"Genie in a Bottle" is the first single and signature song from Christina Aguilera's debut album, Christina Aguilera. As her first major single, the song is generally considered her debut single (although technically she had released two songs prior to this). Released in mid-1999, the single peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks, becoming Aguilera's first number-one single. The single also peaked at number one in the UK, also becoming her first number one single in that country. The single is generally considered to be one of her signature songs. The single earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 2000; it also helped her win the Best New Artist Grammy that same year. "Genie in a Bottle" hit #1 in 18 countries around the world.
The song is featured on the video game Karaoke Revolution Volume 2.
Song information
"Genie in a Bottle" was written by New Zealander, David Frank, Steve Kipner, and Pamela Sheyne and was produced by Frank and Kipner. The song's songwriting aspect has raised a minor scandal as apparently Aguilera co-wrote the song's B-section. Unfortunately, at the time Aguilera was unfamiliar with the legal aspect of songwriting, and did not submit a songwriting claim.
In her sexually driven debut single, Aguilera begins the song as a sexually repressed young woman stating that she feels like she's been "locked up tight for a century of lonely nights", and that she is waiting for sexual release. She then sees a young man who sexually arouses her, making her exclaim, "My body's saying let's go". However, even though her hormones are "racing at the speed of light", she realizes "my heart is saying no". Nevertheless, Aguilera offers herself to the man by stating, "If you wanna be with me, baby there's a price to pay, I'm a genie in a bottle, You gotta rub me the right way".
The song's lyrics caused minor controversy at the time, as it was felt by some that Aguilera was too young to be singing such relatively suggestive lyrics, particularly as her music was marketed to young girls. The song was censored in some markets with tamer lyrics, in which Aguilera sings "you gotta treat me the right way" (instead of "you gotta rub me the right way"). The censored version was played in preteen-oriented markets such as Radio Disney.
The song has been covered by Sara Bareilles, The Dan Band, Speedway, Thrice, Ten Masked Men and Evil Adam and has made an appearance on Konami's Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2.
Parodist 'Hawaiian Ryan' also recorded a spoof of the song, called "Weenie In A Bottle", one of the tracks from his Saving Ryan's Privates album. This parody is often incorrectly attributed to "Weird Al" Yankovic.
According to Christina's early songwriters who appeared on the documentary series Driven, Christina was not convinced that the track would highlight her voice. Her songwriter claimed that there was a "battle" between Christina and her producers because Christina wanted to display the power and audacity in her voice, whereas her producers would hold her back. In order to enable Christina's voice to be the central focus, she performed acoustic sets and appeared on television shows accompanied only by a piano.
In Aguilera's 2006 album, Back to Basics, a track dedicated to her fans titled "Thank You (Dedication to Fans...)" used samples of Genie in a Bottle. Extracts used such as "I feel like I been locked up", "My body's saying let's go", "oh, oh, oh", "Come on, Come on" and "Baby, Baby, Baby". Aguilera refers to the lock up mentioned in the beginning of the song to her being a prisoner of her dreams.
A new version of the song was performed at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, to commemorate Christina's first Greatest Hits compilation and the MTV Video Music Awards 25th Anniversary.
