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Rules Of The Game #6: The Boney Joan Rule
Latest column, in which I explain why everything is everything else.
The Boney Joan Rule
Your own examples or refutations are welcome.
(I'm not back from vacation, but I did find my way to a computer, and maybe I'll succeed in doing so again soon; sorry to Dave, Nia, Kat, and Jessica for not getting a chance to respond to your most recent comments.)
EDIT: Links to my other Rules Of The Game columns
The Boney Joan Rule
Your own examples or refutations are welcome.
(I'm not back from vacation, but I did find my way to a computer, and maybe I'll succeed in doing so again soon; sorry to Dave, Nia, Kat, and Jessica for not getting a chance to respond to your most recent comments.)
EDIT: Links to my other Rules Of The Game columns
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This column is true, and it's certainly the case that our reasons are very frequently more complex, compromised and contextual than a brief statement can capture, and it is as far as most people go. I'm sure I could find examples in my own singles reviews, for instance, where I've abused some indie band for qualities I have exalted in an R&B or hip hop or pop track.
Sometimes we use different words to pretend our meanings are different. I recall a discussion about auteurism in movies, where one friend dismissed the idea that Capra was an auteur. I cited nostalgia for old values as one of his pervading themes, and he claimed that wasn't a theme at all, just weakmindedness. Soon after, he cited 'things aren't what they used to be' as one of Ford's great themes. I do the same thing, calling a mood sad or wistful when a soul singer expresses it, but whiney when I hear it in indie or emo. I can also find this within a genre - there are certain kinds of material that I dislike when it's a male R&B singer but love when it's a woman. This is like your Boney Joan thing - there is much more to say about why it works for me in one context and not another (in the last example the context is the sexism in society as a whole, mostly).
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(*Too many of our standard metaphors are visual.)
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Is social class (which maybe could be considered "social hotness") like physical hotness an actual but not considered valid reason? I've been saying that social class is too weak a reason, not experiential enough, but is nevertheless something that can open one up to the experiential reasons.
It would help if I knew what I meant by social class.
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however i think the reason ppl tell themselves they are not saying it out loud is bcz it is "not valid as a useful area of critical discussion" -- i imagine the story behind this wd be some kind of "subjective is trumped by objective" argt (obv if the discussion was HOTTNESS it wd be no problem, but if the issue is say "is [x] a good singer?"
i am not defending this assumption of invalidity -- and don't share it -- but i think it is floating around out there as a spur to expression (or rather a block on it)
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i dont know how to ask this without being offensive, and i mean it with real and genuine respect, and while actually liking ashlee--how much of yr love of teen pop is connected to yr dick frank?
-- anthony easton (anthony), Tuesday, May 9, 2006 10:59 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link
The Lily Allen hype shifts into overdrive.
-- Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, May 9, 2006 6:39 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link
Not a dumb question, Anthony, though not all love is genital, and I'd say that current teenpop is far from being the most sexualized music out there (compared to Europop and dance and r&b or even the teenpop of seven years ago). And also remember that I don't have a lot of access to the visuals - which isn't to say that the aurals can't be enticing. (Strangely enough, Ashlee's videos tend to fall flat for me.) But then, I definitely feel an emotional warmth towards the personas/bodies/human beings I hear in Ashlee's and Lindsay's and Kelly's sound - and from the words and the minds that those words reveal (or invent or construct or whatever). But my favorite Ashlee song is "La La," which isn't as sexy as it's trying to be, even if it's all about sexual role playing; and another favorite is "I Am Me," which hits me in the way that Courtney Love singing "Violet" and Grace Slick singing "White Rabbit" hit me, neither of which particularly convey "warm, wet, inviting pussy." In fact, the person who's singing really feels sexy to me is Lily Allen (whom I wouldn't call teenpop, though I'm glad to write about her on this thread, and she's in the teengirl's age group): the way her tone is almost deadpan but falls lazily from her lips. But I don't yet have the warm feeling towards her that I have towards Ashlee, Kelly, and Lindsay, which is certainly a feeling of love towards a feminized something. (Well, it's three distinct feelings: the Ashlee feeling towards Ashlee, the Kelly feeling towards Kelly, the Lindsay feeling towards Lindsay.) But then, I rate the Veronicas "4ever" as the song of the year so far, and though it has a very sexualized sound, it's not pulling that response from me. The feeling is more like being doused in sugar.
But then also, a lot of great music that I'd call "sexual" - Amber's "Sexual," for instance, and a lot of stuff by t.A.T.u., and "Don't Say Goodbye" by Paulina Rubio - might as well be performed by someone called Anonymous. I'm not feeling love (or much of anything one way or another) for the people who perform them. And it's great sexual music anyway. But then, it's wrong to think of musical sexiness necessarily pertaining to the relation between the hearer and the performer. Really, what we do with sexy music in our lives may be more crucial, even if it's easier to talk about the relationship to the performer.
Don't know if I'm answering your question. Over the years, most of my hero-frontman-performers have been guys: Jagger and Dylan and Iggy and David and Johnny and Eminem. This isn't to say there can't be anything sensuous in my feeling towards them, but since I'm not gay, it's not warm in the way that it is towards a feminized someone like Ashlee. But Ashlee is definitely in a Jagger and Dylan rock category for me - as opposed to being in the Cover Girls sexy dance-pop category, though those categories need not be mutually exclusive and in fact there's something in all my heroes' music that pulls in a Cover Girls sensuality at least somewhere. Or something.
So I've just written a lot of words without quite figuring out my answer to your question. I tend not to have sex fantasies about people I don't actually know in real life, which is why girlie mags don't do anything for me. But that doesn't mean sex isn't a part of my feelings towards a singer.
-- Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, May 9, 2006 7:48 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link
Anyone else willing to address this issue?
-- Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, May 9, 2006 7:52 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link
(Should note taht no one else was willing to address this issue!)
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of course it undermines it also a bit -- in that anthony is gay, and gay men (and women) ARE more likely to allow that this is a very proper territory to be being interested in...
this also sort of crosses over with the discussion of "shippy" on
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I think that Tim Finney also answered the question somewhat, though not in the way that I did given that Tim, like Anthony, is gay, hence his Ashlee love is not at all likely to be dick specific.
In general, "sexy" is a compliment when aimed at rock music, though punk challenged the sex emphasis somewhat.
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