Have you seen that new Christina Aguilera video?” I was asked this by my roommate the other day and promptly replied that I hadn’t. He hadn’t either but had heard a great deal concerning it. Most of the gossip centered on a lot of skin being shown.

He was so stuck on seeing this video that he camped in front of the television to watch “TRL,” determined to catch a glimpse of what Christina was flaunting. I sat down for a couple of minutes and endured not only the excessive amount of screaming fans, but also the show’s guest host — Good Charlotte.

Does it make anyone else mad that these guys dress like Rancid but sound more like LFO? Anyway, that’s a whole different column.

I eventually had to leave our apartment to run some errands, wiping away my chances of seeing the video. My roommate on the other hand, skipped class in order to watch it. It wasn’t long before I received a text message on my cell phone saying, “She was No. 1, it was fantastic.”

A few days later I was getting ready for bed when my roommate frantically knocked on my door, telling me the video was on. I grabbed the remote and took a look for myself. What I saw was absolutely amazing. I never thought that any teen pop star could possibly out-trash or out-tramp Britney Spears … but Christina did it.

Aguilera shows what a girl wants, and apparently it is to strut around in a bikini top, chaps and a pair of red panties pulled up her ass while dry-humping various back-up dancers, both male and female. She sings about getting naughty (she even says “ass”) and dirty and about sweat dripping off her body. Good thing later in the video she cleans herself by splashing around in a pool of water.

The genie is out of the bottle; this ain’t the same little girl with a great big voice that busted onto the music scene in 1999.

In an interview conducted during the making of her new album, Aguilera told MTV, “I just get really bored with sticking to the norm and having the proper conservative image. That’s just so not me.”

Who needs to rely on sheer talent when instead you can rely on your butt cheeks, huh, Christina?

To increasingly move away from this “proper conservative” image that she has so strictly adhered to throughout the years, the former Mickey Mouse Clubber is also working on developing her street credentials, apparently.

And how better to do it than to start incorporating a little hip hop street slang into your songs, call your song “Dirty” instead of just dirty and feature a rapper in your video? Redman is the rapper (she also straddles and dry-humps him) in the video and Rockwilder produced the track.

My question is, “Why these shenanigans, Christina?” I’m not so na‹ve that I don’t realize what sells in today’s world of music — its not so much talent but sexiness and what’s trendy. You were making a career for yourself, though.

I never have liked your songs and I don’t buy your albums, but I can recognize talent when I hear it, and that is why I always rooted for you. Unlike your main competitor, Britney, you are a tremendously talented singer. Britney and many other teenie popsters hit the jackpot. We don’t really need to get into this, but there is no denying that they found a golden ticket in the pocket of their Abercrombie vests.

You on the other hand, while definitely relying on appeal, have a voice that shouldn’t be able to come out of that body. And you’re sexy without having to cross that line into the high-class hooker world of Britney Spears.

C’mon Christina, think twice about taking the obvious route. Look what happened to Mariah Carey after choosing the same career moves. She goes from being an innocent-but-sexy talent with some of the best pipes in music to wearing a bandanna around her boobs and having every hip-hop artist who was popular at the time appear in her videos. Do you ever see Mariah on television wearing anything that doesn’t expose every bit of cleavage she has? Now she has Eminem, of all people, saying how crazy she is — that’s low.

Christina, I like seeing your butt cheeks just as much as my horny roommate but I can’t give my consent to this image change. I mean, what’s next – a video with Ja Rule?

Trevor Fisher

is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Knoxville. He is the arts and entertainment senior reporter for the Daily.