Feeding frenzy
Jun. 21st, 2009 08:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotMade a couple comments on Dave's tumblr in regard to a post by abbyjean.
COMMENT ONE:
I'm having trouble gauging abbyjean's tone or intent here: are these "song ideas" supposed to represent what's really going on in the music* but what the artists aren't willing to say explicitly? But abbyjean's complaint in the Taylor one seems to be that in "White Horse" Taylor is being too explicit. In any event, abbyjean doesn't know the songs well. E.g., "Miss Independent" is about wanting to stop being Miss Independent, and Kelly's "Addicted" is about being dependent, and in "Behind These Hazel Eyes" and "Never Again" she sure doesn't seem like she got over David Hodges very easily. (I haven't concentrated on the new alb much so maybe there's a particular song on it that abbyjean is glossing, but that song would hardly be representative of Kelly's oeuvre. If abbyjean is thinking back to "Since U Been Gone," well, that song isn't representative, even if it's her biggest hit, and in any event her work is hardly reductive in the way that abbyjean is trying to reduce it.) And whatever confidence or lack of confidence Britney has in any of her abilities, or whatever she believes she has left to sell, what's going on in "Gimme More" and "If You Seek Amy" is not merely a sex sell. Each song has a double message, Britney as the one who herself wants more and is inviting people to fuck her, and Britney as the object of a feeding frenzy (like Michael Jackson in "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'": "you're just a buffet, you're a vegetable, they eat off of you, you're a vegetable"). So she's critiquing her cake and eating it too, which is what interesting complicated artists* tend to do.
And actually I don't "get" from "White Horse" that "Love Story" is just a fairytale; I think that Taylor is totally committed to "Love Story," which isn't about a princess being rescued by a white knight but about romeos and juliets coming through for each other even with the odds against them. "Love Story" itself contains its own tension, since we know very well what happened to Romeo and Juliet in the play and that the happy ending that the song unexpectedly supplies is not guaranteed. But no, Taylor is not telling us that love stories can't come true ("Our Song" seems to be her vision of an actual love).
I haven't concentrated on GaGa's lyrics much, but is there supposed to be some sense that they're not making that they should? "I get him hot, show him what I got" doesn't seem to need a lot of explication. Maybe "'Cause I'm bluffin with my muffin/I'm no lyin', I'm just stunnin' with my love-glue gunning" does. Seems to be asserting that she's in control of his desire but not vice versa, and she's playing hard to read in order to retain that control. None of her four hits come across as total nonsense, and anyway what does that issue have to do with her making a point that her image is part of her art? That she's using the image to distract from the lyrical shortcomings? That hardly seems plausible. (And not in regard to abbyjean but just to the general antagonism towards GaGa, I've not read more than a couple of GaGa interview snippets, but I don't have any problem with her claiming that her dance pop is art, since I don't see her claiming that other people's dance pop isn't art. In fact, I'd expect her to assume that it is, though you can tell me if she's said otherwise.)(So far, I think her voice isn't necessarily right for the material - she's too raw - and RedOne whomps his instrumentation at us way too heavily, but the material itself in the four singles I've heard ranges from pretty good to terrific, and I don't see what's supposed to be wrong about her attitude.)
*or in the image or in the careers
**The "artist" here is a shifting set of collectives, of course, with Britney the focus. Although Britney didn't write those two songs they wouldn't have been the way they were without her, either.
COMMENT TWO:
Britney's own parody titles a couple years ago are a lot funnier and smarter than abbyjeans':
Britney is asking her most die-hard fans for some assistance in order to name her upcoming album. Possible Album Titles:
1. Omg is Like Lindsay Lohan Like Okay Like
2. What if the Joke is on You
3. Down boy
4. Integrity
5. Dignity
Members of the Britney Spears Official Fan Club can vote by clicking here!
Not that I can interpret all these easily (here's my partial attempt). "Dignity" is giving Hilary a deserved sneer, and I'd guess that Britney thinks that you don't achieve integrity or dignity by merely proclaiming it or wearing the symbols of integrity and dignity. (I hope that Britney does think that integrity and dignity are available to her somewhere.) "Down boy" doesn't mean a lot to me. Maybe it's like her saying at the time of the headshave that she's tired of people touching her. (Cansei de ser sexy.) For "What if the Joke is on You," I wonder whom she's directing it at. Is the joke on the paps and the tabs? On the fans? On us? On her, the whole fame and career thing turning out to be... this???? But what Britney's wisecrack means can't be limited by its intent. Johnny Rotten said in the Filth and the Fury that his kissoff at the end of the final Sex Pistols show*, in San Francisco - "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" - was directed at the band and at himself, not at the audience, that he felt cheated by the whole Sex Pistols rah rah hoo hah thing. And yeah, maybe that was his intent, but the words apply across the board.
*Does anyone count the Sex Pistols revival shows years later as actual Sex Pistol shows?
COMMENT ONE:
I'm having trouble gauging abbyjean's tone or intent here: are these "song ideas" supposed to represent what's really going on in the music* but what the artists aren't willing to say explicitly? But abbyjean's complaint in the Taylor one seems to be that in "White Horse" Taylor is being too explicit. In any event, abbyjean doesn't know the songs well. E.g., "Miss Independent" is about wanting to stop being Miss Independent, and Kelly's "Addicted" is about being dependent, and in "Behind These Hazel Eyes" and "Never Again" she sure doesn't seem like she got over David Hodges very easily. (I haven't concentrated on the new alb much so maybe there's a particular song on it that abbyjean is glossing, but that song would hardly be representative of Kelly's oeuvre. If abbyjean is thinking back to "Since U Been Gone," well, that song isn't representative, even if it's her biggest hit, and in any event her work is hardly reductive in the way that abbyjean is trying to reduce it.) And whatever confidence or lack of confidence Britney has in any of her abilities, or whatever she believes she has left to sell, what's going on in "Gimme More" and "If You Seek Amy" is not merely a sex sell. Each song has a double message, Britney as the one who herself wants more and is inviting people to fuck her, and Britney as the object of a feeding frenzy (like Michael Jackson in "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'": "you're just a buffet, you're a vegetable, they eat off of you, you're a vegetable"). So she's critiquing her cake and eating it too, which is what interesting complicated artists* tend to do.
And actually I don't "get" from "White Horse" that "Love Story" is just a fairytale; I think that Taylor is totally committed to "Love Story," which isn't about a princess being rescued by a white knight but about romeos and juliets coming through for each other even with the odds against them. "Love Story" itself contains its own tension, since we know very well what happened to Romeo and Juliet in the play and that the happy ending that the song unexpectedly supplies is not guaranteed. But no, Taylor is not telling us that love stories can't come true ("Our Song" seems to be her vision of an actual love).
I haven't concentrated on GaGa's lyrics much, but is there supposed to be some sense that they're not making that they should? "I get him hot, show him what I got" doesn't seem to need a lot of explication. Maybe "'Cause I'm bluffin with my muffin/I'm no lyin', I'm just stunnin' with my love-glue gunning" does. Seems to be asserting that she's in control of his desire but not vice versa, and she's playing hard to read in order to retain that control. None of her four hits come across as total nonsense, and anyway what does that issue have to do with her making a point that her image is part of her art? That she's using the image to distract from the lyrical shortcomings? That hardly seems plausible. (And not in regard to abbyjean but just to the general antagonism towards GaGa, I've not read more than a couple of GaGa interview snippets, but I don't have any problem with her claiming that her dance pop is art, since I don't see her claiming that other people's dance pop isn't art. In fact, I'd expect her to assume that it is, though you can tell me if she's said otherwise.)(So far, I think her voice isn't necessarily right for the material - she's too raw - and RedOne whomps his instrumentation at us way too heavily, but the material itself in the four singles I've heard ranges from pretty good to terrific, and I don't see what's supposed to be wrong about her attitude.)
*or in the image or in the careers
**The "artist" here is a shifting set of collectives, of course, with Britney the focus. Although Britney didn't write those two songs they wouldn't have been the way they were without her, either.
COMMENT TWO:
Britney's own parody titles a couple years ago are a lot funnier and smarter than abbyjeans':
Britney is asking her most die-hard fans for some assistance in order to name her upcoming album. Possible Album Titles:
1. Omg is Like Lindsay Lohan Like Okay Like
2. What if the Joke is on You
3. Down boy
4. Integrity
5. Dignity
Members of the Britney Spears Official Fan Club can vote by clicking here!
Not that I can interpret all these easily (here's my partial attempt). "Dignity" is giving Hilary a deserved sneer, and I'd guess that Britney thinks that you don't achieve integrity or dignity by merely proclaiming it or wearing the symbols of integrity and dignity. (I hope that Britney does think that integrity and dignity are available to her somewhere.) "Down boy" doesn't mean a lot to me. Maybe it's like her saying at the time of the headshave that she's tired of people touching her. (Cansei de ser sexy.) For "What if the Joke is on You," I wonder whom she's directing it at. Is the joke on the paps and the tabs? On the fans? On us? On her, the whole fame and career thing turning out to be... this???? But what Britney's wisecrack means can't be limited by its intent. Johnny Rotten said in the Filth and the Fury that his kissoff at the end of the final Sex Pistols show*, in San Francisco - "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" - was directed at the band and at himself, not at the audience, that he felt cheated by the whole Sex Pistols rah rah hoo hah thing. And yeah, maybe that was his intent, but the words apply across the board.
*Does anyone count the Sex Pistols revival shows years later as actual Sex Pistol shows?
