CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
A devout Lutheran grandmother from Betoota Grove has found herself revisiting the horror of the post-bubblegum r’n’b that became widely popular at the turn of the milennium.
Once again, Katrina Museley (70) has cast her mind back to Xtina’s multi-platinum track ‘Dirrty’
“I wonder where that poor young girl ended up” mutters Katrina, as she thinks back to one terrifying Sunday morning in 2002, when her teenage daughters had left ABC’s RAGE playing at full volume in the living room.
“I cannot believe they allowed that material on television”
“Dirrty” was a career-defining single, released by American singer Christina Aguilera from her controversial fourth studio album Stripped. Despite Aguilera’s meteoric rise through pop stardom on earlier records, she had grown displeased with the lack of control over her image. In response, she desired to create a song that would represent her authentic persona as a toey army brat turned superstar songstress.
The song peaked at number 48 on the US Billboard 100. Outside of the United States, and went to number 1 on the charts in Ireland and the United Kingdom. It also peaked top ten in Australia, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
However, despite the ear worm lyricism and gritty rap interlude from New Jersey rapper Redman, it was the video clip for Dirrty that will be remembered forever.
Especially by the conservative Christian baby boomers who walked past their family TV while a soaking wet Christina Aguilera was gyrated against thin air in nothing but lingeries and bottomless chaps.
The video clip depicted a range sexual fetishes such as mud wrestling and leather bondage. This aggressive rebrand succesfully torched Aguilera’s previous image as a cutesy girl-next-door pop singer. This song heralded a new era for the American pop star: The Xtina era.
20 years laters, Katrina still clutches her pearls thinking about this video clip – and the amount of young people it may have encouraged to stray from God’s Light.
However, Katrina’s now adult children say that they happy that their mother got a taste of the depravity that exists in the music industry all those years ago.
“She needs to see a bit of this” says her daughter, Bella (40)
“The fear is one day she’s going to see the Cardi B ‘WAP’ video clip that my own daughters play non-stop on the iPad’s Youtube app.
“I don’t think she’ll survive that”
