The Poptimists Review Of The Year 2006: Dancing about Arguetexture

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Two somewhat difficult categories to administer today - the "argument of the year", difficult because only one thing really got widely nominated. And the "thing to dance (to)", difficult because nothing got nominated twice!

Here are the 'argument' nominees.

The Paris Hilton Wars: Is PH's album a triumph or a travesty? Should it be taken seriously? What are the hataz really playing at? Here's The Lex vs Plan B, and Dave Moore on Paris at Stylus.
Indie vs Emo in the Freaky Trigger Comments Box: This one will run and run. Delve in here and here.
Lordi: Worthy Eurovision Winners?: The argument that tore the Eurovision community apart - pantomime or "real rock"? And is that a good thing anyway? If anyone can point me to evidence for this argument I'd be grateful.

As for the dance to nominees...

"Monster" is a rock song about a hill and a monster.
"We Are Your Friends" is a much-loved golden oldie.
"Chicken Noodle Soup" is big on YouTube.
Magda is a tea-making DJ.
"We Share Our Mother's Health" is Scandiravian.

[Poll #893038]

You can still vote in earlier polls and nominate for the remaining categories.

Comments

Re: Shitheads March To Victory

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I just wrote something really long and then realised it could be summarised by the sentence 'Paris represents the entire of my own middle-class guilt and serves as the voodoo doll of criticism I'm ultimately aiming at myself.' (change a few words and nearly everything I've ever written about her could be a rant at myself) Basically, she has turned herself into a brand and I hate that brand very passionately, which probably suggests something wrong my own psychology or something, in that whilst I'd dearly love to grab Paris and scream at her about poverty and genocide, I am essentially no better and to be honest, probably worse, since she at least acknowledges what she is etc. I think that goes for a lot of people, Brit and American but that it's felt most acutely in Britain. The rest of Europe is largely untroubled by her because of the language barrier- she does not seem like one of them, I suspect.

I think, if Paris can not be you, then there's a plausible chance you could like her. If she could be you, you can't. If you want to be her... well that's a whole bag of interesting love/hate stuff. I agree about her never being a plausible icon of hard work (although if Princess Diana can manage it, anything is probably possible, good god) but my gut feeling is to say 'well then what the hell's she doing there?' I dunno, sociologically I see Paris Hilton's popularity as something that's a symptom of a nasty illness Anglo-American (and indeed most Western/Northern/Whatever the hell you call it these days cultures) society has and we've got her as a glorious martyr to it all, really- she's easy enough to hate, same as Bush and Blair are, so it can't be us etc. (different demographic, same illness) I don't think it'd be cured by people liking her, because I think she's a poisonous bint completing the commercialisation/de-intellectualisation/warping of my generation of females that began with the Spice Girls but hating on her probably isn't the answer, either, for vaguely the same reasons the War on Terror isn't working and won't work.

I mean... she did deserve to fail because she didn't do it right. If she'd done a pop album and been sparkling and charming and said how much she enjoyed doing it, rather than being kinda louche and talking about her brand and that she'd wanted to be a popstar since she was a little girl (this is too common a dream to be anything other than voodoo doll fuel) and had in any way convinced me that she wanted to do anything other than do a few shows, I might've relaxed my attitude about her. She can't afford to do that, because hating Paris Hilton is a big part of what gets her paid.

LeAnn Rimes comparison... to be honest I don't know what the hell LeAnn Rimes does these days, it's a very small minority in the UK that want her music, I suspect and they're happily fed off the fanbase. I and everyone else knew about Paris Hilton's album coming out- it was everywhere but it was just a piece of celebrity gossip, not music. Putting something on the electronic promo bit that most people don't see doesn't do it for the majority of people that might buy her CD (I count myself as one of those- I did vaguely consider buying it as a pop curio but decided I couldn't really face doing it) who might be bought over by Paris turning up somewhere and really talking about her single like she knows what it is. I'm not really asking for talent or musical knowledge, she could just say 'well we went into the studio and this song stood out as something I really liked off the album, it's something I'd listen to myself and I think it's cool' -anything to make it all seem more accessible and less cynical.

[cont., comment was too long to post as one]

Re: Shitheads March To Victory

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

[pt. 2]
Mind you, not having a telly, I actually have no idea what she did with regards to that. She may have said something to that effect. The only thing I can remember her saying about her album is that there was a track on it called 'Blind Star' (yer wot? etc.) about P!nk, in response to 'Stupid Girls.'

I think my problem really, possibly along with some other Paris-haters (I would hypothesise that for the vast majority of people who hate Paris, she's become the Britney figure that nu-metal created for most people, whereby she was some kind of vacuous stereotype who might well be Satan with her mainstream-ness and oh my god pop etc.) is that she's totally alien and at once rather too close to home. I can't imagine having that much money and swanning around and celebrity parties... but I can imagine going down the pub every night on my parents' money (being a student) and really, she makes me very uncomfortable. I can't relate to her attitude about it, though.

I think the other thing is that... I don't care how hard she works. No one deserves that much. Bill Gates doesn't deserve his money, Tony Blair doesn't deserve his money, Noam Chomsky doesn't deserve his money. I can't just look at her and think 'she's working really hard to do what she wants' because I don't think anyone could justify getting what she appears to want. Maybe the fucktape screwed her up (pun unintended)and it's some kind of self-reassurance trip but what she does says 'I am a cynical businesswoman and I'm expoiting you and you love it.' Which is difficult for a nation of cynics to swallow and some kind of base moral stops (most of) the sort of people who buy CDs thinking that's alright, it's her business plan whereas people who might fall for that wouldn't pay for the CD, I suspect.

I'm falling asleep, so this probably reads like a three-year-old dribbled it.

My basic point was... Paris just represents something I (and I assume other people) feel really bad about and I (and a lot of other people) really can't face thinking about it enough to allot her any respect/affection. Basically, I can't relate to Paris and I can't detach her, either.

Re: Shitheads March To Victory

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Sorry to stick this between your two posts. You COULD yell at Paris about genocide and poverty if you had grounds to do so -- she has more means to do something about it than you do, and she IS in a different economic class, so not all of this is directly self-directed. And all of this hand-wringing may have nothing to do with her music per se, but it has something to do with HER, and part of the trouble in this argument is realizing that to be honest (and not sound like a shithead, which you certainly don't) at some level you have to grapple with everything, but you also have to know how to choose your battles. One problem Paris presents on this album, plain and simple, is that SHE WANTS YOU TO LIKE HER. She is absolutely likeable throughout (to me). And its quite possible that in connecting to this album, as I have -- and this has as much to do with the discussion of the album as it does with the album itself, so there's s'more confusion -- you might also be connecting to someone you could also yell about genocide to. And by yelling at her you're yelling at someone with more (economic) means to do something about, say, poverty than yelling at yourself about it, which you could also do.

Here's the thing: I'm pretty sure that just about NO ONE wants to be Paris. Paris is rarely (if ever) used as a symbol of, for instance, success -- most often, she's portrayed as a mutant by-product of..."capitalism," or something. Except it's NOT capitalism, because the desired work ethic most commonly embraced in these arguments is essentially capitalist. Someone SHOULD be able to be a successful -- and this means rich and famous -- pop star, just not her. So one place to stick a voodoo needle in is thinking, for instance, is it OK for anyone to be a "pop star"? What does my judgment of Paris Hilton as a pop star say about how I feel about other artists I enjoy and support? How is she (legitimately) different from them (and she may be, I just think most people don't want to ask that honestly)?

Also crucial is that Paris Hilton has not made herself into a martyr, and no one is particularly eager to do it for her, though I get the sense that lots of people would like to burn her at the stake. Which wouldn't by definition make her a martyr, mind.

Re: Shitheads March To Victory

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

Exactly – the argument about Paris elides socialist (nobody should be that rich) and Protestant-work-ethic capitalist (you should only be that rich if you do the work) arguments, although as most people don't have hard ideological mental structures, it's often a bit of both. Maybe we should compare Paris to George W: both aristocrats, yet one has successfully convinced the common folk that he's one of them, while the other is mocked-but-profitable symbol of untamed decadence.

Re: Shitheads March To Victory

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I think that's dangerous, though -- if I wanted to criticize W, I'd focus on his policies, not his social position. The difference is, W is not JUST a symbol, and he shouldn't have his politics projected onto him, as is usually the case with Paris. Paris's own politics are unclear, and irrelevant to the extent that she doesn't have a political agenda (or followers) and isn't running for office. But if being born rich is wrong, all gripes should probably be directed at the institution that produced her (and at guys like W, who has done more for her tax bracket than any president I know of. Fortunately, Paris isn't singing about her tax bracket -- and that's not even a joke, because K-Fed came out with an equally-maligned album that WAS mostly him rapping about his tax bracket, which was part of the reason I hated it so much, along with it generally sucking).

Re: Shitheads March To Victory

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

(well, not really "dangerous," more like "I wouldn't make that comparison.")

Re: Shitheads March To Victory

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

What's really interesting about the Paris Riots is the way she always ends up in a political framework! I mean, if she decided to "do something" about poverty or genocide that would be nice, but why is it incumbent on her to do anything?* Purely because she's rich? Then why don't we go after any number of popstars - or indeed Paris's parents, who are after all the source of the money. (nb: Paris has said that since she turned 18, she hasn't accepted any money from her parents.) It's funny, the crux of Paris arguments always seems to be what she represents, what she "says" about "society" - and there is a place for this, but it just seems to dominate the argument in a way it wouldn't if we were talking about Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Kylie Minogue, Justin Timberlake etc etc.

*what we do know is what various elected representatives, whose responsibility these things are, have/haven't done, and it is THEM we should be grabbing by the lapels and shouting at.