The post and performance from the 2012 American Music Awards I'm sure most of you were looking forward to: Christina Aguilera! God help us.
There is one thing I need to quickly say about her-it's a realisation I came to yesterday unexpectedly- and it's that she is the most consistently bad vocalist I think I have ever had the pleasure of being a fan of. If it wasn't for her recording voice, I'm pretty sure I would have jettisoned her from my affections a long time ago. Anyway, back to the performance.
Christina Aguilera's performance at the 2012 American Music Awards started with Lotus, which I'm pretty sure not one word was sung live. The human bodies working like the leaves of the Lotus flower imitated nicely the front cover of the album, but it is odd how this soft and gentle vocal was the part of the medley Christina decided to lipsync to. Next up was Army of me, which was hoarse, out of tune at times, and painful to listen to. I honestly thought that the vocals on the album had been left so raw because it meant she'd be able to sing them live. This performance makes me think otherwise. Finally the medley finished with Let There Be Love. Little singing was done here by Christina, but that backing singer sure earned her money tonight!
Overall this was lazy, uninspired and reminded me of that sad performance given by Britney Spears at the height of her meltdown during the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards [here]. Ultimately it confirms my thoughts that Christina Aguilera is a diva who got her vocal props way too early, and does not deserve to be up there with the greats like Whitney, Mariah, or oft compared, Etta James, yet. Just compare her to Mariah Carey, who has suffered one of the most famous vocal declines in popular music. She was still giving performances like this at around Christian's age [here].
Whereas Pink continues to inspire with her live set at the AMAs [here], and rightly so, reading the comments [see below] on Christina's performance makes me think she has damaged a generation's perception of what "amazing" singing is. I know it's incredibly subjective, but come on, Taylor Swift -who is often ridiculed for her voice-sang better than her on the night. It's actually a little depressing how deluded some people are.
I honestly don't know what Christina can do to stop this decline, but whatever it is, I pray she does it soon.
