Why Do You Think Xtina Wasn't Able to Sustain Success as Long as Her Peers

[Future Lovers 6,694]

I want to preface this by saying that I am in no way an Xtina hater. I greatly enjoy two of her albums  (one of which was one of the first albums I ever bought with my own money), I believe she is a genuinely talented individual with a voice that few in her era could compete with, and I think she got worse than she deserved in terms of falling off. This is not a thread intended to bully the woman and I hope we don't end up getting into that. 

But what I can't deny, and what I think most people can't deny, is that she was not able to sustain her success for nearly as long as her closest peers (Britney Spears, Shakira, P!nk, and Kelly Clarkson). Xtina's debut album was a huge commercial success, spawning four top 3 hits (3 of which were #1s), took her to #1 on the album charts, and clenched her the coveted Best New Artist Grammy. 

However, she hit a wall early. Stripped managed to peak at #2 on the album charts, but only managed to materialize one hit in the form of Beautiful. All of the other singles, including it's lead, couldn't manage to crack the top 10 (the previously mentioned lead only barely made it into the top 50). Meanwhile, her peers moved into their second eras (Shakira was technically on her third or fourth, but for the purposes of this discussion we're focusing on her rising to international prominence rather than her regional releases that preceded) finding even more success than they did in their debut and bucking that dreaded sophomore slump. Now, it is interesting to note that Xtina did have to put up with a lot of backlash to her image change at the time and this did factor into her decline in this era.

Xtina managed to bounce back with Back to Basics which returned her to #1 on the album charts (for the last time to date) and managed to get her another top 10 single. The album restored her critical appreciation and is known today as perhaps her most accomplished work. She followed the album up with a compilation that spawned yet another top 10 single (her last to date as a solo artist). She was experiencing the opposite of what her closest peers experienced at the time: they experienced a downturn in their third era whereas Xtina rebounded.

But this is where the good news ceased. Xtina's next album was a critical and commercial failure. Bionic, despite being an underrated work, only managed to get to #3 on the album charts and failed to produce one successful single (it's most successful single peaked at #23). This was in definite contrast to her peers who experienced a resurgence in success with their fourth albums. Britney, Kelly, P!nk, and Shakira all secured some of their biggest and most notable success with their fourth offerings but Xtina didn't, and she never recovered. 

Moving forward, her peers managed to continue collecting successful singles and albums (some more than others but none of them experienced an outright flop until the later portion of the 2010s) but Xtina continued to decline further and further. Even when her output improved from the mistakes of her past, it appeared to just be too late. The question I'd like to discuss here is why? Why did Xtina's peers manage to keep consistent success for a considerable amount of time whereas Xtina wasn't able to even sustain 3 back to back eras of success and completely lost her commercial power (save for the odd smash as a featured artist) after her third album? 

TL;DR: Xtina had a massively successful debut era, but unlike her peers, she was not able to consistently replicate this, only going on to have one more successful era following it. She lost her power completely by the end of her third era whereas as her peers managed to keep consistently collecting successful releases far beyond that. Why did it not pan out for Xtina in the end?

[bestie 217]

I think the over singing... 

[Future Lovers 6,694]

Personally, I think there were three factors that played into Xtina not managing to sustain. 

1. There has always been a considerable amount of time between her albums. This is not inherently a bad thing and it's fantastic she took her time and imo more often than not, this produced at minimum acceptable (occasionally brilliant) results. However, these waits made it difficult for her to keep a forward momentum career wise and she didn't always do much to keep her name in the public consciousness between albums. In the end, these long gaps I think hurt her massively. 

2. Aside from her instantly recognizable voice, she struggled to find something that was uniquely her. Her peers carved out niches for themselves with distinctive styles and aesthetics but Xtina seemed to constantly be in search of something that worked for her. It became harder and harder to say what made her stand out beyond the voice (which is a powerful tool, I will not deny that). 

3. She has often been late to the party when it comes to what's hot in the industry. This sort of ties into the long waits between albums I think. With each album, she felt behind in her sound. She was arriving to genres and styles well after everyone else had and this unfortunately left her work feeling outdated even as it was new. There are some exceptions to this, Back to Basics having done the nostalgia sound before the rest of the pop world had ever thought about it, but in general she wasn't up to date when she came back. 

It's a shame tbh, she's had great concepts and is so talented. Some poor choices just pushed her further down the ladder as time went on, whether she deserved it or not. 

[Starmie25 17,463]

Like Nelly Furtado and Kelly Rowland, Christina managed to do much better outside the USA, especially those first 3 albums. 👌

There's also sadly a lot of gatekeeping over pop stars with big, brash voices which needs to stop seriously. 

[UnknownUser71 2,878]

- Bionic: we cannot deny it, that era killed her career.

- Lack of interest in her musical career.

- She's focused on motherhood since 2010.

- The Voice: she WASTED a LOT of time there instead of touring/releasing music.

- Lotus: even though is not a bad album at all, the era was poorly managed, her voice was not in good shape, plus the era lasted like 2 months and then she disappeared again till 2018 (she released some collabs...)

- Liberation: probably her best album since 2002, but again the era was a mess, Accelerate (I love it) was a horrible choice as the lead single. Again, the era lasted like 2-3 months.

She's SO talented, she's got an incredible music vision, she's also a good songwriter, she's got the looks, the vocals...

but she's no longer interested in her career/success.

She's a legend and someday people will realize how talented she is. Period.

[nightadieu 4,530]

[BlondeQueenOfGGD 25,454]

Her recent albums have been misses for me, her voice is grating to me too sadly, but she’s a good singer

[JusKeepBreathin 19,311]

Stripped was too far ahead of it's time. Videos like Dirrty and Fighter weren't going to be a thing in the US until Gaga. Also radio in the US kept her singles off Dirrty down. All her singles went top ten in the UK.  Notice the one song that made it to #2 was the balad about insecurities. The strong empowerment songs didn't climb the radio charts. 

The album sold 10 million world wide it was not a flop.

And Stripped didn't "manage to hit #2." It debuted at #2 because she was up against Eminem. Eminem had the biggest first week sales for the whole year. No one would have beat him. 

 

[RAMROD 107,622]

Her attitude when she was younger was not it, people in the industry doesn't like that kind of attitude tbh, so probably Xtine was blackballed? 

[RenegAde 18,783]

The catty fan wars between her an britney stans may have played a small role but I think she's a victim of the "amazing singer but bad albums " syndrome 

[js4754394o9823 6,882]

Christina didn't work herself to death 

That's why

She takes time between albums and is releasing music ones every 4 years or more

[Benji 20,113]

I like Xtina but I can’t say that her music post Back To Basics has interested me.

[dove 528]

I sometimes think that they just dont care and they just obey their contract duties and have fun. 
 

Same with katy perry. It seems that her team or label want a #1 more than she does idk. Its like work for them. Its just a thought. Maybe they do actually want a huge comeback idk 

[Runway 27,876]

She was not a very humble artist 

[Galvon 1,868]

I think Bionic era came too late. Especially the Not Myself Tonight video. It was released during Gaga's TFM era. People thought she was copying Gaga. Of course we as fans can see that it hasn't really anything to do with Gaga. It was more Madonna inspired, but Gaga was already being compared to Madonna at the time. So I think that's where it came from. Gaga was more popular at the time and already serving a similar easthetic, so when Christina came with Bionic people thought she wasn't realy genuine. She either could have released it a year earlier when Gaga was in TF era, or a year later when everyone was kinda copying Gaga anyway, so she would not be blamed for it. Just speculating.