Christina Aguilera, "Get Mine, Get Yours," Music Review. CYS.

OVERVIEW

STYLE OF MUSIC

Pop, with hip-hop, dance, soul, and R&B

HOW SHE GOT STARTED

Christina knew she wanted to be a performer at a very young age. At 10, she auditioned for The Mickey Mouse Club and did not make the cut. However, she was called back two years later and stayed on the show until she was 14. Afterwards, she moved to Japan to record “All I Wanna Do.” Her manager heard about a search Disney was doing so Aguilera recorded a demo CD in her living room and 48 hours later she was recording “Reflection” for the movie Mulan. Her performance earned her a record deal with RCA as well as a nomination for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture. Since then, she has written many chart-topping songs and has won several awards with the most recent CD being Stripped (2002).

HER CAREER AND IMAGE

Christina was on the leading edge of the teen pop craze in 2000 with others like Britney Spears, N’SYNC, and 98*. She was considered by some to be a better role model than many of her peers and said “I’m more interested in helping girls stand up for themselves…If I have any influence as an entertainer, I want it to be optimistic and uplifting, to make this world a little better place to live.” However, as time went on critics started commenting on the sexual turn her image was taking. She commented on her new look that “For a long time, I’d been uncomfortable with the [good girl] 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.” She feels that a more sexual image is the “real her” and has said in interviews that she loves experimenting with her sexuality much to the despair of many who used to point to her as an example for younger girls.

LATEST CD: Stripped (2002)

In Aguilera’s latest CD, she resolved to “step beyond the hype and glitter” in order to reveal her true, raw self as she mentions in the first interlude. Each of her covers has been racier than the last with more skin exposure; for Stripped she decided to pose topless (top right). The majority of the songs have to do with love and relationships with a few others like “Beautiful” sprinkled throughout. Although she has a tough girl image as reflected in many of her songs such as “Fighter,” they are intermixed with songs of infatuation and being helpless against men in “Walk Away” and “Infatuation.” Words like “shout louder/ letting [men] know we're gonna stand our ground” followed by lyrics that say “darling you hold me prisoner/… I'm addicted to your lure” gives an overall impression of double standards. It sends many mixed signals about relationships between men and women.   

EXEGESIS

“Get Mine, Get Yours” from Christina Aguilera’s second English album, “Stripped” is a song that Christina feels is without “depth of meaning.” She told a reporter in a personal interview for Rolling Stones Magazine, “It is about casual sex, just what the title is: I’m in it to get mine, and you get yours.  We can do this and just have fun. ‘I want your body not your heart’ kind of thing.”  This song is what one critic has called the siren song for today’s new “hookup” culture. There is an alarming rate of young teens being active in orgies and oral sex with multiple people. Dating and romance for today has been replaced by casual hookups and one night stands.

     The sad thing about this song is that the music seems to “dumb up” the message with its catchy tune. A review of Aguilera’s album and the song “Get Mine, Get Yours” on epions.com reinforced our feelings. “If anyone is against meaningless sex it’s me, why reduce yourself to a number in another person’s life? But nevertheless… the beauty of the music and Christina’s voice really mellows the message down. The words are pretty; I never loved a song so much while disagreeing so strongly with its message.”  This song expresses a longing best explained by Janice Shaw Crouse in her Speaking Out article: “[Women] may be listening to Aguilera sing her songs of sorrow. They may come up with crude new slang to mask their pain and emptiness. But, driven by the imprint of God placed in our nature, they still hear in their hearts the age-old Song of Songs: My beloved is mine, and I am his.”

USE OF THIS SONG IN MINISTRY

If we were to use this song in our youth program, we would present it as a small group study to a group of girls (although, if altered a bit, could be used for whole group).  First off, without telling the girls about the song or what our lesson was about, we would play the song, or part of the song and just have the girls listen. Afterwards we would ask them some questions about what they heard.

For example:

1. What do you think of this song?

2. What did you like about it? Why?

3. What did you not like about it? Why?

Next we would play it again, giving them a copy of the lyrics, to see if they notice anything different from when they listened the first time.  Then we would ask them how they felt about the message behind the song (questions below). After a brief discussion we would open our Bibles and see what God has to say about sex.  Verses to start off with would be used to show that God created sex for a man and woman to become united as one in marriage. Besides Genesis 1:28 and 2:24, another example would be Proverbs 5:15-20, with a brief explanation of the passage.  Next, we would read verses that had to do with sexual impurity, or how God does not want us to behave.  Good passages to use would be 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, Romans 6:12-13, 19-21, Romans 13:13-14, and 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8. There could also be a discussion of what God’s definition of feminine beauty is according to Proverbs 31. Finally we would close with the song “Wait for Me” by Rebecca St. James, a song that is written from a Christian woman’s perspective of how sex really should be, according to God’s will, and how she is saving herself. Leaders could offer alternatives such as giving the names of Christian artists that have the same sound. An example would be Christian artists Nicole C. Mullen, or Joy Williams, who have the same R&B stylings and dance/pop sounds of Christina Aguilera’s albums.

Leaders and/or parents working with the topic of sex or sexual immorality in their youth group could use this song as a way to show other leaders and parents that lyrics and the messages in pop music today are often not taken as serious as they should. Our culture is all about perverting the gift of sex, something God created to be beautiful in its context, into a way to get immediate satisfaction and gratification. Using a song such as “Get Mine, Get Yours” would be a great intro into a discussion about what is going on in kids’ lives today. It is relevant to the sexual trends in many junior and senior high schools today and it needs to be addressed. It might prove most effective in a setting where parents and other adults could learn what the issues are before addressing a youth group or Young Life group about purity and sexual immorality.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1.       What makes a song a good one? Is this one good? Why or why not?

2.       How do you feel as a woman when another woman is telling guys all we want is casual sex? Do you feel sexy listening to the music?

3.       What do you think this message is sending to young girls that listen, or even young males? Would you want your little sister listening to this?

4.       What should sex should be like?

5.       Does God care what we listen to? Is it bad to like Christina’s music or other secular music?

IMPLICATIONS

1.       Youth leaders will want to think about what aspects of pop songs are attractive to young girls: the lyrics, the beat, the melody, how it makes them feel etc. and what makes them different from other songs.  A lot of times they message behind the song is drowned out by the style, or sound of the artist’s voice.

2.       Leaders should be aware that sometimes the lyrical message is not being perceived as harmful to youth today, and should approach the subject, not in a condemning way, but in a way that encourages reflection or understanding of the true meaning of the lyrics.  It is good to keep in mind that from the perspective of the teen, when you attack their favorite pop group/song, you’re not so much attacking the artist as you are the teen who is listening.

3.       Leaders could offer alternatives such as giving the names of Christian artists that have the same sound. An example would be Christian artists Nicole C. Mullen, or Joy Williams, who have the same R&B stylings and dance/pop sounds of Christina Aguilera’s albums.

Rachael Erickson and Jacque Parshall, Copyright 2005. CYS