“For us, this is the launch of a signature artist,” then-RCA Records marketing vp Nick Cucci mused in the July 24, 1999, Billboard issue of Christina Aguilera, whose eponymous debut album arrived a month later. “She’s not a quick-burn teen artist. We’re planning on her being around for a long time. We’re pursuing performance opportunities to present her as an artist of extraordinary depth.”
The following week, Aguilera, then 18, was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the LP’s lead single, “Genie in a Bottle.” Beginning with the July 31-dated chart, it reigned for five weeks.
Aguilera’s debut album subsequently launched at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 253,000 copies sold in the United States in its first week, according to Luminate.
Trending on Billboard
Per Billboard’s story, written by Larry Flick, in the July 24, 1999, issue, RCA had showcased Aguilera that June in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Las Vegas and Minneapolis, as she performed the album with only piano backing. “It was a highly effective way of presenting her,” George Harrison, then-assistant music director at KSNE Las Vegas, shared. “She has the voice of a young Whitney Houston. Midway through the first song, it was clear that she’s going to be a big, big star.”
With “Genie in a Bottle,” Aguilera unleashed her first of five Hot 100 No. 1s and 11 top 10s. Her introductory set also yielded the leaders “What a Girl Wants” and “Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You).”
On the Billboard 200, Aguilera boasts two No. 1s among seven top 10s, through the No. 6-peaking Liberation in 2018. Her chart history also includes her second LP, the Spanish-language Mi Reflejo, which ruled Top Latin Albums for 19 weeks in 2000-01.
Aguilera’s breakthrough sparked her best new artist Grammy Award win in 2000. Among others, she triumphed in the category over Britney Spears, with whom she starred in The All-New Mickey Mouse Club in the early ‘90s (and whose own debut album, …Baby One More Time, had soared in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in January 1999). Aguilera’s experience on the show also led to her recording “Reflections,” the theme to the 1998 hit Disney film Mulan.
“It was a great way to grow up,” Aguilera told Billboard in 1999 about being a Mouseketeer. “I got the most incredible education, both in terms of who I wanted to be as an artist and in terms of how the business works. It gave me the focus I needed to make this album.”
To date, Aguilera, who served as a coach on NBC’s The Voice in 2011-16, has sold 17.6 million albums in the U.S. Her songs have drawn 28.5 billion in radio audience and 3.1 billion official on-demand streams. Her upcoming tour dates include shows in Las Vegas and Japan, with her eight-month Christina Aguilera at Voltaire residency at The Venetian in Las Vegas running through Aug. 31.
Of “Genie in a Bottle” — which David Frank, Steve Kipner and Pamela Sheyne co-wrote — Aguilera told Billboard in 1999, “At first, I was a little afraid that some people might not completely get where I’m coming from,” referring to the song’s “occasionally seductive lyrical tone,” per Flick. (“Fueled by a chugging groove and richly layered vocals, the tune is punctuated by a breathy command to ‘rub me the right way’,” he wrote.)
“The song is not about sex,” Aguilera said. “It’s about self-respect. It’s about not giving in to temptation until you’re respected. It’s time for something different. It’s time that music make[s] kids feel confident and secure.”
