Born Christina Maria Aguilera, 18 December 1980, Staten Island, New York, USA. Aguilera was one of several US teen pop stars to rise to huge popular acclaim in the late 90s. Of Irish and Ecuadorian descent, her mother played violin and piano professionally while her father's position in the military resulted in the family travelling extensively around the world. Finally settling in Wexford, Pittsburgh, Aguilera began performing at school talent shows, before making her first professional appearance at the age of eight on the nationally syndicated Star Search Show. When she was 10 she sang the national anthem for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pirates. She joined [Walt] Disney's Mickey Mouse Club at the age of 12, appearing alongside future pop stars JC Chasez and Justin Timberlake of 'N Sync, and Britney Spears Aguilera spent two years with the Mickey Mouse Club before moving to Japan to record "All I Wanna Do", a hit duet with local pop star Keizo Nakanishi.

Back in the USA in early 1998, Aguilera recorded "Reflection" for the soundtrack of Disney's full-length animation Mulan. Her rapid ascent to stardom continued when she signed to RCA Records shortly afterwards. Her debut album was recorded with a host of leading songwriters and producers. "Genie In A Bottle", a lightweight swingbeat number with an infectious hookline, went to the top of the US charts in July 1999. Written by UK-based songwriter Pam Sheyne, the single stayed at the top for 5 weeks, making it the biggest selling US single of the year. The other tracks on Aguilera's self-titled debut included upbeat dance anthem "Love Will Find A Way", soulful ballad "So Emotional", and the requisite Diane Warren blockbuster, "I Turn To You". The album entered the US album chart at number 1 in September. A month later "Genie In A Bottle" entered the UK singles chart at number 1.

Aguilera proved herself a genuine rival for Spears' teen pop crown when she returned to the top of the US charts in January 2000 with "What A Girl Wants" and again in October with "Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)". In a shrewd marketing ploy, she then released a Spanish-language collection of her hits, Mi Reflejo, and the seasonal My Kind Of Christmas. Aguilera enjoyed a transatlantic chart-topper the following summer with a cover version of LaBelle's "Lady Marmalade', recorded with Lil' Kim, Myaand Pink for the soundtrack of the movie Moulin Rouge. The singer unveiled a new sexually-charged image on her second studio album, 2002"s Stripped. The set was a commercial flop on both sides of the Atlantic, although Aguilera enjoyed surprise UK chart-toppers with the singles "Dirrty" (featuring Redman) and "Beautiful" (written by Linda Perry of 4 None Blondes fame). The latter also broke into the US Top 5.

From the moment you first place Played's new album Stripped in your CD player, the transformation she has gone through, both as an artist and a person, is evident. Nowadays, she adorns a collection of slender gold chains around her neck; a Playboy bunny logo charm dangles off one, while another bears a flashy b-girl nameplate reading "X-tina," her nickname. A tiny barbell pierces the skin just below her lower lip - a recent companion to the stud in her left nostril. Gone is the "green and inexperienced" fresh-faced former mouseketeer who sang the readymade ballads and spunky, safe pop of her self-titled debut. True to its title, Stripped, strips away the last remnants of her previous teen idol persona. What's left is a highly personal proclamation of independence and adulthood. The Stripped collection is a melting pot of soul, R&B, rock, hip-hop and Latin influences; a tapestry of songs that are raw, reflective and personal. "I got a chance to show of all these colours and textures of my love of music and of my vocal range," she says. "Coming off of the height of being a part of such a big pop-craze phenomenon, that imagery of that cookie-cutter sweetheart, without it being me, I just had to take it all down and get it away from me. And that is why I actually named the album Stripped, because it is about being emotionally stripped down and pretty bare to open my soul and heart."

"A lot of my past is in this record," she explains. "What I was going through on tour, what's in my head about everything, about my personal life. It's like an open book. A storybook, from beginning to end. I'm telling my story." Yet at the same time, Stripped isn't simply a reaction to the past. "I wanted to explore some of the music that had inspired me coming up," she explains. "I've always been a huge fan of soul. I love real rock & roll and hip-hop, of course, is one of my biggest influences. I wanted it all."

The album is the first step of Aguilera's comeback after an eighteen-month hiatus. Initially, Aguilera spent much of her time at her Los Angeles home where she could catch her breath, and reconnect with herself in the process. "So much had happened in such a short time, and not only in my career. I'd gone through a breakup with my first real love and I began realizing that I should be experiencing a bit more of life than TV and recording studios, hotels and green rooms." Aguilera steadily began to fearlessly break free from the mass media mask that hid her true self, and the full scope of her talent. "I felt trapped," she admits. "I was under the thumb of people who were mostly interested in keeping me doing exactly the same thing".

However well-intended (and arguably well-deserved) her hiatus was, Aguilera soon found herself unable to resist the lure of a promising creative collaboration. I'm driven," is Aguilera's frank admission. "Even in the midst of touring, I was thinking about what my next album would be, writing bits and pieces of songs in journals and scrapbooks." She soon joined forces with Pink, Myaand Lil' Kim on the smash Lady Marmalade single and video, something which kept her front and centre in the international spotlight even as she began, slowly and steadily, to lay the groundwork for a musical manifesto that would change all the rules. "For a long time, I'd been uncomfortable with the image that had been built around me and my music. It felt like I was pretending, trying to hide the real me, and hurting inside because of it. This time I was determined to step beyond the hype and glitter, to take it back down to the bare necessities. It was like starting all over again."

Aguilera set about to achieve what she wanted with a relentless determination and a willingness to stretch her creative boundaries. "I've always thought recording was about attaining perfection," she reveals. "What I discovered making this album is that getting across real feelings is what's important". As much as possible, Aguilera wanted to have the listener right there in the studio with her, sharing what everything that she was really going through.

And the first and most formidable challenge for Aguilera was to assemble a supporting cast that, in her words, "weren't influenced by my old image." Recorded over an eighteen-month stretch, with Christina firmly at the helm every step of the way, Stripped slowly but surely took shape, not only as an exercise in breathtaking stylistic diversity but as a resonant and revealing look into the mind and emotions of a young woman on the verge of personal and professional liberation. Linda Perry, the 4 Non Blondes frontwoman helped her unload a lot of frustration once she also learned to relieve stress by screaming and to accept and even embrace her mistakes.

"She taught me that imperfections are good and should be kept because it comes from the heart," Aguilera says "It makes things more believable and it's brave to share them with the world." The sonic therapy resulted in several tracks "that were a little difficult" for Aguilera. I'm Ok sounds like a "twisted lullaby," - she confronts ghosts of domestic violence and child abuse (Aguilera and her mother were abused by her father when she was young) and transforms them into talismans of strength and courage. Another of her therapeutic collaborations with Perry is Beautiful, an achingly rich ballad which is "all about being proud of who you are, no matter what people say ... you still know you're beautiful," Aguilera says of the track. "It's an amazing thing to say, 'I'm beautiful,' without feeling like you're cocky. It's a really cool feeling to be able to sing that so raw."

The twenty new tracks that comprise Stripped, including her sensational first single, Dirrty, showcases an unadorned, unfettered and fearlessly outspoken artist who has liberated herself, her soul and her music on an album that is as much a declaration of independence as it is a convincing demonstration of her fierce and original talent. Says Aguilera of her first single, "I loved 'Let's Get Dirty', so I asked Rockwilder to put something together kind of like that for me." She laughs. "What I got was a little too close, but then I figured, 'Why not?' The track is like an answer song to the original, only from a female point of view."

While Dirrty and Get Mine, Get Yours make no bones about celebrating one's libido, Stripped is by no means just a party record. Can't Hold Us Down, featuring Lil' Kim, is a hip-pop feminist anthem about sexual hypocrisy and double standards, a subject that hits closer to home now that she's been taken to task for her in-your-face sexualised imagery. "Can't Hold Us Down" also can be read as an answer to past detractors such as Fred Durst and Eminem, though she said to do so would be "misconstruing the point."

"I'm more interested in helping girls stand up for themselves. That's what the song is about - double standards and how we're supposed to look and act a certain way just to please men. If I have any influence as an entertainer, I want to be optimistic and uplifting, to make this world a little better place to live."

Other songs, such as the sensual Latin jazz number Infatuation and the funkier Underappreciated, are more specific, tracing steps in her relationship with ex-boyfriend Jorge Santos, one of the dancers in her live shows and videos. The lyrics to Infatuation find her falling in love, and in Underappreciated, out of it. Then there's Impossible, the much talked about collaboration with Alicia Keys.

For Played, it all begins by getting real. "I'm completely excited and I'm not really scared, because this is me," she confidently asserts. "I can't hide. I'm not a puppet. I can't just sit up there and keep doing the same kind of music. It's time for me to explore." And explore she will; up next is a tour with former fellow mouseketeer Justin Timberlake, and a movie if she has her way. If the content of her album is anything to go by, she almost certainly will. And that is by no means a bad thing.