Rules Of The Game #5: What's Wrong With Pretty Girls

[koganbot]

Latest column. Comments welcome here.

What's Wrong With Pretty Girls?

EDIT: Here are links to all but three of my other Rules Of The Game columns (LVW's search results for "Rules of the Game"). Links for the other three (which for some reason didn't get "Rules Of The Game" in their titles), are here: #4, #5, and #8.

UPDATE: I've got all the links here now:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html

Comments

teenpop adult advisory

[speakerstress.livejournal.com]

My partner, roommate, lover, tormentor, and best friend, Jessica, saw me scrolling through a blog link from one of your past columns w/ candied photos of teen pop divas. She was offended, and thought it creepy that I a middle-aged man should be taking an interest in music associated w/ such tarted-up young girls. I tried to explain it wasn't a sexual interest. I work with teenagers, after all, it’s not that strange that I should take an interest in their enthusiasms, right? But this wasn’t work either, really. It was the music, my interest, I mean. Only one Paris Hilton song, actually, "Stars Are Blind." I liked its danceable buoyancy, the sly hook twist on the you-show-me-yours-and-I'll-show-you-mine refrain, even the way her voice barely goes w/ the beat or melody but still seems to assert this deadpan-come hither personality that is, well, funny, sassy, sweet-hearted even. She's got no talent, Jessica insisted. Does Madonna have talent, I retorted? Yeah, more than bleepin’ Paris Hilton! This is where our conversation intersects with yours. So, in addition to your list of stand-in issues for not liking this stuff, I’d like to add another. Teenpop/dance music like the Back Street Boys, Paris is insipid, unoriginal, repetitive, “soulless” (this is what a long review on Amazon boils the Paris album down to), and explicitly hedonistic or sexually objectified enough that self-respecting older people shouldn't have anything to do w/ it. Time to pull out our Lawrence Welk records, Frank.

Re: teenpop adult advisory

[koganbot]

I think "Stars Are Blind" is fine but it's maybe the eighth best song on the Paris album, which is remarkably, consistently good except for the Rod Stewart cover at the end. Maybe it's so good because with her voice there's no way she can do ballads so she doesn't try.

"Explicitly hedonistic" and "sexually objectified" aren't stand-in issues at all, and take away "insipid" and "soulless" [and understand that rock 'n' roll sounds "unoriginal" and "repetitive" only to an ear that doesn't grasp African American and hillbilly idioms] and the list of supposedly derogatory adjectives can attach not only to Paris and the Backstreet Boys but to Elvis, Jagger, James Brown, not to mention the Shangri-Las and the Supremes, not to mention the New York Dolls and Dolly Parton (talk about tarted up! she modeled her look on the prostitutes she knew as a kid). Of course, all of those people did stuff that was a lot more complicated and varied than "explicitly hedonistic" and "sexually objectified" imply - e.g. "Down From Dover" and "Gimme Shelter" and "In The Ghetto," have their hedonism and antihedonism too. But so does a lot of teenpop, which covers a wide range. Does Jessica ever actually listen to teenpop, or does she just have opinions? If she doesn't listen, as a shock effect you might want to play her in quick succession M2M's "Give A Little Love," Pink's "Don't Let Me Get Me," Avril Lavigne's "Unwanted," Kelly Clarkson's "Hear Me," Ashlee Simpson's "Shadow," Lindsay Lohan's "I Live For The Day," and Aly and A.J.'s "Not This Year." Those young women can sturm and drung with the best of them.

Re: teenpop adult advisory

[speakerstress.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard those songs, but I don't think they'd impress her. Your "sturm and drung" would be to her pop pablum, I'm afraid. It's like once she found the Velvets she put away her GoGo's records as childish things and never looked back. So she doesn't listen to teenpop, right. Nor do I much, really. She opposes Paris as an example or role-model to young women. (I only wish when we were arguing I would have thought to ask her your question about how ridding the world of Paris would benefit society!) Regarding Paris's music I take this as a stand-in issue, like the age argument, for uncomfortable feelings Jess feels about gender and power, but apparently I misconstrued your idea totally. At any rate, I like teenpop in small doses (I mean, I like "Rush" or "Show Me Love," for example, as much as I like a fave tune by Yo La Tengo or Public Enemy or anybody else). Later.

Re: teenpop adult advisory

[koganbot]

Fans of the Velvet Underground's "Venus In Furs" are directed to Ashlee Simpson's "La La."