Toxic Tango: Britney Spears vs. Christina Aguilera

For ‘80s babies, Britney and Christina represent the ultimate fan face-off. Originally friends and co-stars on The Mickey Mouse Club reboot in the early ‘90s, by the decade’s end they were pitted against one another in the press and in the charts. On the surface, the comparisons were obvious. They were two blonde, ex-Disney stars turned pop upstarts, barnstorming Billboard with suggestive ear-candy like “…Baby One More Time” and “Genie in a Bottle.” But a close listen to their discographies reveals a stark contrast between Britney’s bubble-gum electro-pop and Christina’s R&B leanings. As they grew older, their individual expressions of sexuality made them lightning rods for controversy. Soon they were forced into a troubling cultural dichotomy. The Southern-born Britney was portrayed in the media as the “Good Girl” who publicly renounced sex before marriage. The NYC-raised Christina Aguilera made no such proclamations. Her public “Bad Girl” reputation was enhanced by songs like “Dirrty” that celebrated her sexual agency. For a time, the cultural firestorm threatened to overshadow their massive talent. Now both are recognized as beloved entertainment icons.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rivals as a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and
feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and

(00:20):
I'm Jordan, and today we're gonna talk about Britney Spears
versus Christina Aguilera and I gotta say, as a millennial,
this is probably the biggest pop rivalry of our time.
I mean, at least the side of In Sync and
Backstreet Boys. This is Coke versus PEPSI Literally they were
the competing poke spokespeople. This is Windows versus McIntosh. This
is Toma Gotchi versus Nano Baby. This is the big one. Yeah,
you know, it truly is the Beatles versus Stones of

(00:43):
late nineties teen pop divas. In in in this scenario,
Brittany is the Beatles. You know, she became a big
star first, she was more wholesome and I think she
ultimately set the pace for the rivalry. Christina, meanwhile, was
the Stones. You know, she was the naughty one, especially
when she decided to become ex Na during the Dirty era.
That was pretty wild. Yeah, I have to say I always,

(01:05):
at the time at least pretended to like Christina more
because she always kind of seemed more like the underdog
to me, and I thought if I said that I
liked her more, that would make me appear more interesting, which,
you know, shockingly this this failed to occur. But I
definitely thought she had the much stronger voice, And when
I first heard what a Girl Wants Like, I really
thought she was going to kind of go down the
Mariah carry R and B route and be her own thing. More,

(01:26):
I didn't really see her much as being pitted against Brittany,
despite the obvious you know, blonde pop comparisons. But you know,
you gotta say Britney's magnetism is just undeniable. I mean,
she's Brittany bitch. I consider myself less to grow up
at a time when they both roamed the floors of
t RL. Yeah, it really is a fascinating contrast. You know,

(01:46):
Christina does have the more conventionally powerful voice. You can
slot her in that Whitney Houston Mariah carry Diva lineage
a lot more comfortably than Brittany. But Brittany, to me,
is the more distinctive stylist. You know, her voice not
be especially strong, especially compared with Christina Aguilera, but her
phrasing is so unique. I mean, anyone who's ever heard

(02:06):
Britney Spears can probably do a Britney Spears impression. I
mean she's like Bob Dylan in that way. Uh Am,
I the first person to compare Britney Spears to Bob Dylan,
by the way, that is that is up there. Yeah,
I know that this This is such a fascinating rivalry.
I'm so excited we're doing this because I think that
there's so much to learn, because you know, I don't
think there was a lot to learn from Backstreet versus

(02:28):
in Sync, other than maybe don't sign a contract with
Lou Pearlman. But on this side, I think there's an
awful lot to learn here because it says so much
about how we view women in our culture, how we
discuss addiction and mental health, and just the challenges of
fame and the digital age. And I think that both
Christina and Brittany are sort of held up now with
survivors of pretty much the worst treatment that I can

(02:48):
think of that the media can dish out, and they
made it out the other side, and I think it
gives them a lot more significance than I ever would
have imagined in the nineties. Yeah, I mean, they're both
like relatively young still, but they've been through so much
in their lives already at this point. But as you said,
they are both survivors and we are here to salute them.
So without further ado, let's get into this mess. So

(03:11):
to get to the heart of this feud, you have
to throw it all the way back to the all
New Mickey Mouse Club, and the show still blows me
away as just such an insane talent pole. I mean,
you had J. C. Chaze, you had Carrie Russell, you
had Ryan Gosling, you had Justin Timberlake, and of course
Brittany and Christina. And it's interesting because in interviews with
the show's producers years later, they would say that they

(03:33):
got Christina chiefly because of her incredible voice, which was
pretty much fully formed at that point, even though she
was like what twelve thirteen, The producers were described watching
her sing as almost like witnessing something divine, so she
was she was full ex tena at that age. Um.
And they hired Brittany mostly for her dance moves, which

(03:53):
they didn't think her singing was very strong, which is
weird because when you watch all those early early clips
of Brittany is like an eight nine ten year old
on Star Search and even some Mickey Mouse Club clips,
you can hear that she has a really strong voice.
It's it's interesting because it's unusual. It's really really deep
for a little girl. And they're all these conspiracy theories
about how Jive Records forced her to sing in this

(04:15):
sort of high pitched baby with a head cold voice
and it messed up her actual singing voice, which was
actually quite low, almost like Share or something or Miley Cyrus.
So some would say that her like you know, as
you said, a really distinctive vocal stylings is what made
her a star. Others would say it kind of came
at the cost of damaging her natural gifts. Whatever the case,
she had it in her heart to be a singer,

(04:36):
and being cast as kind of a second stringer to
to Christina in this regard must have been really devastating
for and yet at the same time, Britney spears. Even
though maybe she wasn't considered as good as a singer
as Christina Aguilera, she was already I think the bigger
star at this time and It's fascinating when you go
through all the episodes that we've had on this show,

(04:56):
because often when you have rivals that knew each other
there when they were children, the dynamics that existed later
on in their relationship were there from the beginning. And
I think that with Christina and Britney Spears, there is
this dynamic of Brittany coming first and having more success
and Christina always sort of legging behind and aiming for her,

(05:17):
as you said before, being the underdog. And not only
that did that exist professionally on The Mickey Mouse Club,
but also personally, Like this came out years later, but
apparently Christina Aguilera had a thing for Justin Timberlake at
this time, and of course j T and Britney Spears
already had their thing going on, So Christina was looking

(05:37):
at Brittany sort of maybe pining for her status on
the show, but also pining for what she had with
Justin Timberlake. By the way, just a quicksidebar, we need
to do a Britney Spears versus Justin Timberlake episode at
some point. Oh my god, you know, just the picture
of them like in the Denham tuxedos you know, like
that photo. I just want to talk about that for

(05:59):
an hour, but that will definitely be a good episode.
But setting that aside again, I think we can see
that the dynamics that we're going to see play out
in this rivalry between Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, it
existed even back at the Mickey Mouse Club And just
another side by. The interesting thing is, I think Ryan
Gosling also had a big crush on Brittany. So imagine
if Ryan dated Brittany Christina dated Justin Timberlake, the whole

(06:22):
history of pop music in the early adds could have
been completely different. It's like such history I think would
be different. You know, we would be having flying cars now,
there would be you know, a cure for coronavirus. All
of the problems that we have. I think would have
been solved if fate had taken that direction, But unfortunately
it didn't. Know this is that that is quite a

(06:44):
butterfly theory that I never considered until right now. But
unfortunately we're stuck in this reality. And after The Mickey
Mouse Club ends, Brittany goes back to this sort of
semi normal life. She attends this, uh, this religious private
school in Mississippi. She was a talks with Luke Pearlman
to join his girl group Innocence, but that fell through,
which was probably for the best after everything we know

(07:05):
about Lou and Brittany, though it's hard to imagine now,
had a hard time getting a deal because this was
the era of the Spice Girls and in Sync and
Backstreet Boys, and label chiefs thought that bands were actually
much easier sell than solo acts. So eventually Brittany gets
an audition with Jive Records and she blew them away
with cover of Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing, which again
is an indication of the kind of stuff that she

(07:25):
liked to sing at that time, and they loved it.
They signed her. They flew to Sweden in the spring
of record her debut album with producers Max Martin Dennis Pop,
who are probably the biggest pop architects of the last
twenty five years maybe uh. And the result was Baby
One More Time, which was a phenomenon pretty much from
the moment. It was released in January and it was
the biggest selling album ever by a teenage artist, debuted

(07:48):
at number one on the charts, went double platinum in
two months and then later on went Diamond and this
is mostly on the strength of the album's lead single,
Baby One More Time, which came up the prior fall,
and it was initially offered to both the Backstreet Boys
and TLC, but they both turned it down because they
were worried about the title seeming like a condoned violence.
So that's, you know, another interesting offshoot of pop history

(08:10):
right there. And the song is just one of the
greatest pop songs ever written. And of course it's given
a boost by this video. And Jive initially wanted to
have an animated video and Brittany rejected it. She wanted
to be something that she thought her young fans could
relate to, so she wanted to set in a school,
and the videos actually filmed in the school that they

(08:30):
filmed Greece in and uh during wardrobe fitting, they initially
had her in jeans and a T shirt, and it
was apparently her idea to go with I guess her
actual school, but not her actual school uniform, but with
a Catholic school uniform like the type she wore back
home in Mississippi, And of course that became one of
the most iconic music video moments. Ever, I'd say top five,

(08:52):
top three, definitely up there at least for my Yeah,
that's such an iconic image of her in school girl outfit.
And this is all to the beginning of this weird
dissonance that exists with Britney Spears because on one hand,
and you watch that video and she's a beautiful young
woman wearing a schoolgirl's outfit, and look, that's an archetype
that is very heavily weighted in our culture. Uh, let's

(09:16):
just say that it's associated with certain forms of erotic
cinema going on for decades, you know, So when people
see her in that outfit, it's not just oh, this
is like a cool music video. It comes with this
history that an audience is bringing to it and projecting
onto her. And not only does this proved to be popular,
of course, with teenagers at the time, but it's also

(09:37):
popular with the middle aged male population of the country.
Very unseemly sort of dimension of her fandom. But it's
undeniable that that was part of her appeal and it
also made her a very controversial figure in her time.
So she has that element of her persona, but then
she has this other element that when she does interviews,

(09:59):
she's very guileless about her sexuality. When when reporters ask her,
you know, are you sexually provocative in your videos? Like
why is this something that you're pursuing in your music,
she would always act very coy about it and basically say,
I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just wearing
these cool clothes that I like. There's nothing unseemly about it.
I'm just a nice Southern Christian girl who is a

(10:22):
virgin and I'm going to save myself for marriage. And
you know, we're going to talk about Madonna later because
I think Madonna is an important figure in both of
their careers, and of course she actually makes an appearance
at a very important juncture for both Brittany and Christina.
But when we talk about Madonna, you know, she was
someone who was always very deliberate about the sexual provocation

(10:44):
of her music and her persona, and she welcomed the
intellectual element of that and people analyzing the subtext of
her music, videos and her music. Britney Spears did not,
you know, like, she would not entertain any sort of
subtextual analysis of what she was doing. She would deny
that there was anything provocative really about her videos. So
again there's this like weird dissonance where she's playing with

(11:06):
these archetypes that are very heavily weighted in our culture,
but at the same time she's acting innocent, and it's
hard to know sometimes, like to what degree she's sincere
about this. I wonder if it is ultimately a reflection
of Britney Spears, maybe not being in total control of
her image and career, which is going to be something
that we see manifest itself later on in her life. Yeah,

(11:30):
it's so tough to tell because I mean, on one hand,
some of the reports I've read was things that like
oh the Baby One More Time video was her idea,
and like the famous Rolling Stone cover when she's on
the bed with the teletubby with the the David le
Chappelle shot was supposedly her idea too, So it's difficult
to tell, you know, who was in control of that.

(11:52):
But yeah, her her responses and interviews are basically always like, well,
what do you mean, I'm just being myself, which is
such an incredible neutral answer because you can still continue
to project whatever you want onto it. You can by
by saying, you know, I'm a good Southern girl, and
I'm I'm gonna save myself for marriage. I mean, she
was a paragon of sort of nineties Southern values. But

(12:13):
you're right, there was this whole other side there that, um,
that was pretty hard to deny. And and the the
distance is really funny. I mean, there was an article
in two thousand one where she's described in the same article,
i think, in the same paragraph as America's reigning taboo
temptress and a couple of lines later America's most famous
virgin in the same graph. So yeah, it's very interesting

(12:35):
because by teasing sex but still saying all the you know,
in quotes right things to pass for conventional morality in
nineties America, I think she succeeded in appealing, as you said,
to kind of everyone she was. Yeah, I mean, really
it could be like her genius. She was ambiguous like that,
that she could play both sides of the fence and
you know, in some respects be this wholesome pop star,

(12:58):
but on the other hand, also be as they said,
a taboo temptress whatever that means. Um. What I think
is interesting in terms of her rivalry with Christina Aguileray
and we're going to see this is that I think
Christina was much more deliberate about her persona and her image,
and like the coyness that Britney Spears had does not
exist with Christina Aguileria and uh, to me, in a way,

(13:21):
that's like closer to like the Madonna model the Britney
Spears was, although in a way Britney Spears was more
successful at becoming the next Madonna. So I don't know
a lot to parse here, right, I mean, by subverting
maybe the Madonna's archetype in her own unique way, maybe
that that did help, especially for the era she was in. Uh.
So Britney Spears in early is absolutely huge. Where does

(13:45):
this leave Christina? After the Mickey mouse Club she ends
up moving to Japan the record a duet with the
Japanese singer, and then she teams up with Disney again
for the song Reflections on the Milan soundtrack and the
success of that song letter to being signed by our
Cia in late and at this point buzz was starting
to develop around Brittany in the label pretty much pressured
her into crafting her into the similar pop mold as

(14:07):
her former Mickey mouse Club friend and rival and This
was a really a long way off from the soul
and blues records that she admired as a kid. Uh
in the summer released Genie in a Bottle, her debut
albums lead single, which shot to the top of the
charts in twenty different countries. Her album followed in August,
and I went eight times platinum, which wasn't as well

(14:28):
as Maybe One More Time, but still incredibly impressive. The
thing that I always forget is that Christina's debut had
way more hits on it than Baby One More Time.
They had three number ones. You had Genie in a Bottle,
You had What a Girl Wants, and you also had
her cover of h You also had come On Over Baby,
which I totally forgot about, and I played that while

(14:48):
preparing for this episode. That is a killer song. It
sounds like a Charelle song from like nineteen sixty four,
but in like the best way, like something from the
Sister Acts soundtrack. It's so good. Like when you listen
to both of these artists. It is interesting, as you said,
to note the Christina Aguilera hits that get forgotten, because
I feel like her career is deeper in terms of

(15:10):
just the number of hit songs that she's had. I
think she's had. Uh. Her albums I think generally are
more a little bit more interesting maybe than Brittany's. Although Brittany, um,
I think it's put out like quite a few, like
pretty great records. But the thing with Brittany again is
that I just feel like she's like a more distinct personality.
Like there's something about Christina Aguilera to me, where she

(15:30):
is a great singer, but like if you heard like
five seconds of her voice, would you be able to
distinguish her from like some other like big voiced pop singer.
I mean, I think it might be hard to do that,
Whereas if you heard five seconds of Britney Spears singing,
like you know instantly that it's her. And to me,
like that's the difference between them, is that even if

(15:51):
Christina is having like more hits, the hits that Brittany
is having, like it just seems like the big songs
of hers from this era, like they all are iconic,
like we remember them, we remember the music videos. There's
just a totality of packaging with Brittany that maybe Christina
doesn't quite have. Oh yeah, and it totally outshines the
actual accolades that Christina was getting at this time. I mean,

(16:14):
she she had three number ones up that album and
then another top five single with the All for One cover.
I turned to you, she beat up Brittany for the
Best New Artist the Grammys that year. But like you said,
she just always kind of seemed like the jam Brady
to Brittany's Marcia. You know it is. It wasn't a
case of in sync following Backstreet Boys and then quickly
asserting themselves. She seemed at the time to be this

(16:35):
kind of second stringer, which doesn't actually make sense when
you look at all the data and all the music
in front of which again, as you said, I think Brittany,
I guess, established yourself more in a in a unique way.
But yeah, to me, at the time, Christina just seemed
like almost like a like an afterthought, like a like
a bandwagon jumper, which I know really isn't true and
vastly undermines her talents. And maybe another reason that kind

(16:58):
of I feel this way looking back on is because
Chris seem to seem to go quiet for a long
time in the mainstream American pop world. She released a
Spanish language album in September two thousand and then a
Christmas album soon after, but she wouldn't go back to
the English speaking pop world until two thousand two stripped,
and that's three years after her debut, which is, you know,
a lifetime in pop terms, so that, yeah, it was

(17:20):
sort of an interesting move there. And I don't know
if it was because of this was the era of like,
you know, Latin and Latin influenced artists like on Rickey
Glysias and lou Bega and Rickey Martin or I don't
know what the move was there with that, but um, yeah,
definitely kind of cost her some prime pop years to
go ahead to head with Brittany. I guess all right hand,
we'll be right back with more rivals. Christina would later

(17:51):
say that this whole time going against Brittany was really
unpleasant for because she just said, you know, this was
sort of my old friend that she was speaking to
the Daily Mail. She said, this was somebody I used
to hold hands with. We were silly little girls together
on the Mickey Mouse Club and now we're pit against
one another. So I think on some level she was
kind of uncomfortable with that. I'm sure that was uncomfortable,
and it was probably uncomfortable too because she was slotted

(18:13):
into this pop lane that Britney Spears always had, that
it was going to be harder for her to establish
her own personality, that in some way she was always
going to be the fined against Britney Spears. I mean,
I think that might have happened anyway, even if she
wasn't aggressively marketed in that same slot basically that Britney
was in back in. I mean again, they were both

(18:33):
from the Mickey Mouse Club, They're both you know, blonde
female singers. They were both again working this lane of
kind of like sexually provocative pop, although again I think
Christina was much more deliberate about that. And as we
get into the stripped era and like the assless Chaps
era of Christina, that's going to be, you know, even
more explicit. Whereas Brittany, again, I think even as she

(18:56):
got older herself and started recording songs like I'm a
Slave to You, you know, which is like just really
laying it out there, she still maintained this distance between
what she was doing musically in her persona and what
she supposedly was like in her personal life, again too,
Like if you're looking at differences between these two again,
I think the vocal style is such a big key

(19:17):
here that Christina is the more versatile singer, and I
think as her career unfold that she was able to
do a wider variety of things than Britney Spears what
was doing. I mean that's I appreciate the fact that
she did a Spanish language album and a Christmas album.
I think that showed early on that she didn't necessarily
just want to be a pop singer, that she saw
herself working in different arenas and being able to excel.

(19:39):
And she does have the kind of voice that enables
her to do that, whereas Brittany is, I think her
vocal range is much narrower. But because she has this
like distinctive style, I think it ultimately makes her a
better pop star, because that's what you want from your
pop stars. You want to be able to hear them
on the radio and instantly know it's them. And even
if she doesn't have the angel of Christina Aguilera, it's

(20:01):
almost like she has like greater depth in like pop persona.
Like icon terms you literally this earlier. I really think
it's true. I mean, I remember like when Britney Spears
first came on the scene with that Baby One More
Time video, and it did seem like she was already famous,
like the first time you saw that. You know, there
was just something so fully formed about her from the beginning,

(20:21):
and it's like, yeah, this is who she's going to
be now, like for the rest of her career. And
it's it's interesting just to go with what you said
about how sort of face almost arrived fully formed. It's
strange to me how early on the whole Christina bad
Girl thing seemed to be implanted in the public's mind
because I went back and watched all of her early
videos from her first album and you know, magazine covers

(20:43):
from that era and stuff, and it really didn't seem
that far off from what what Brittany was doing. I mean,
the sound was a little different, I mean, Genie in
a Bottle and um What a Girl Wants was more
R and B influence, but it didn't really seem all
that different. And so, but looking back on some of
the articles written around the time, there was there was
article in The Guardian that said that Brittany and Christina

(21:05):
were at opposite ends of a troubling Tina Erotica spectrum.
Christina has a knottier image than Brittany's corn fed, Midwest
wholesome look, and I really had a hard time figuring
out why that was. And I don't know if it's
something about the troubling view that we have around race
in this country that Brittany was this white girl from

(21:26):
the South and Christina was part of Ecuadorian lived in
New York City, released the Latin language album, had more
of an R and B band, and she was more
urban in quotes than than Brittany, and not just the
music industry euphemism, but in the literal sense, and that
tends to get viewed as dangerous and unsettling a certain
parts of America. I don't know, I've never really been
able to figure out where. I mean, I understand later

(21:48):
on with dirty and those kind of things, but this
early it still surprises me looking back on it. What
why she was seeing as sort of the dark flip
side to Brittany. That's an interesting theory. I mean, I think,
you know, that might have something to do with it.
I think there's also just something ingrained and how we
look at these things, where if you have Uh, you
know an alfa over here, you need a bait over here.

(22:10):
If you have a good girl over here, you need
a bad girl over there. It's just how these narratives
fall into place. It's like we have them already predetermined
in our minds and we just project them onto people.
That is the theme of this show. I think you
could say that this is something we're constantly looking for
in the culture, and when you have two artists that
are similar, it's just easy to like lock them into

(22:32):
these differing roles um and I mean, it may just
be the fact that Britney Spears was better at um.
Better might not even be the word that she was
just more deliberate about distancing herself from what she did
on stage, whereas Christina Aguilera, I feel like she didn't
really do that. I don't think that she play acted
as like the good Christian girl in interviews to the

(22:54):
same degree that Britney Spears did, So maybe that has
something to do with it as well. But it's interesting
to see how they like. I think for Brittany and Christina,
they both struggled, I think, to mature pretty soon after
like they had that big flush of pop success. Yeah,
I mean, Brittany, I think had a little easier time
because she had a lot of sort of checkpoints along

(23:15):
the way. You had the release of Oops, I did
it again in May Have two thousand, which slightly more
mature record with some traces of Christina's R and B influence.
You've got great tracks like Don't let Me Be the
Last to Know and and Lucky, which is kind of,
you know, a mature song about the perils and loneliness
of stardom. There's that Rolling Stones cover, which I never
really figured out why that was there, and then of

(23:35):
course there's the title track with the infamous I'm Not
That Innocent, which is pretty on the nose, especially for
for a newly eighteen year old singer, but there you go.
And she had another Rolling Stone cover that spring. But
her big coming out moment as like you know, an
independent woman, grown up artist, was at the two thousand
V M A s which I have to say I

(23:56):
I didn't engage much with with pop culture at this time.
I was eleven twelve. I remember watching this and it
made a deep impression. I remember she started singing off
satisfaction in like a Michael Jackson style suit, Fedora ensemble,
and I was a big classic rock nerd even back then.
So it's like, oh cool, this is a song I
actually know. Alright, awesome and then lightning speed whiplash almost

(24:20):
she rips off the suit for oops, I did it again,
And it was such a quick change to see through
sequined outfit. It was just like whoa that I didn't
see that coming. Uh. To me, that was her declaration
of independence, although she was loath to call it that.
She would later say of her her sparkly see through outfit,
I really wanted to be sparkly and have diamonds everywhere.

(24:41):
So again getting back to the always a neutral response
whenever asked about an he's potentially provocative um approach she
takes always gives this really like, I'm just being myself
and you bring whatever you want to what I'm doing.
You you project onto whatever you feel, which, as you said,
I think it's part of her genius. What even complicates
this more for me is like when you go ahead

(25:02):
to her two thousand one record, Brittany, a self titled record. Normally,
when artists do that, that means like, hey, I'm gonna
get real with you all now this I'm talking about myself.
And this is the record where she's reiterating the same
message over and over again. When she's saying, don't treat
me like a little girl. You know, this is her
coming out as a woman, even though there is a

(25:24):
song on the record called I'm not a girl, not
yet a woman, So she's like in this transitional period
between you know, being a teenager and she's entering womanhood,
but she's not quite there yet. I guess you could
call this like her college record in a way, like
this represents her college years. There's a song on the
record called Overprotective where she sings, quote, say hello to

(25:45):
the girl that I am. You're gonna have to see
through my perspective. I'm going to have to make mistakes
just to learn who I am, and I don't want
to be so damn protected. So you're seeing these like
expressions of like not wanting to be defined as just
this innocent little earl, but also not all wanted to
be defined as like this sex kitten or something that
she's being projected onto because of her music videos. That's

(26:09):
sort of a muddy message. And then you get to
like the big song from that record, which is I'm
a slave for you. This collaboration with the Neptunes, I
think it's like one of her best songs. I love
this song and that and you can again hear the
messaging going through that song when she talks about like
I'm not a little girl, she's sort of like again Coyley,
suggesting that, like, you know, you might think I'm too

(26:31):
young to do certain things, but I actually can do
these certain kinds of things that I'm ready to do them.
I'm ready to be a slave for you, which I
don't know is she talking about, you know, doing work
around the house when she says that I don't. I
don't think she means that. There seems to be again,
like a naughty connotation to that title. But it's interesting

(26:53):
again to me. I just feel like there's an awkwardness
to her growing up here because there's not like a
full on embrace of like sort of either side of
her persona. It's like she wouldn't just go out and
record a Christian pop record, and she wouldn't just go
full on like stripper core music. You know. It was
sort of like trying to achieve a happy medium, which
again I think that worked well on her first record

(27:14):
but I think it starts to get like a little
more awkward as she is growing into like a full
grown woman. Yeah. I mean you have the two thousand
one vas performance when she's doing Slave for You. That's
the one with with the snake, you know, a snake.
It was like a forbidden Fruit kind of analogy. They're like,
I am the forbidden fruit kind of thing, and I'm
probably reading way too far into this, but yeah, not exactly.
It's like one of those things where you're like, well,

(27:35):
she's obviously alluding to that, but then if you pointed out,
it's like, yeah, exactly, like you're the pervert for pouring
that out, and it just seems like obvious imagery, like
walking around with a snake, you know, that's like the
Adam's Apple, Like that's a very clear thing. But also
it's like, well I just like snakes. I just like
I just like this snake. You know, that doesn't mean anything.

(27:56):
It's interesting though, because in this era I think that
she was really got a lot of great reviews for
this song. I mean, they didn't get a lot of
the pearl clutching that went on during maybe one more Time,
and certainly not the stuff that that Christina was about
to get for dirty. I think a lot of great reviews.
I think the one said this was a song is
funk the way God intended it, which is, you know,

(28:17):
an amazing review there. I yeah, it's interesting to me
how it's looking back on it, it definitely seems a
little heavy handed, but I think at the time it
was definitely well received. You know, I just have to
do a quick sidebar here, Like I actually saw Britney
Spears on this tour in two thousand. I was working
for a small town newspaper at the time, and I
was asked to review the concert and also to interview

(28:41):
concert attendees. And let me tell you something, it's a
little awkward to go to a Britney Spears concert in
two thousand one as like a twenty four year old
single man and like walk up to a thirteen year
old girls and ask them, like what they think about
Britney Spears. It's a little weird. It's like if you're
if you're at this show and you're not with your
girl for en or you know, like with your daughters. Uh.

(29:04):
I just felt a little out of place, uh in
that respect. But fortunately no one called the police on
me and uh it I'll ended up okay. As Brittany
is moving into her Brittany album period, but of course
we have Christina Aguilera moving into the stripped period and
her single Dirty, which, as I said before, this is
the famous music video where Christina is cavorting around in

(29:26):
assless chaps and uh, this is I think the beginning
of her fully embracing like the sexual side of her music,
again in a very different way than Britney Spears. Brittany
again playing the sort of the KOI Christian girl who
has a naughty side, whereas Christina is just like a
full blown sexual warrior in like the Lust Olympics, you know,
like she is just going full bore uh in this uh,

(29:50):
in this new guys of hers, and again I go
back to Madonna. I really feel that Christina was I think,
following that template even more explicitly than Britney spe is.
I think Brittany took some things from Madonna and how
to you know, craft your persona and to have like
this again, this iconic pop image, whereas I think Christina
was I think following it in a more sort of

(30:11):
like almost like a guidebook way. It's like, Okay, this
is what Madonna did in her career, and now I'm
going to make my own version of erotica. But I'm
gonna pumpet full of steroids, you know, And that's what
I'm gonna be doing unstripped, you know. I I definitely agree.
She got a ton of blowback for just the song, really,

(30:32):
and I remember at the time just outrage seemed to
outrage everybody, and watching it now, like I know that
that the assles chaps thing and everything, but looking at
the lyrics, it's not that far removed from Genie in
a Bottle. It's basically about having a night out with
your girlfriends. And I started thinking that the song and
the video maybe some of the response to that was
that it didn't exist to fulfill hetero male fantasies. In

(30:54):
some ways, I think that it was, you know, about
her own empowerment, whereas you know, Brittany has a song
out in this Erica all I'm a Slave for You
about you know, slave to a man? Uh? Or is
it about music? I actually forget what which one is about.
But I thought that the backlash when you watch the
video for Dirty back to back with the video form

(31:14):
a slave for you. They're not that different. And I
feel like the amount of flak that Christina got versus Brittany,
he was effectively praised for doing something not that different.
It was really unfair. And I definitely think that there
was a certain amount of sexism at play. And I
don't know if it was because one Brittany's video seems
more designed for the male gays versus Christina's. I don't know,

(31:37):
but it's it's it's interesting to look back on. It's
really horrible. A lot of the really misogynistic views that
Christina got in this period, calling her like, you know,
a pop tart who has spanked, like the naughty girl
she is, and direct from an intergalactic hooker convention. There's
some really like incredibly awful wines. When you look back
on and describing the dirty video, it's fascinating and it's

(31:57):
sad in a lot of ways. You know, not to
keep going back to this, but I think maybe it
just comes to them to Britney Spears giving viewers this
like plausible deniability that it actually wasn't as sexual as
it was, you know, just because again she was so
guileless about her own image in interviews, whereas I think
Christina Aguilera was like more upfront and like not as
apologetic about it, and maybe that was just easier for

(32:20):
people to sort of contextualize at the time that it's like, well,
we can take shots at Christina Aguilera because she's not
acting like the good Christian girl in interviews, like she's
just she's expressing herself honestly in her music, and so
we're going to punish her for that. I think one
thing too that must be noted about Strip. You know,
we were talking about Dirty, but I think the most
lasting song from that record is I think also the

(32:43):
best Christina Aguilera song, which is beautiful, which is it's
like this classic empowerment ballad that also existed with like
the sex songs on that record. I mean, there's also
like a lot of empowerment songs on that record, and
you know, I think if you're gonna comp air Christina
Aguilera to Britney Spears, this is one area like where

(33:03):
Christina Aguilera just like slays Brittney Spears. I mean, like
this big kind of torch song ballad, you know, Christina
Aguilera that's like firmly in her wheelhouse and she just
crushes it. Whereas you think about Britney Spears ballads like
you know again like I'm not a Girl, not yet
a woman, I don't think those are her strongest songs.
I tend to prefer, you know, like the funky dance
pop songs from Brittany. I think that's better suited for

(33:25):
her voice. Whereas with Christina, Yeah, you set up a
song like Beautiful and she's just gonna knock it out
of the park. So you know, she was also doing
songs like that at this time. Yeah, I think Beautiful
definitely added another dimension to the songs like Dirty and
Fighter on the album too. It really that is an
incredible song, and the video for that too, seems really
ahead of its time. I mean it's almost twenty years old,

(33:47):
but just sort of the the identity politics, if you will,
that's sort I wrapped up in that video is really
astonishing to see now. It's such an incredible song, and
you're right, I mean, no one can sing those types
of torch power ballads like Christine, at least in that era.
So what we've seen so far from these two is
I think them being compared to each other a lot

(34:09):
in the press, but there's not a whole lot of
like sniping at each other, at least not publicly. That
really doesn't begin to happen, I don't think until the
aftermath of the two thousand three Video Music Awards. I mean,
is that fair to say, Oh, yeah, I I love
I mean, we love the VMAs in general on the show. Yes,
performance in two thousand three is just in my top

(34:30):
five favorite of all time. It's of course you've got Brittany,
You've got Christina, and then you got Madonna. It's just
it's it's one for the ages. And yeah, it just
seems like perfectly set up for these three just enormous
pop culture figures to come together. It's like the pop
music version of like when Pearl Jam and Neil Young
performed together ten years earlier, Like what that was for grunge,

(34:53):
That's what this is for pop. You have like the
legend from you know, a previous generation coming together to
put form with like the hot pop divas of the moment,
and of course they're gonna come together and they're gonna
sing like a Virgin, which was an iconic moment from
the v m as back in four when Madonna came
out in the wedding dress and she has the bouquet,

(35:16):
of course, and she ends up pumping the floor and
everyone loves it and pop history has changed forever. This
performance in two thousand three, it's going to very deliberately
allude to that performance we see at the beginning. And
by the way, you can watch this on YouTube, and
you may want to just pause this podcast and watch
that quick and then come back, because if you haven't

(35:36):
seen it in a while, it is really fun to visit.
So we see a big cake on stage. Britney Spears
is on top of the cake. She has the veil on,
but of course she's singing, and we could tell it's
Britney Spears right away because, like we said, very distinctive voice,
and she has like a solid minute or so where
she's on stage singing the first verse and she walks

(35:57):
down the cake, you know, and she's having her moment,
and then the chorus comes along and Christina Aguilera isn't
at the top of the cake. She walks like behind
the cake the entrance exactly from behind the cake she
comes out and before she starts singing, she kind of
gives Brittany this like little like she blows her a kiss,
which seems like a like a middle finger, like when

(36:17):
you watch it, does that seem very affectionate. And of
course Christina I feel like she's like over singing more
than usual on the chorus. It just sounds like, Okay,
I'm gonna like just take over this song by sheer force.
And she's like a fog horn. Yeah exactly, She's just
fog horning like a virgin, trying to blow Brittany off

(36:38):
off the stage. But Brittany is holding around, you know.
And after the course, they start doing this thing like
where again they're trying to recreate the original but down
to performance. So Brittany and Christina are both humping the
floor writhing in tandem. Yeah, like and they're humping the
floor while facing each other. It's like competitive floor humping,
and it's like I can I can like hump this

(37:00):
floor better than you know, I can hump this floor
better than you Like, that's what they're doing at this moment.
And then all of a sudden, you hear like the
wedding march music and everyone stops and looks up, and
of course it's Madonna. She's wearing her like Marlina Dietrich,
like black suit with like a top hat, and she
comes down the stairs very gingerly because she's wearing like,
you know, twelve inch heels or something. And they're doing

(37:22):
a dance together. They're like waltzing together. They're doing all
these things, and then of course the big moment happens
and Madonna turns to Britney Spears first gives her a
big wet kiss, instant, iconic moment we all remember that.
Then something very strange happens. The director of the v
m as decides to cut to a very taciturn looking
Justin Timberlake in the audience. Do you think Justin timber

(37:44):
Lake was was angry? Was he like jealous? Was he
like into this? I all the it seemed like it
broke him. It seemed like he was having trouble processing
all of that. In that moment they cut to him
and he looks more confused, I think than anything else.
He's definitely has a lot of feelings that he's gone through.
It's a whole kaleidoscope of emotions in his face in
that two seconds shot. And you know, I have to say,

(38:07):
like kudos to the director for doing this, because I
think we all thought, like, oh, what does Justin Timberlain
think of this? Like, we know he's in the audience,
what does you think of this? I want to see Justin.
But what this ends up doing is because we're looking
at Justin when they cut back to the stage, we
only see the very end of Madonna kissing Christina Aguilera.
And this is a moment that just again, it encapsulates

(38:30):
their dynamic. Britney Spears gets the great you know shot
of her kissing Madonna. It's a freeze frame that we
all remember, just a great pop moment, and then Christina
is trying to have her own pop moment and they
cut away. They cut away to just refer to a
narrative in Britney Spears's career, which with Justin Timberlake and
Christina Aguilera is like ends up being pretty piste off

(38:52):
about this. Oh yeah, genuinely so. I just like fifteen
years later, she was on Andy Cohen and he asked
her about this and she said, yeah, it was weird.
It's kind of she said it was a cheap shot
when they cut away, and uh, And at the time
she gives an interview to UH to Blender, and this
is when she actually really starts taking um public snipes
at Brittany, which she's sort of refrained against from this point.

(39:13):
She's talking to Blender in December two thousand three, and
she says that Brittany was distant to use her words
during their many rehearsals for the show. Every time I
tried to start a conversation with her, Well, let's just
say she seemed nervous the whole time. She seems like
a lost little girl, someone who desperately needs guidance. And look,
as we just discussed, Brittany put out a record two

(39:35):
thousand ones Brittany Where. The whole point of that record
was I'm not a little girl. Don't call me a
little girl. So like, going with the little girl thing
not good. We're going right for the juggular here. And
of course, you know, Britney spears, here's this and she
says a lost girl. I think it's probably the other
way around. I can't believe she said that about me.
And then she tells this story, which seems extremely plausible

(39:57):
to me. I can definitely imagine this happen. I don't
think she's exaggerating. She talks about how she was in
a club like I guess a few years before this interview,
and Christina Aguileric comes up to her and like like,
sticks her tongue down Britney Spears's throat, and Britney Spears
is like, what what is this all about? And yeah, like,

(40:18):
come on, how about a handshake? How about a you know,
like a little sisters like sister hug or something. Uh No,
goes right to the tongue and uh, Brittany says, and
this is like her relating the story. She says, I say,
it's good to see you, and she goes, well, you're
not being real with me. I was like, well, Christina,
what's your definition of real going up to girls and

(40:38):
kissing them after you haven't seen them for two years.
It's like, yeah, Brittany, I think you have a point there.
It's a little odd to have done that. So, you know,
we are now in the part of the rivelry where
they are openly sniping at each other in the press,
which is a very fun part of the rivalry, but
also in this era, they're competing in a different arena.
They're competing for commercial sponsorships, which is really really fun,

(41:02):
I have to say, because there it really did get
kind of caddy between them through these commercial sponsorships. The
big one, of course, is the Soda Wars. It's like
the d Day of the Christina Brittany commercial War. Brittany
of course delivered a series of really iconic ads for pepsi.
You know, there's the retro tinged for those who think
young with the Joy of Pepsi jingle. Incredible series of ads.

(41:26):
Uh Christina does a coke ad that I didn't even
remember I and had to google it. I guess it's
kind of funny. It's about a fan who wins a
chance to be on set with Christina and he keeps fainting.
I have no memory of that at the time. Uh
so Brittany definitely wins that round there um. For a
while in two thousand one, Brittany was the face of
Sketcher Shoes and then after a lawsuit with the shoe company,

(41:47):
Brittany backed out. Who did Sketchers get immediately after Brittany left,
they got Christina. Man, It's like, why doesn't Christina just
say no, I'm not going to do that, because you
are now openly embracing this narrative that I am the
second choice, and it's like you can't get Brittany, so
you're gonna get me. And we're just seeing this get

(42:08):
reiterated all over again. It's like whether it's endorsements or
it's the MTV v A maze, and you can see that.
I feel like it's starting to get to Christina's head
a little bit because when it comes to sniping in
the press, it seems like it's mostly generated by Christina
Aguilera and like her taking shots at Brittany, even like
when it's kind of mean and like overly personal. Like

(42:30):
there's that story about like when Britney Spears got married
I think it was in two thousand four to Kevin Federline.
And you know Kevin Federline was I think he was
a dancer like on her tour. I think that, yeah,
and you know, pretty much a dirt bag, you know,
like not a great guy. He did not deserve Britney
Spears at all. But uh, you know, Brittany was looking

(42:53):
for somebody, and I guess he was their right time,
right place. Apparently Brittany bought her own engagement ring, which
was something that Christina decided to take a shot at
she didn't interview where she says it looks like she
got it at QBC, and then she says, I know, Brittany,
she's not trailer trash, but she sure acts that way. Damn.

(43:16):
So yeah, you know, taking a shot at like her
wedding ring and like her marriage, it seems like a
little below the belt Brittany. To her credit, she made
overtures to make friends with Christina Aguilera. In two thousand five,
she wrote her a letter apparently telling her how beautiful
she looks, which kind of weird to do? Is that?
Is that normal to do that? Do you write text

(43:37):
to your friends and comment on how attractive they are?
Is it? Am I just a bad friend for not
doing this? I I just feel like this is maybe
a little weird to do that. Yeah, that's definitely unless
somebody's like fresh out of like some kind of like
you know, plastic surgery or something. I don't think. Yeah,
I don't think I would think to do that. But
the important thing is is that she's trying to make
friends with Christina, her old Mickey Mouse Club chum, and

(44:00):
it sounds like I kind of worked. I mean, Brittney
spears had a head of child uh in two thousand five,
and Christina Aguilera apparently like sent her a big basket
full of presents. So we're on the mend here, maybe right.
And this is also in the era when Brittany sort
of began to send into her very well documented personal troubles.
In two thousand and six, two thousand and seven, she

(44:21):
had a messy divorce with Kevin Federline in a state
of rehab facility. And I think that following Brittany's uh
so called comeback performance at the two thousand seven v
M ashen she looks kind of completely lost on stage
during Give Me More. I think Brittany to take a
shot at Brittany just wasn't you don't do that? It
felt like common decency kicks in at that point because

(44:41):
she was clearly going through a tough time and and
this happened with Christina. She give an interview to The
Daily Mail in two thousand and eight, she said, I
don't pass any judgment on what she does. There have
been so many stories about the two of us not
getting on. We don't keep closely in touch with one another,
and it's obviously how our lives have taken on two
different directions, but she indicated that the entertainment industry, rather
than you know, any personal differences between the two were

(45:03):
responsible for their supposed rivalry and that the press and
blown it all out of proportions. So she kind of
tried to smooth things over around that time. So they've
made peace, but there's like one little sort of echo
of strife that occurs in when Christina and Brittany are
both judging reality shows, which is a very interesting juncture

(45:26):
now that exists in pop stars careers. I feel like
this is like the new thing that like pop stars
get into as like they're like like their post peak moment.
It's like before they're going to go full blown into Vegas,
they're gonna have this residency like where they're on a
reality show, you know, judging aspiring pop singers. Like they're
gonna be like like Mickey in the Rocky movies, Like

(45:48):
they're gonna be the trainer now of aspiring pop singers
and like escorting the water in their mouth and you know,
telling them to like you know, box sides of beef
and all that stuff in the pop singer since of course,
but there was this thing like Christina was on The Voice,
she was first on that show. She was on that
show two eleven, and then Brittany ends up being on
the show X Factor in twelve, the Simon Cowell Show.

(46:12):
It must be said that, like in this respect, Christina
I think comes out ahead of Brittany, Like this is
an example of like Christina actually being in the number
one position while Brittany is in the second place position,
because The Voice is like a much bigger show to
me than X Factor. Am I wrong on that? Oh? Yeah,
the first couple of the cast from the first couple
of seasons, when Blake Sheldon and Christina was on the

(46:34):
cover of Rolling Stone, I mean they were you know
that the four of them were pretty iconic in that era.
It's just like, you know, a foursome. Yeah. No, And
I don't actually remember how many seasons X Factor lasted
in the United States, but I don't think it was
very long. But there was like a little bit of
strife here because you know, Brittany's coming on to X Factor,
and I think on like her first show, NBC decided

(46:57):
to run a special edition of the Voice to run
against X Factor, and I know, like Simon Cole apparently
got upset about that because he felt like this is
an example of NBC and maybe even Christina Aguilera trying
to upstage Brittany in her moment. I mean, I don't know.
I mean, I do you think that Christina Aguilera was
like controlling, like the levers of power at NBC and

(47:18):
was like, Hey, put me on versus Brittany, let me
stick it to Brittany. I mean, I have a hard
time believing that that's what happened. I mean, my better self,
I would like to think that that didn't happen, But
I know, Cowl apparently thought that might have been a play.
I think, even give an interview. He was like, yeah,
you know, Brittany is not going to appreciate this. She
and Christina have been a bit of a rivalry over
the years, so who knows. I mean, it definitely would

(47:41):
make it more fun, but really, at this point, I
think it's fair to say that whatever tensions existed after
the two thousand three v MS debacle, Uh, it seems
like it's pretty much cooled off at this point. Oh yeah, definitely.
And Christina, I think for International Women's Day in two
thousand and eighteen, posted something on Instagram video series of
a bunch of powerful women in her life, and I

(48:03):
think Hillary Clinton was one. Lady Gaga and Brittany made
the cut two which was which was very nice. So
I think that whatever went went down between them and
the past is water under the bridge. Now, yes, piece
through Instagram videos. You know, if if we can all
hope for a similar fate in our own lives. We're
gonna take a quick break and get a word from
our sponsor before we get to more rivals. Okay, we've

(48:34):
now reached the point of our episode where we give
the pro side of each side of the rivalry. Let's
talk about Christina Aguilar at first. You know, I think
we reiterated this a lot in this episode, but I
think it's clear that she is the better conventional singer.
She's much more versatile. She's done like a lot of
different kinds of music in her career, which I think
is pretty admirable. I also wonder if, like, ultimately she's

(48:56):
in a better place personally at this point, I mean,
we to really delve into like all the strangeness of
Britney Spears's personal life and like how she's like kind
of not in control of her own life at this point,
which is really strange. And at some point I want
to watch a documentary about Britney Spears that really kind
of breaks that down because I'm not quite clear like
what's going on with her. But at any rate, I

(49:17):
think Christina Aguilera seems like she's just you know, she's
been through a lot in her career, but she made
it out the other side. And I still think that
she could have like another hit. Like I I don't
think that her pop career is necessarily behind her because
she really is a survivor. Oh yeah, absolutely. I see
her as being kind of like in the share mold
she has. She has that voice. It is timeless, and

(49:38):
I know that's such a clische thing to say, but
like you know, she did all those songs come back
to basics. It sound like the big band songs from
the forty. She has a voice that's so adaptable. She
could do towards songs like beautiful. She could do jazzy
things like Ain't No Other Man. I mean she could
she could do like at Judy Garland album or something
she wanted to. I think she she has a long
career as a sort of you know in quote chore

(50:01):
uh singer ahead of her. I completely agree. Yeah. I
mean she's incredibly talented singer. And she wrote most of
the songs on our albums too, which we haven't talked
enough about him, And she's very talented writer. And as
you said, I think, frankly the one I'd rather be
if I had to pick between the two. Uh. And
I imagine probably Christina would say the same thing too,
because I'm a big free Brittney truth or here And yeah,

(50:23):
I think what what's being done there with the Conservatives
ship isn't right? So I think that Christina definitely landed
in a in a better place. So if we go
over to the pro Brittaney spear side, I mean, look,
I just think Brittany to me is just more iconic.
I mean you think about her in the Baby One
More Time guys, like with the Catholic school outfit. It's
just a defining image of late Andy's pop maybe v

(50:45):
defining image and her biggest songs like Baby one More Time, Oops,
I did it again, I'm a Slave for You, Toxic,
which we didn't talk about toxicall this episode, such an
amazing song. They're just more memorable to me. Uh, And
while she's not as good of a singer's Christina Aguilera,
to me, she is the superior vocal stylist. I just
don't know that Christina Aguilera is all that distinct from

(51:08):
like other big voice Steva's like as good as her
voice is. But Brittney's voice, to me, it's just instantly recognizable.
It's like one of the most recognizable voices in all
of pop music history. Do you you think you could
take a crack at the at the Brittany voice, Stephen
Bye bye bye. It's pretty good? Pretty good myself six
time for that. It's pretty good. Oh yeah, I agree.

(51:31):
I mean Brittany is a legend, mean one of the
greatest performers of our time. I mean amazing dancer, which
I don't think we talked enough about. Uh. And yeah,
her singing quality and you instantly know it's hers and
you love it. And I think she's up there like
with Elvis or Michael Jackson or Jim Morrison. She's got
that level of just she's that identifiable. But there's a

(51:52):
vulnerability there too. I think that was always there that
made her just someone that we sort of brought in
a little closer, especially with what happened to her in
later years, with the conservatorship and everything. I think there's
you tend to root for her more. I think these
days too, I can't think of a fandom that is
more supportive than Britney's. Fans of Brittany I have to say,
and um, yeah, no, I I love them both, but

(52:16):
I might love Brittany a little more so when we
think about Brittany and Christina together. Look, I mean we
love friction on this show. Obviously, we love delving into
different conflicts. So this sort of thing is just catnip
to us. But I will say that just generally speaking,
like when you're dealing with like prepackaged pop stars, if
you don't have like a little bit of conflict, things

(52:37):
can get boring really quickly. And I like the fact
that even though the you know, pop music machinery tried
to slam Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera into the same slot,
they still managed to have their own personalities and in
many ways they were contrasting personalities and the fact that
you had one person over here that was like really

(52:58):
iconic and Britney Spears, but then he had someone else
us in Christina Aguilera that that could kind of balance
her route. It just makes the story more interesting. So
I'm glad that they were both around in the late
nineties to just soothe our team pop wants and desires. Yeah,
I mean that you can enjoy them both and picking
your favorite is kind of part of the fun exactly.
And again, like I said, we love conflict on this show.

(53:21):
And is it fair to say that, oops, we did
it again this episode? That is is far from a
toxic punk Steve and that is that is a good Oh,
I love it well. Thank you all for listening to
this episode of Rivals. We will be back with more
beefs and feuds and long swimming resentments next week. Rivals

(53:44):
is a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers
are Shawn Titone and Noel Brown. The supervising producers are
Taylor Kin and Tristan McNeil. The producers Joel Hatstad, I'm
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