“I did not intend that the recordings would be widely released, especially after I signed with a major record label.” – Christina Aguilera, 2001
Mere weeks before 9/11, on August 21st, 2001, a new record dropped into stores across America. Peaking at number 78, this collection of demos would not be a smash hit with audiences for a variety of reasons. It lacked contemporary production, a marketing budget, and even a recent image of the performer on the cover.
Opening with the incredibly dated title track, this is just under 50 minutes of 1990s club bangers and shmaltzy ballads. Unlike most material recorded under the watchful eye of a label, the vocals are incredibly raw. Often thin, poorly mixed, and lazily produced – it wasn’t a great holiday stocking stuffer. This is ‘Just Be Free’ by Christina Aguilera.
Or is it?
I hesitate to label this album “by Christina Aguilera”. Yes, it’s her voice on the tracks. Recorded in the wake of ‘The New Mickey Mouse Club’ being cancelled, it’s a collection of songs designed to showcase a teen singer’s potential. Produced by Roberts Allecca and Michael Brown at Warlock Records, a New York based label primarily known for hip hop and dance music, it was seen by Aguilera and her family as a showcase, rather than a commercial product. While she interstitially performed some of the album in the lead up to her 1998 recording contract with RCA, this was not a public venture in any meaningful sense.
“At a young age, I made the recordings as a possible stepping stone to a career in music, which is my ultimate passion. They were made just so that I could get my foot in the door of the music business.” – Christina Aguilera, 2001
The late 1990s and early 2000s were a time when youth was the main selling point in the music industry. On a path paved by singers like the Spice Girls and Aguilera’s Mickey Mouse peers Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, her 1999 smash hit ‘Genie In A Bottle’ ran her all the way to number one. The album was full of those, and by the year 2000, she was a Grammy winning superstar at just 19 years old.
It was then that rumblings came up that Warlock intended to release the demos she had recorded prior to this success.
Obviously, this was a problem. While the teen pop landscape was (unfairly) labelled as lazy garbage by a wide variety of critics both then and now, there was quality associated with the Aguilera brand. Nothing on the three albums she would have officially released by the start of 2001 was as sloppy and underdeveloped as ‘Just Be Free’. But even if the production had been spectacular and the vocals pristine –which they weren’t– it didn’t matter. Aguilera did not want this album released.
A lawsuit was fired up, and both sides petitioned that they were the rightful owners of these demos. For Allecca and Brown, the case was simple in that they produced the songs. Likewise, Aguilera and her lawyer Carla Christofferson argued that the implied agreement of the sessions was never commercial, and that they were using her image to sell music she did not want associated with her brand. The case was started in May and settled by July.
“They are trying to boot strap on the success of Christina Aguilera.” – Carla Christofferson, 2001
Let’s take a step back.
Christina Aguilera is one of the villains of pop music, right? Some may say that’s just an offshoot of misogyny –and part of her reputation undoubtably is– but she’s always just been a tough cookie. Pop music has dozens of vaguely and allegedly mean women who balance hit songs and accusations of nasty behaviour. You don’t have a track called ‘Vanity’ for no reason. It’s fine and actually very fun to witness.
But unlike stories of demanding her hand be kissed by Mary J. Blige or bitchy interviews about former friends, there is no uncharitable reading for Aguilera here. I want to make it very clear that this is not a situation she deserved to deal with. Even if, legally, Warlock Records held the right to release ‘Just Be Free’, it wasn’t an ethical choice. Half a decade past their recording period, this was an obvious attempt to make a buck off of her star power, explicitly against her wishes.
This isn’t the only case of this happening to a starlet in the early 2000s. In January of 2001, just, just 7 months prior, country star LeAnn Rimes was struggling through a similar problem with the release of the compilation album ‘I Need You’. Suing her label in light of this upcoming recording, she demanded all rights and publishing interests of all music and video recordings. She lost her case, and continued to work with the label, but she was one of many who felt taken advantage of.
Music and celebrity are big money businesses that thrive off young and excited people willing to sell their abilities in order to share them. But even and especially today, we’re seeing these young people grow up, realise they’re being exploited, and being stuck in these often-abusive contracts. And even if they get out, as Taylor Swift recently has, they may lose their catalogue and be stuck with a legacy tainted by label greed.
The end result of the 2001 lawsuit between Aguilera and Warlock Records was essentially an admission of defeat on her side. The album was released as expected, with a letter from her in every copy outlining her distaste for the project. But the album was released regardless, and she spent the majority of her career ignoring it.
It’s a fascinating product for the history, but I cannot in good faith even link to any of the tracks here. It’s quite frankly just gross to release music commercially against the artist’s will, and while Aguilera holds no writing credits on any track, this is her music, released with her name and her face. They used her as the product.
Instead, maybe give Stripped or Liberation a listen?
“The ‘Just Be Free’ recordings will hopefully be a footnote in a musical career that I dream will last for many years to come.” - Christina Aguilera