Music review: Christina Aguilera Liberation

As a long time Christina Aguilera fan I'd begun wondering when she was going to release her next album. She'd had a six year break. This was back at the beginning of May, so you can imagine my delight when the lead single, Accelerate was released on the third of May and an album, Liberation was announced at the same time.

The second single, Twice, which is clearly about making tough decisions was released the following week, and then the third single, Fall in Line, featuring Demi Lovato and about how people should stand up for themselves was released.

The initial single was met with mixed reactions because of its hip hop sound. To give some context, the track was produced by singer/songwriter/future politician Kanye West. Long time Christina Aguilera fans will disagree with the sentiment that it wasn't true of Christina Aguilera's sound. Back in 2002 she collaborated with L'il Kim for Can't Hold Us Down off her album Stripped, and she's previously dabbled in other genres like Jazz on Back to Basics.

As with the cover of the album, Liberation is an album about stripping back the layers, finding yourself and doing what you believe in. It's somewhat political with songs about women being empowered and one track, Dreamers, containing statements by little girls about what they want to achieve in the future.

Christina Aguilera Liberation album cover

The album opens with the song, Maria, which is an upbeat sassy song about finding Maria. It could be about an alter ego that's strong and feisty. Speaking of feisty, another song that stands out is Sick of sittin' which is about Christina being sick of sitting, saying nothing and just taking what's dished out to her.

Right Moves, Deserve and Unless it's with you depart from the political theme of the album and are about relationships. In Deserve, Christina questions whether or not the person she's with should be with her and sings that she's always picking a fight.

Despite Christina taking six years to release the new album, it's her best piece of work, and as another reviewer wrote, it's very much like her early work in Stripped and her self titled album.

I give it a 4.5 out of 5.