And if you listen to her interviews, she doesn't speak that way normally, only in her albums. Which leads me to another annoyance - the talking bullshit during songs. It's not a phone convo, Chrissy, just sing, thanks.

Look, This album sounds like it was produced by Timbaland (I'm too lazy to look it up), which is to say, there are bits where it's quite catchy. But are we breaking any new ground here? Is it an album that was influential in any way, or contributed to the art form in any way? I'm not a pop historian, but I'd imagine not. I think talent-wise, Christina Aguilera has the singing ability Brittany Spears could only dream about. For better or worse, however, her cultural impact was primarily as Brittany's foil, and that's just not enough to elevate her or her music beyond anything other than an historical footnote.

Immediate groans when this was generated, but after the first couple of tracks I was thinking, "huh, this actually isn't that bad". Honestly, I always thought she was more of a bubblegum pop star along with Britney Spears, but it seems this album was specifically trying to steer her career away from those allegations. To be fair, when this came out, I avoided pop music like the plague, so it's not surprising that I had no idea about it. That said, I'm only like 6 tracks in and I am starting to lose interest.

Overall, Christina Aguilera is a lot better than I expected. She's got a solid voice and there are some R&B and rock elements to this album that I did enjoy. However, this album is all over the place and some of the jumps from pop to R&B to rock can be a bit jarring (I thought Beautiful to Make Over was jarring, but Dirrty to Stripped Pt2 to The Voice Within is so much worse). On top of that, this album is way too long and the longer it goes on, the more I find myself wishing it would end. If this was edited down to a more cohesive package, I’d give this a better rating.

I also cannot stand the tracks Beautiful or Dirrty.

I’m at a 5.

A lot of my general notes on Christina Aguilera that I wrote down from “Back to Basics” apply here – a remarkable vocal showcase, an operatic power that feels a little unparalleled at points (not as potent here, but still very strong), and much in the same way that album was hard-coded to 2006, this is hard-coded to 2002, still pulling from some of the Neo-soul of the late ‘90s but with a lot of the hiphop / R&B production tricks that Justin Timberlake & Destiny’s Child were using at the time. This album sounds a lot like both at times, with a track like “Dirrty” feeling like it’s more so made for “Justified” than this album, and with “Can’t Hold Us Down” feeling remarkably close to “Survivor”’s general style. There’s plenty more, but I never saw it as a negative or as a ripoff / bite; hell, Christina and Justin toured their albums together, so they clearly knew their styles were similar. I’m a sucker for it, as has been established, and while mileage may vary, I found myself enjoying a lot of these tracks. As far as her vocals go & the production work here, I have little to no complaints, save for a few jarring left turns that don’t feel super cohesive (and I’ll get to that soon enough).

Where this album differs from “Back to Basics” comes in a sense of confidence – she’s a made woman by that album, but here, she’s trying to actively make herself, and convince herself along the course of this album that she can break free of all the Disney Channel cookie cutter bullshit as a kid that she disparages about on “Make Over” & other tracks to be a more seriously taken artist, and ultimately, a more seriously taken woman. I would say she really succeeds. A lot of these tracks are worth taking seriously, especially towards the back end (“I’m OK” by itself practically made me cry), and the big hits here are deserving of being big hits. For a 77 minute project, a lot of these are very strong tracks; they’re well-written, well-produced, and there’s an honesty & an earnestness that underlines the album in the mature way she’s looking for. I wouldn’t be at a 5 if I didn’t think she succeeded at that job. There is, however, one nagging thing about this album that I have to point out, because it cannot go unnoticed.

The track order is a little messy around in the back half of the album; I think it’s not a big issue until after “Beautiful”, since it feels like the peak of the album (although that’s the 23 years of hearing that track talking), because “Make Over” & “Cruz” feel like extreme left turns, especially the former. Granted, if you flip those tracks, I think “Cruz”’s softer, ‘70s rock inspired style would transition well into the sort of grunginess of “Make Over”, or at least, not feel as jarring after “Beautiful”. “Soar” feels very misplaced afterwards; it’s a soaring ballad that I really like, but its subject matter feels like it could’ve totally ended the album at that point. Hell, it could’ve probably ended the album for real. The 1-2 punch of “Get Mine, Get Yours” & “Dirrty” stick out like sore thumbs afterward; they’re both fun tracks, but they just feel weird after “Soar”. If they had come in right after “Cruz”, it might’ve flowed better. They would've felt weird as hell after most of the previous tracks. "Stripped Pt. 2" feels like it was thrown in as an afterthought, and it barely works as a transition to the final 3 tracks.

All that said, I have no notes on the 1-2-3 punch that ends the album; “The Voice Within” feels like it could’ve closed the album, and yet, I think the heartbreak of “I’m OK” adds such a deep context to the self-assurance & self-confidence she’s seeking throughout this album, that it pulls the entire album together wonderfully. Ending on that sad note wouldn’t work, so “Keep On Singin’ My Song” works well as a closer, even if it doesn’t quite end on the bombast I wish it had (seriously, a breakbeat?). I do wish it was a 1-2-3-4 punch though, as the themes of “Soar” would transition wonderfully into “The Voice Within”.

Realistically, the track order doesn’t matter that much, but it does keep the album from feeling as fully cohesive as it could have been. Regardless, even if a few tracks didn’t click for me on a first pass because of that shaky cohesion, I think this is a hell of an album for 2002. Honestly, I think it does a way better job than “Justified” did in terms of truly establishing a solo career, given that Justin got a lot of Michael Jackson-rejected Neptunes-written scraps on that one to work from, whereas Christina wrote a lot of these herself, to my understanding. I think it’s even better than “Back to Basics” was, which I already was a total sucker for. I also hear a lot of the modern artists this album influenced, which is a pretty damn strong list according to Wikipedia, so clearly, she did something right. I think this is pretty easily a 5. I think it more than earns it & I’m very glad it’s on the list.

P.S.: She sneaks in The Lick™ on "Get Mine, Get Yours", and when my ears caught it, I got mildly annoyed and laughed. I just want anyone in the future to also know this happens as a warning of sorts.

Eh, it’s just not really my jam, but she got me to move around. The vocal gymnastics feel a bit unnecessary at times, but if you want to get your hips moving you could do worse.

It’s not that it’s terrible, actually there’s quite a few songs I surprisingly enjoyed. It just doesn’t need to be 20 tracks and nearly 1hr 20 mins long. You could literally cut away half of this album and you wouldn’t be missing anything noteworthy.

Top Track - Fighter is an absolute banger

This is way too much and all at once. What exactly was stripped… other than her cover photo?

They say a true artist knows what to leave out … well, not the case here. The majority of the album is vocal cacophony and over-mixing, although the slower songs are more enjoyable.

And there’s just no excuse for 20 tracks at all. Ever. Like in the whole career. Looks like she needed that producer she fired on this one, after all. But, good news, she is beautiful no matter what I say because my words can’t bring her down.

At an hour and a quarter this is too long, and I don't think it's quite as strong as Back To Basics, but again, I enjoyed this more than I expected. A pretty high three. Pretty shameless Sugababes ripoff though!

The hits on here are all solid, and even the songs I didn't know are good too. I'm not sure this is one that I'll come back to listen to again, but it was definitely worth setting aside the time to check this out.

Fighter and Beautiful are decent, the rest is not special. Dirrty is awful.

I had no reaction whatsoever when this was generated. Her work is not something that I would buy but I think that her singing is accomplished and her/her cowriter’s songs are catchy.
I thought that this was a magnificent album, referencing abuse, relationship breakdown and self-confidence. It mixed RnB, soul, hard rock, and pop ballad effortlessly, with some standout singles Beautiful and Fighter.
So, I was pretty annoyed to see that this album got mixed reviews – the reason? “Lack of concentration” and mixing different genres of music. Like what? Would a reviewer have said of Revolver – well the Beatles are all over the place here with RnB, Rock, Pop and psychedelia. No of course not. I personally feel an album that incorporates different styles of music more interesting.
Seemed like an excuse not to rate a perfectly good album by someone the music critics didn’t rate as cool. However, jokes on them as the album sold phenomenally well.

Christina Aguilera is an undeniably exceptional vocalist, but I don't think I'm the target audience for the stuff on this album. That doesn't diminish the quality of her work; it only talks about my enjoyment of it.

Regardless of the target audience, I think this album was probably about 7 songs too long.

⭐⭐⭐

Some good songs but mostly filler and the album is far too long that I found myself getting a bit bored by the end.

This album has a few recognizable songs on it with the rest being mostly filler. She has a great voice but it feels wasted on this pop garbage. I'm not sure the few popular songs make this a must-listen album. 2/5

Some absolutely superb songs interspersed with the very forgettable. If this was cut down to a normal album length, I would definitely want to listen to it again!

I also appreciate the variety. The rest of the album isn't like the massive singles at all.

And what a voice!