Rules Of The Game #20: Fleshy Women, Slimy Men, Smart Teens

[koganbot]

Robyn, Paula, Enrique, Beyoncé, Heidi Montag, Mira Craig, Beth Ditto, Yung Berg, Ashley Tisdale, and lots about Aly & A.J.

The Rules Of The Game #20: Fleshy Women, Slimy Men, Smart Teens

Two questions: (1) Of all the songs I've been championing, why is "Potential Breakup Song" the one that's struck the biggest chord with you folks, that's become our miniature cause célèbre? (2) Why do some of us care so much that it gets airplay and breaks through to the general pop audience? What does it represent? What's at stake?

I read this column to the people in my writers group last night, some of whom got excited when I quoted the line from "Potential Breakup Song," and thought the song was terrific when I played it for them (at least the women did). My friend Ken said that it's got elements that remind him of Del Shannon. (When I think about it I can hear a family resemblance between its opening riff and the opening to Runaway. And PBUS's bass line does have something of a rockabilly boogie in it.)

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

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Heidi Montag!

Regarding "Potential Breakup Song," it's the meta that does it for me. (Part of the reason I love "Don't Talk" so hard is that when I first heard it, I thought she was saying, "don't talk or this song will end, I promise.") It has an awareness of itself as a song, which (a) gives me hope that they are as clever and analytical as we like to think, and, most importantly, (b) has a coldness and strength to it that I like, especially combined with the strut of lines like "you're not living till you're living / living with me." (Which has the same kick as "stick around, I'm not the kind of girl you wanna leave.")

I'm trying to figure out exactly what it that strikes me as so cold and exciting about that awareness, and I think maybe it's the control: we know that the singer/writer is in control of the song, so by explicitly presenting the situation as a song, we know they're in control of the situation. Without the meta, PUBS is basically "Irreplaceable," like, "you suck, and I don't need you." But with the meta, they're more sure than "Irreplaceable." They don't need him, they have a song either way, and they get to decide what kind of song it will be (or, in my misheard Hudgens lyrics, whether it will be at all).

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I heard the Hudgens song that way, too, but I didn't give her enough credit to be that self-aware, so I assumed it was "this all will end, I promise." Although that one has continued to grow on me the more I realize how strange the situation she's describing is, and how much of a power trip she's on! Talk about control!

[koganbot]

Lyric Websites seem to be split 50-50 between "the song will end, I promise" and "this all will end, I promise." I can hear it either way.

Control/not in control seems to be a big issue with A&A. "Chemicals React" is such an ambivalent song. In A.J.'s verse: "You make me feel out of my element/Like I'm drifting out to sea/Like the tide's pulling me in deeper/Making it harder to breathe." But they cannot deny how they feel inside. (And the song is completely noncommital as to whether they, you know, did it.)

This is what I wrote about "Bullseye" over on Jukebox:

Wordplay, desire, guitar crunch. She wants to want, she wants to be wanted, she wants to be selective, she wants to be in control, she wants to be overwhelmed. Complicated - even more on "Blush" than on this one - and she likes the complications. She finds them sexy. And they also give her room to maneuver. So wordplay is foreplay for this evangelical Christian girl(s) who's probably been taught to wait for marriage. [8]

Wordplay, puns, can be a way of asserting (the illusion) of control. Her feelings may not always cooperate (those unruly chemicals), but at least she can create a word dance that can analyze and dazzle and even - almost - obscure the point.

[koganbot]

Drifting out to the sea.

(My proofreading controls seem to be malfunctioning.)