Official Charts Pop Gem #30: Christina Aguilera – Fighter

Xtina’s empowering anthem from hit album Stripped is the latest track to get Pop Gem status.

No hit single is quite complete with a cool video to match. Wheil your ears are getting excited by the music, it's always nice to give your eyes a treat too, right? Right. While it's still possible to score high on the Official Singles Chart without one, a decent music video can make a tune unforgettable. So when we asked for Pop Gems with great videos, we got plenty of big songs.

Official Charts Pop Gems are all about overlooked classics, however. Big hits with epic videos tend to get played long after they’ve dropped out of the chart, but what of those tracks with slick vids that don’t get played that much any more? Step forward Christina Aguilera’s 2003 Top 10 hit Fighter.

Watch the video for Fighter before we tell the story of one of Christina Aguilera’s most overlooked hits.

Fighter, released in June 2003, suffers from classic middle-child syndrome. Sandwiched between Christina’s chart-topping signature ballad Beautiful and R&B power jam Can’t Hold Us Down, Fighter has never quite got the attention it deserves, despite hitting Number 3 on the Official Singles Chart. We bet Fighter has a right old sulk sometimes about being pushed out, don't you? Sulk no more!

When this track was released, Christina was at her most powerful: a masterful comeback and reinvention successfully kicked off in late 2002 with Number 1 single Dirrty and smash hit album Stripped. Xtina, with her unkempt hair, piercings and exposed booty was reborn.

Fighter is the most surreal of the Stripped videos. It’s almost Lady Gaga-esque in its wonderful weirdness. Christina shoos away swarms of moths and bees – overcoming her fears in the process – dressed in some outfits that have, if we’re honest, seen better days. Christina wanders through dark caves and gloomy chambers before finally deciding she has had quite enough of filming for one day and boots the camera in. We hope she’s going to clean up after herself because someone could get glass stuck in their foot and then where will we be, eh?

Fighter has sold 159,000 copies and the album it came from, Stripped, has sold over 1.9 million. Such is Christina’s popstar wisdom, she's now gone on to be a judge on the US version of singing talent show The Voice. And she’s certainly got one of those!

Christina famously started out on Disney’s The Mickey Mouse Club. OfficialCharts.com recently counted down the Top 10 selling female Disney stars and Christina scored pretty highly against big names like Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato and, of course Britney Spears herself. Check out how Christina did and find out her top-selling singles.