Christina Aguilera performs in 'Fashion Rocks' Friday on CBS.

Christina Aguilera is very, very happy, and she doesn't care who knows it.

The 25-year-old Grammy winner - who headlines CBS's Fashion Rocks special on Friday, September 8 - has traded in her controversial self-described 'nasty' look for a softer, more glamorous retro style that mirrors Back to Basics, her well-received new double-CD release that pays tribute to music she always has cherished.

"I was a young girl, about six or seven years old, when I was introduced to the sound of old blues, jazz and soul music," she says. "I've always connected with it, and I've always been drawn to it: the honesty and pure, gritty realness that that kind of music has to it. That's so hard to come by nowadays, and I wanted to include elements of those kinds of sounds, specifically from the '20s, '30s and '40s, including the visuals from those eras, the Hollywood screen sirens that I'm also also inspired by.

"It's a fun time, a feel-good time, and considering the place that I'm at in my life is the happiest place I've ever been in, I wanted to make a feel-good record. I also wanted to pay tribute to those blues singers and jazz musicians I've always loved and admired, but in my own interpretation of that music, giving it a sort of a modernised feel."

She credits much of her current happiness to Jordan Bratman, the music executive Aguilera married last November after a three-year courtship. Her new husband has done a lot to help heal the wounds she sustained growing up in a home marred by domestic violence, and Back to Basics includes a song dedicated to Bratman called Save Me From Myself.

Haunting music

But it was her grandmother who helped the young Aguilera escape from those harrowing early years by exposing her to the haunting music of Billie Holiday and other past greats.

"It was definitely obvious that I had taken an interest and was drawn to singing at a really, really young age," Aguilera explains. "It was my release, my form of expression and kind of my escape from growing up in such a chaotic household. My grandma started letting me perform locally - my mother, too - and we'd go to these old record stores in Pittsburgh, where we lived. My grandma loved to watch the audience's reaction when this little thing of six or seven was singing and acting out this material that was far beyond her years, you know? I used to call blues my 'fun music.' I'd grab an old record, take it up to my room and learn every lyric, then we'd put a little show to it."

Aguilera's new 'old Hollywood' look is a calculated part of her effort to immerse herself in the mood and the style of those bygone decades, she says.

"You know how there are method actors? Well, I guess it's my form of 'method singing,' but I dressed the part, started getting into the character, because I wanted to convey it as honestly and wholeheartedly as possible. I never went into the (recording) booth without red lipstick on my lips," Aguilera says.

"My music and my style definitely coincide. I'm very visual, so when I was recording, I would surround myself in the booth with all these reference and tearsheets that I've accumulated over the years, especially more recently as I have been diving into these particular eras. I used everything from visuals of the old screen sirens like Marlene Dietrich and Veronica Lake and Jean Harlow, plus incredible soul songstresses like Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Pearl Bailey, Eartha Kitt - all these incredible people. I used references to the Andrews Sisters, too. It's just such an interesting space and time and place for music, and you don't come across that sense of authenticity these days, which is probably why I'm drawn to it even more."

She's reluctant to reveal much of what she has planned for her appearance on Fashion Rocks, where she shares the bill with Beyonce, Bon Jovi, Nelly Furtado, Faith Hill, Scissor Sisters and other top acts.

Three-part harmony

"We have some ideas that are very interesting," Aguilera says. "Our second single off the new record is Candyman, which is kind of a throwback to that sound of the Andrews Sisters, with three-part harmony all the way through, big-band fun. It's a really exciting, upbeat song and it lends itself to visuals, paying tribute to the USO pinup style. I won't say too much more, because I always want that element of surprise. I'm bringing my band and all my dancers, though, so it's going to be a really fun time."

The same is true for her lavish Back to Basics tour, which she says will include a major circus element.

"I connect with theatrics and really putting on a show," she says. "It's all about inviting your audience to go with you into a whole different world. Music takes us to a special place when you just close your eyes and listen, but then when you put a visual with it and take it to a whole different place, I think that's a really beautiful thing to be able to create."

As for her next project, fans can expect Aguilera to branch off in yet another direction, she says.

"I consider myself to be quite a sponge, absorbing every new thing that I can," she says. "I'm constantly inspired by new things and new challenges around me. By the next record, I will have grown into a new woman and learned many new things from my life experiences, so that record will be a completely new thing. I enjoy that, because I get bored easily at times, so it's important for me to make sure that I'm thinking outside my own box and not sticking to the norm.

"My whole life's goal is to constantly evolve and grow as a person and as a woman. As women, we have so many different sides to ourselves. There are so many different colours to what make us up, and so many times people like to stick to the norm or play it safe. That's just not what I'm about. The only time that we can grow and better ourselves is when we're looking outside our own safety zone."

Tribune Media Services.