"Genie in a Bottle" is the first hit single and signature song from Christina Aguilera's debut album, Christina Aguilera. It was co-written by David Frank, Steve Kipner, and Pamela Sheyne. The song was released on June 22, 1999 as the album's lead single. It became a smash hit overnight, becoming one of Aguilera's most successful singles worldwide. The track went #1 on Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks, having had the longest stay at number one for the entire year. The track established Aguilera's place in pop culture as a pop phenomenon, going platinum within a few months of release. The single earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 2000 and helped her win the Best New Artist Grammy that same year. Many consider this her signature song (along with "Beautiful").

The song is featured on the video games Karaoke Revolution Volume 2and Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2.

The Spanish version of the song is called "Genio Atrapado". The music videos for both "Genie in a Bottle" and "Genio Atrapado" were directed by Diane Martel.

After being signed to RCA, Aguilera began working on her self-entitled debut album Christina Aguilera. The track was written by Dan Frank, Steve Kipner and Pamela Sheyne. According to Aguilera's early songwriters who appeared on the documentary series Driven, Aguilera was not convinced that the track would highlight her voice. Her songwriter claimed that there was a "battle" between Aguilera and her producers because she wanted to display the power and audacity in her voice, whereas her producers would hold her back. The original title of the song was "If You Wanna Be With Me", but RCA thought "Genie in a Bottle" was more appealing to audiences.

Directed by Diane Martel, filming took place in April 1999 in Malibu. Aguilera wore tiny hip hugging outfits throughout the video, which stirred controversy. The press felt Aguilera was too young to wear erotic clothing and singing suggestive lyrics. Aguilera ended up re-recording the track for Radio Disney and Mi Reflejo, which featured her hit "Genio Atrapado".

The music video begins with Aguilera laying on a beach, wearing a white midriff and tiny shorts. In the next scene, she's seen wearing a jean outfit while sitting on a deck. The video suddenly breaks into a dance scene, where Aguilera wears a white midriff with orange pants and a mini turquoise shawl. Aguilera's friends in the music video come over to her house where they meet up with a group of guys driving a red chevrolet. She is then on top of the chevrolet on her knees singing, wearing a pink midriff and white capris. The music video ends with a guy chasing after Aguilera, and together they sit with a group of friends while a bonfire is lit.

The video became an instant hit on MTV and other music channels, including TRL, and eventually retired on TRL.

Aguilera performed at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards in Hollywood. She previewed the remade version of it, called "Genie 2.0", wearing a tight leather outfit. She later performed the lead single of the compilation, "Keeps Gettin' Better".

In her sexually driven debut single, Aguilera begins the song as a sexually repressed young woman stating that she feels like she's been "locked up tight for a century of lonely nights", and that she is waiting for sexual release. She then sees a young man who sexually arouses her, making her exclaim, "My body's saying let's go". However, even though her hormones are "racing at the speed of light", she realizes "my heart is saying no". Nevertheless, Aguilera offers herself to the man by stating, "If you wanna be with me, baby there's a price to pay, I'm a Genie in a Bottle, You gotta rub me the right way".

The song's lyrics caused minor controversy at the time, as it was felt by some that Aguilera was too young to be singing such relatively suggestive lyrics, particularly as her music was marketed to young girls. The song was censored in some markets with tamer lyrics, in which Aguilera sings "you gotta treat me the right way" (instead of "you gotta rub me the right way"). The censored version was played in preteen-oriented markets such as Radio Disney.

In Aguilera's 2006 album, Back to Basics, a track dedicated to her fans titled "Thank You (Dedication to Fans...)"used samples of Genie in a Bottle. Extracts used such as "I feel like I been locked up", "My body's saying let's go", "oh, oh, oh", "Come on, Come on" and "Baby, Baby, Baby". Aguilera refers to the lock up mentioned in the beginning of the song to her being a prisoner of her dreams.

The song was released on June 22, 1999. Based on strong airplay and CD sales, "Genie in a Bottle" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for five consecutive weeks. At that point, it had the longest stay at number for the entire year, tying Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca" and Jennifer Lopez's "If You Had My Love", although Santana would later in the year take the single, "Smooth", to number one on the chart with a ten-week run. The success of "Genie in a Bottle" marked the third time that year that a new female artist reached number one on the Hot 100 with her debut single, the first being Britney Spears with "...Baby One More Time" and the second being Jennifer Lopez with "If You Had My Love". The success and achievement for Spears' and Aguilera's debut singles caused a lot of rivalry and comparisons between the two in the media.

The song also crossed-over successfully to other Billboard charts, topping the Top 40 Mainstream, Top 40 Tracks and Rhythmic Top 40 charts. The song even managed to reach the Adult Top 40, and the Spanish version of the song, "Genio Atrapado" (English: "Trapped Genie"), was a modest hit on the Latin chart. Strong sales assured the single a platinum certification. "Genie in a Bottle" stayed on Billboard Hot 100 for 25 weeks, and 43 weeks in the U.K.. Internationally, a similar chart dominance was seen, as the track went to number one in both the UK and Canada for multiple weeks. It charted within the top five in every country it charted. Overall, the song is Aguilera's second-highest charting single, behind "Lady Marmalade", a collaboration with Lil' Kim, Mýa and Pink. "Genie in a Bottle" was certified platinum in Germany for selling over 500,000 units. The single was also certified platinum in Australia for selling over 70,000 units.

"Genie in a Bottle" became Aguilera's first #1 on the Worldwide Singles chart, where it stayed on the charts for 29 weeks and ended up at no.3 onthe Year-End chart selling 7,391,000 points. "Genie in a Bottle" was certified platinum in almost every country it was released in, making it's selling exceed over one million worldwide. It peaked at #7 on the Year-End charts in the U.S., and #7 on the European Year-End charts.

Parodist 'Hawaiian Ryan' also recorded a spoof of the song, called "Weenie in a Bottle", one of the tracks from his Shaving Ryan's Privates album. This parody is often incorrectly attributed to "Weird Al" Yankovic. Aguilera also used the line "weenie in a bottle" when she played Samantha Jones at an episode of Saturday Night Live that she hosted in 2004, where in her character revealed to everyone that she was a man the entire time.

The song was translated to "Genio Atrapado," ("Trapped Genie") in Spanish. It was the first single from the album Mi Reflejo, which was Aguilera's first Spanish studio album.

The music video for "Genio Atrapado" mostly remained the same from the English language version, "Genie in a Bottle," except the scenes in which Aguilera actually sings were re-shot with a slightly different backdrop in order for her lips to match the Spanish lyrics. These re-shot scenes were mixed into scenes in which she is not singing from the original "Genie in a Bottle" music video in order to make it seem as if both videos are seamlessly the same.

A new electronic version of the song, named "Genie 2.0", was performed at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, to commemorate Aguilera's first greatest hits compilation Keeps Gettin' Better: A Decade of Hitsand the 25th anniversary of the MTV Video Music Awards. Both the original version and the remake are included on Keeps Gettin' Better.

Aguilera performed "Genie in a Bottle" on her tour and at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. The Freelance Hellraiser created a bootleg remix of "Genie in a Bottle" and the instrumental track of The Strokes' "Hard to Explain", called "A Stroke of Genie-us". The remix was played on the UK radio station Xfm, and received favorable reviews. This song is one of the earliest examples of the mashup genre.

"Genie in a Bottle" earned Aguilera a Grammy nomination for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" in 1999. The single earned Aguilera many awards, including "Best Selling New Artist" from the World Music Awards. On MTV Asia the track won the "Hotseat Artist Of The Month" award, proving that "Genie in a Bottle" had garnered worldwide success.