While Christina Aguilera generally isn’t one of my first choices when it comes to music, one of my co-workers just turned me on to her new single, “Candyman.” Heavily inspired (in a good way) by “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” it’s an incredibly infectious little 40’s swing-style pop tune, and it’s getting a lot of play around the apartment right now.
Apparently Back to Basics, the album that “Candyman” comes off of, has Christina experimenting with a lot of different vocal styles from the past, with Christina describing it as “a throwback to the 20s, 30s, and 40s-style jazz, blues, and feel-good soul music, but with a modern twist.” When I browsed through the album on iTunes, most of the snippets didn’t really grab me — they had a bit too much of a ‘modern’ (hip-hop) twist to them. However, along with “Candyman,” two others ended up finding their way into my collection: “Nasty Naughty Boy” and “I Got Trouble.”
All three songs are together in the second half of the album, and they all concentrate on a very 40’s sound — though each is from a very different musical style. Where “Candyman” draws on the big-band sound, “Nasty Naughty Boy” uses slow, sultry jazz styles (think Jessica Rabbit’s “Why Don’t You Do Right” in Who Framed Roger Rabbit with the vamp amped up — this one is just begging to be used in a burlesque routine), and “I Got Trouble” heads down to play with a very southern blues feel.
Of course, this being late 2000’s pop, and Christina being Christina, the lyrics have a tendency to slip over the line from innuendo into straight-out raunch. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make for a good laugh.
As I said above, the rest of Back to Basics didn’t grab me, but those three? I’d definitely say it’s worth spending the three bucks to snag ’em off of iTunes. And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you’re listening to Christina Aguilera if you don’t want me to. ;)