I'm In With The Out Crowd
Sep. 17th, 2012 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotHaven't listened yet to the whole Farrah Abraham album or followed much of the discussion. But Phil Freeman calls it "pure outsider art — fucking brilliant. Makes Peaches and Le Tigre sound like Taylor Swift." And Dave seems to be endorsing this characterization, "outsider art," in his Atlantic piece. Not sure whether or not I'd use it on her, or how often I'd use it on anyone. But to poke around further, let's ask the following questions:
(1) What is Farrah Abraham outside of?
(2) What might she be inside of? Who might her models and sources be?
I'm thinking of people like Teena Marie, Sophie B. Hawkins, Stevie Nicks — not as Farrah's sources or models, but as people who had sources and models themselves for their ideas of song lyrics and liner-note poetry; they were drawing on ideas of poetry that were probably as abundant as "real" poets' ideas, if not more abundant.*
EDIT (June 2019): Farrah seems to have deleted all the vids from My Teenage Dream Ended, but here, at least, is what she sounded like ("On My Own"):
END EDIT
*As far as I know, Teena, Sophie, and Stevie were never called outsider art (nor were Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison, for that matter, whom I wouldn't say were themselves altogether "inside," and who probably helped to make Teena et al. possible, though were hardly their main sources). But this might be just because no mainstream critics ever made much of a case for Teena et al. as poets (unlike Dylan and Morrison, whom I'm keeping inside parentheses — Dylan was sometimes slotted as "folk poetry," a term that hardly explains anything, but does point to people not being merely outside).
By the way, I don't think Farrah presents her stuff as poetry, but that doesn't mean she doesn't draw on poetry. Actually, I've never seen the Teen Mom shows, nor do I know much about her, nor have I read her book; so I don't know if she's claimed any poetic ambition. I'm guessing not, from the way she embeds her words in home-made pop tracks.
(1) What is Farrah Abraham outside of?
(2) What might she be inside of? Who might her models and sources be?
I'm thinking of people like Teena Marie, Sophie B. Hawkins, Stevie Nicks — not as Farrah's sources or models, but as people who had sources and models themselves for their ideas of song lyrics and liner-note poetry; they were drawing on ideas of poetry that were probably as abundant as "real" poets' ideas, if not more abundant.*
EDIT (June 2019): Farrah seems to have deleted all the vids from My Teenage Dream Ended, but here, at least, is what she sounded like ("On My Own"):
END EDIT
*As far as I know, Teena, Sophie, and Stevie were never called outsider art (nor were Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison, for that matter, whom I wouldn't say were themselves altogether "inside," and who probably helped to make Teena et al. possible, though were hardly their main sources). But this might be just because no mainstream critics ever made much of a case for Teena et al. as poets (unlike Dylan and Morrison, whom I'm keeping inside parentheses — Dylan was sometimes slotted as "folk poetry," a term that hardly explains anything, but does point to people not being merely outside).
By the way, I don't think Farrah presents her stuff as poetry, but that doesn't mean she doesn't draw on poetry. Actually, I've never seen the Teen Mom shows, nor do I know much about her, nor have I read her book; so I don't know if she's claimed any poetic ambition. I'm guessing not, from the way she embeds her words in home-made pop tracks.
Re: Outside Looking In
Date: 2019-06-25 04:02 am (UTC)***Which on one cassette included me (Your Mom Too's England's Newest Hit Makers).