November RIP

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Here's what we talked about in November:

Do trends matter?
Anthony schools us on chart country
Year-end listzzzzz
Indie Special 1: MBV
Senseless artist devotion
Unsustainable false songs/production binaries R Us
Indie Special 2: The Brit Box
A crash course in contemporary hip-hop
Roisin: magnificent or menace?

Plus canons for ELO, Stevie Wonder, Gwen/No Doubt, the Pop Open, the Year In Pop, and album chats about Grills Aloud and Kylie. What a busy month.

[Poll #1099594]

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Well that is kind of the point of Kim. Isn't sex, like, an integral part of pop anyway? Hence everyone getting all excited about GA double entendres? Kim is loads funnier with it plus also a bit subversive.

I admit I don't know why you're surprised that I love r&b and hip-hop - r&b is my first love after all and if pushed I would choose it over pop in a heartbeat. I get depressed when I look at people's last.fms and see them entirely bereft of r&b divas and rappers. It seems like a v important facet of music is missing.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Maybe it would help if I actually found Kim attractive! Blatant crudeness of her stuff ends up unappealing most of the time. Don't most people prefer soft porn to hardcore etc. - even in pop music? Part of Missy's greater accessibility is thru being a lot tamer in this regard. Note I do not like 'Smell Yo Dick' much either, partly cos of the crude nature of the humour but more because I thought the track was boring aside from that. In spite of all that I do like a couple of Kim tracks (e.g. How Many Licks) just not in any big way. This all makes me sound v prudish which may well be the case.

Am curious about her subversiveness tho - example?

You're probably missing some important facets too - I wouldn't waste your energy despairing too much!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Quite apart from the whole feminist theory vagina dentata stuffz I shall just point you towards the lyrics to 'Suck My Dick' (http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lilkim/suckmydick.html). And yes you are a prude!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I don't think GA's double entendres are sexually exciting - I just happen to enjoy that strain of British smuttiness! ("Sexy No No No" is actually a pretty accurate summation of GA - the nudge-nudge stuff fits them a lot better).

It may be a really impertinent question but how - if at all - do you relate your diva appreciation with mainstream gay culture's traditional love for white pop divas? The diva worship has always struck me as a really interesting thread in yr criticism and as the discarding of Lil Kim from the Grau's top 1000 albums proves it strikes a nerve.

Kim's stuff has never really gripped me for some reason - I like Trina a lot and have enjoyed records by even minor ho-rap entities like Khia more than I have Kim: I should investigate further when I'm in that mood next.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if you're meant to find Kim's music sexually exciting either, even the bits where she basically directs masturbation scenarios. I think she intends her music to be threatening/exciting to straight men but, more than that, empowering and liberating to women/gay men.

I share most of mainstream gay culture's love of white pop divas - MADGE! - though I get annoyed when the gays go nuts for cheapo popstars who will never be divas, ever. And I think this is the crux of why I get so annoyed when black r&b/hip-hop divas are overlooked or ignored, because I appreciate Kim and Trina and Ciara in exactly the same way that I appreciate Madonna and Xtina, and so should they. Pro-pop criticism has always been vaguely coded gay but this is really explicit now - eg Pjustice is a lot more overt about how much of its content is for the gays than it was five years ago. And ho-rap is very, very queer-friendly.

Kim and Trina are about equal in my eyes; Kim has maybe been more reliably full of attitude but there's not much between their pinnacles, 'How Many Licks?' and 'B R Right'. They're equally filthy but Kim is more of a hard-ass (her gunz and drugz chat is totes hardcore and awesome), Trina more of a brat.

Rasheeda's 'Georgia Peach' is probably the most underrated ho-rap classic of them all.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I get the feeling that PJustice (like most publications) has multiple conflicting audiences (some of the conflicts being within an individual reader too!) - diva-loving pop fans, crate-digging pop fans, bouncy excitable pop fans, all coded gay to a greater or lesser degree.