Christina Aguilera is rebuilding a cult of personality. Sophie has no use for one
Tinkling synths. An echo-drenched beat. And a singer breathily describing her quest for emotional clarity.
To describe the moving parts at work in Christina Aguilera's "Deserve" and in Sophie's "It's Okay to Cry" - both are tracks from new pop albums released Friday - is to make these two songs sound like comparable aesthetic experiences.
Which indeed they are, at least when heard in a vacuum: Listening to either tune, you feel the vocalist's journey, her climb from melancholy to euphoria, in the slow
