"Dirrty," the lead single from Christina
Aguilera's sophomore effort Stripped, should have been a
huge chart success. Though the video became a top request on
MTV, the song hardly dirrtied up the pop charts. What to
make of the mixed message? People were more interested in
Aguilera's ass than her vocal assets—or maybe the track
just wasn't what the public wanted from the formerly
squeaky-clean genie in a bottle. But the single was, in
fact, one of the year's strongest, with an over-the-top
performance built on a durable high-energy hip-pop track
that borrowed heavily from Redman's "Let's Get Dirty (I
Can't Get In Da Club)." An undisputed club banger and a
signpost of a new era in Aguilera's career,
"Dirrty" was an arrival song in every sense of the
term. SC