Songoftheday 10/18/23 - Every day is so wonderful then suddenly it's hard to breathe, now and then I get insecure from all the pain I'm so ashamed...
"Beautiful" - Christina Aguilera
from the album Stripped (2002)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 24
Today's song comes from Christina Aguilera, who had landed her fourth #1 hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the summer of 2001 with her collaborative cover of LaBelle's "Lady Marmalade" for the movie Moulin Rouge. She also followed up her debut with a pair of albums on RCA Records, the Spanish-language record Mi Reflejo and the holiday set My Kind Of Christmas, which both made the top-30 of the Billboard 200 sales tally.
With this momentum Christina obtained more control of her musical direction, and replaced her original manager with the high-profile dealer Irving Azoff. With her sophomore album she wanted to leave the 'teen-pop' past behind, and her lead single from Stripped, "Dirrty" featuring rapper Redman, did it in a brash and shocking way. The track was certainly meant to turn heads, but was completely disjointed and didn't sound "sexy" at all, and while internationally it did OK, the single famously flopped in the States, barely making the top half of the Hot 100. With this stumble, Aguilera had to pull the "ace in the hole" from the record that probably would've been saved for the third (or maybe fourth) release.
"Beautiful" is a grand, self-important "message" ballad written and produced by Linda Perry, who had gone from the quirky leader for the alternative rock act 4 Non Blondes to being a hitmaking writer for the likes of Pink. It's rather simple, with only two verses, the first being in the first-person with a description of "imposter syndrome". After a first reading of the mantra-like chorus, she switches to address someone whose depression has alienated them from their friends (I can relate). After that, the chorus is repeated over and over, with a bridge that allows her to vamp it up just a little. The production thankfully isn't bombastic, and allows Christina's reassuring but strong tone to carry what message there is. The result is a song adopted whole-heartedly by the LGBT community even though its words are rather vague; that can be attributed by the music video, which does a much better job sending the message home. If fact, the visuals coupled with the spare string-led arrangement and Christina's controlled passion elevate this to true art...
"Beautiful" reversed the problems with "Dirrty", and rose to the runner-up spot on Billboard's Hot 100 in February of 2003. On the radio, the song spent four weeks at #1 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart as well as five on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") list, while peaking at #9 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format and #13 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic station roundup. The track was transformed into a club banger by a group of remixers like Peter Rauhofer and Al B Rich, and became her first #1 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, the single was just as massive, topping the charts in Australia, Canada (sales & radio), Ireland, New Zealand, Romania, and the United Kingdom, and reached the top-40 in Sweden (#3), Belgium (#3 Flanders/#18 Wallonia), Poland (#3), Germany (#4), the Netherlands (#4), Austria (#5), Norway (#5), Hungary (#6), Switzerland (#7), Czech Republic (#7), Italy (#8), Denmark (#9), and Croatia (#9). The Stripped album, released in October of 2002, came in at #2 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, spending over a year on the list and going on to sell over five million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2004, "Beautiful" won the trophy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, while the Stripped album was also up for Best Pop Vocal Album, losing to future tourmate Justin Timberlake's Justified.
Both Christina and the album will be back to the series.
(10/10)
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Christina appeared on the Ellen Degeneres Show to perform the song....
Next up, the Peter Rauhofer club mix edit of the track, which changes the ballad up to be a floorfiller...
Here's Aguilera on tour behind the album in the UK...
She also performed it on the Grammys where she won for Best Pop Vocal...
In 2008, Christina sang "Beautiful" for the CNN Heroes award show...
Lastly, the singer reprised the song for a new music video in 2022 that's just as timely...
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