Reflection (song)
Encyclopedia
"Reflection" is a song featured on the soundtrack of the 1998 animated film Mulan, recorded by American recording artist Christina Aguilera
Christina Aguilera
Christina María Aguilera is an American recording artist and actress. Aguilera first appeared on national television in 1990 as a contestant on the Star Search program, and went on to star in Disney Channel's television series The Mickey Mouse Club from 1993–1994...

. In the months before the recording of the track, Aguilera approached RCA, which gave her the chance to record the theme song to the film Mulan. Disney at this time was looking for a performer who could perform a musical note, generally difficult for most performers, required for the track. In response, Aguilera recorded herself performing the Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston
Whitney Elizabeth Houston is an American singer, actress, producer and a former model. Houston is the most awarded female act of all time, according to Guinness World Records, and her list of awards include 1 Emmy Award, 6 Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among...

 track, "Run to You" which featured this note. After Disney representatives were impressed by her performance, they contacted Aguilera, who immediately agreed to fly to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 to spend a week recording the album.

Critical response for "Reflection" was mixed, with reviewers considering it a nice song, however, entirely unmemorable. Aside from critical commentary, the song succeeded in funding her debut album from RCA, in addition to gaining her credibility amongst established writers and producers. The physical and radio releases of the single were limited, which resulted in the track charting only on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

 Adult Contemporary chart, at number nineteen. An accompanying music video for the song was included on the DVD release of Mulan. Aguilera has performed the track on four televised performances, including at the CBS This Morning show, which saw her gain the attention of songwriter Diane Warren
Diane Warren
Diane Eve Warren , is a US songwriter. Her songs have received six Academy Award nominations, five Golden Globe nominations, including one win and seven Grammy Award nominations, including one win. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001...

.

Background and composition

Aguilera approached record label RCA, then having financial difficulties, and was told to contact Disney. After being given the opportunity to record the theme to the 1998 film Mulan
Mulan
Mulan is a 1998 American animated film directed by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook, with story by Robert D. San Souci and screenplay by Rita Hsiao, Philip LaZebnik, Chris Sanders, Eugenia Bostwick-Singer, and Raymond Singer. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney...

named "Reflection" it was reported she had gained a record deal with RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

 with Aguilera saying "I landed a record deal simultaneously as I landed the Mulan soundtrack. I had just turned seventeen years old, and during the same week, I just landed both. I recorded the Mulan soundtrack first and then a few months later I was out in L.A. recording the record for about six months". When asked about the song and Aguilera, RCA executive Ron Fair
Ron Fair
Ron Fair is a veteran A&R executive, record producer arranger, recording engineer and songwriter. In a career that has spanned over 30 years at major record labels he has produced and arranged hits for several artists, but he is best known as a "guru/mentor", guiding the careers of unknown artists...

 commented,
"She is a badass genius of singing. She was put on this earth to sing, and I've worked with a lot of singers.... When Aguilera met with us, she didn't care that she was auditioning for a record deal; she got into a performance zone that you see in artist much more mature than she is."


After she was asked to hit a musical note required for "Reflection", she thought that the song could be the gateway into an album deal. Aguilera spent hours recording a cover of Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston
Whitney Elizabeth Houston is an American singer, actress, producer and a former model. Houston is the most awarded female act of all time, according to Guinness World Records, and her list of awards include 1 Emmy Award, 6 Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among...

's "Run to You", which included the note she was asked to hit. After successfully hitting the note, which she called "the note that changed my life", she was given the opportunity to record the song. To record the song, she flew to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 for roughly a week. Despite growing increasingly exhausted during the recording sessions, when she heard that a 90-piece orchestra would be arriving to record the instrumental she begged to stay and witness the event. She later called the experience "amazing". Due to the success around the recording of "Reflection", RCA wished for Aguilera to record and release an album by September 1998 to maintain the "hype" surrounding her at that time. The label laid the foundation for the album immediately and started presenting Aguilera with tracks for her debut album, which they later decided would have a January 1999 release. "Reflection" was written and produced by Matthew Wilder
Matthew Wilder
Matthew Wilder is an American musician, composer and record producer, best known for his 1983 Top 5 hit, "Break My Stride"....

 and David Zippel
David Zippel
David Joel Zippel is an American musical theatre lyricist.-Biography:Zippel was born in Easton, Pennsylvania. He is a 1976 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. While there, he wrote a "bizarre political musical" called Rotunda...

, in the key of G major. The track begins with the lyrics "Look at me, you may think you see who I really am, but you'll never know me", with Aguilera's vocal range spanning from G3-Eb5 in a moderately slow tempo of 92 beats per minute. An alternate version of "Reflection" was included on Aguilera's 2000 Mi Reflejo
Mi Reflejo
Mi Reflejo is the first Spanish-language studio album by American pop singer Christina Aguilera. It was released on September 12, 2000. Most of the album was produced by Rudy Pérez and includes Spanish versions of five songs from her debut album Christina Aguilera, as well as six new songs...

, which was her first Spanish-language album and second studio album
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

 overall.

Critical response

Aguilera saw the song not as a way to gain critical acclaim, but as a promotional tool to gain notice in the music industry before the release of her debut album. The attention was gained after the track was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture, which gathered the attention of notable producers and writers. Critically though, the song did not receive immediate success, with critics calling it "predictable" and criticizing the lyrics. Beth Johnson of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

noted Aguilera has a "who-am-I musings" persona in the song, while Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...

 of Allmusic commented that the "Matthew Wilder and David Zippel's full-fledged songs [on Mulan] are flat and unmemorable." While reviewing Aguilera's debut studio album, Ricky Wright of Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

 said that, aside from "Genie in a Bottle
Genie in a Bottle
"Genie in a Bottle" is the second single by American pop recording artist, Christina Aguilera, taken from her self-titled debut album. It was co-written by David Frank, Steve Kipner, and Pamela Sheyne, and produced by Frank and Kipner respectively...

", "most of this music is straight from the cookie cutter", including "the Mulan ballad showpiece 'Reflection'." Nikki Tranter of PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...

 considered "Reflection" a "nice song" without the "icky-pop beat" used on other songs recorded by Aguilera.

Chart performance

After premiering in June 1998, "Reflection" was Aguilera's first song to chart in the United States, and peaking at 19 on the Adult Contemporary chart despite only gaining a limited radio release. After the success of the track, Aguilera's record label RCA decided to fund her debut album (costing over one million dollars), and eventually funded more than they had predicted initially.

Music video and live performances

An accompanying music video for "Reflection" was included as a bonus to the Disney Gold Classic Collection DVD release of Mulan in 1998. Aguilera has performed the song on television four times, first on the CBS This Morning, and then on the Donnie & Marie
Donny & Marie (1998 TV series)
Donny & Marie was an American talk show hosted by Donny and Marie Osmond, that aired in syndication from September 1998 to May 2000. The show had a "house band", featuring Jerry Williams , Kat Dyson , Paul Peterson , and Nick Vincent . The show aired from 1998 to 2000.-External links:*...

show; neither of these performances were directed at her demographic of teen viewers. Whilst watching the show on This Morning, Aguilera gained the attention of songwriter Diane Warren
Diane Warren
Diane Eve Warren , is a US songwriter. Her songs have received six Academy Award nominations, five Golden Globe nominations, including one win and seven Grammy Award nominations, including one win. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001...

, who was astonished by such a young performer being as "polished" as she was. Warren later stated that she had seen the potential in Aguilera. The singer also performed "Reflection" on MuchMusic
MuchMusic
MuchMusic is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel owned by Bell Media. MuchMusic is dedicated to music-related programs, pop and youth culture.-History:...

's Intimate and Interactive
Intimate and Interactive
Intimate and Interactive is the title of a television program aired on the Canadian music video channel MuchMusic. It is not a regularly scheduled program, but airs on average three or four times a year, and features contemporary artists live in concert at the CHUM-City Building...

on May 17, 2000. An American Broadcasting Company
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 special in 2000, featuring a performance of the song, was recorded and released in a DVD titled My Reflection.

Charts

Chart (1998) Peak
position
US Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

Adult Contemporary
Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks
The Adult Contemporary chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States...

19
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