back to beige
Feb. 18th, 2008 02:38 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
alexmacpherson.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
poptimistsMy unease with the new wave of nu-Amys has been steadily increasing, as anyone who's paid attention to poptimist comment threads recently will have noticed. It was heartening yesterday to discover that I'm not the only one: Kitty Empire's brilliant column in yesterday's Observer says it all.
Key paragraph for me is this:
What a shame, though, that brains and other important body parts - ears, guts, gristle, balls, belly, soul, that kind of thing - have also seemingly vanished from female pop's body politic in the wake of Winehouse's success. Every record label is chasing their own Amy - preferably a white one and one without all that ink and crack. (If you are black, British and - say - called Estelle, you have to take your retro soul-pop stylings to America to be given a proper hearing.) Suitable candidates are being fast-tracked into tidy marketing synergies and given generous press coverage. All these second- and third-generation Amys are, without exception, easier on the ear and a damn sight less trouble than Winehouse herself.
I'd also argue that the problem isn't only that the anaemic, polite reverence of Adele et al do the soul genre a disservice (tbh with Adele it's less reverence and more her total stupidity which is the problem). I've also seen this 'wave' being hyped up as a distinctly female-led one, as though it's a triumph for "women in pop" - women who are autonomous and charismatic, not pliable pop puppets. (This umbrella would include Allen, Nash, Robyn et al I guess. But not Murphy because she isn't lining anyone's pockets.) But comparing these girls to the women who were in the charts even 12 years ago - PJ Harvey, Courtney Love, Tori Amos, Björk, Beth Gibbons - they don't even begin to compare. Those were women who weren’t afraid to be aggressive, to be cathartic, to scare people, to experiment with language and sound. Now all we get is blah blah blah “my boyfriend’s a bastard and I am just like you” everygirl bullshit. You couldn't imagine any of the current crop, except Winehouse, actually scaring anyone.
Key paragraph for me is this:
What a shame, though, that brains and other important body parts - ears, guts, gristle, balls, belly, soul, that kind of thing - have also seemingly vanished from female pop's body politic in the wake of Winehouse's success. Every record label is chasing their own Amy - preferably a white one and one without all that ink and crack. (If you are black, British and - say - called Estelle, you have to take your retro soul-pop stylings to America to be given a proper hearing.) Suitable candidates are being fast-tracked into tidy marketing synergies and given generous press coverage. All these second- and third-generation Amys are, without exception, easier on the ear and a damn sight less trouble than Winehouse herself.
I'd also argue that the problem isn't only that the anaemic, polite reverence of Adele et al do the soul genre a disservice (tbh with Adele it's less reverence and more her total stupidity which is the problem). I've also seen this 'wave' being hyped up as a distinctly female-led one, as though it's a triumph for "women in pop" - women who are autonomous and charismatic, not pliable pop puppets. (This umbrella would include Allen, Nash, Robyn et al I guess. But not Murphy because she isn't lining anyone's pockets.) But comparing these girls to the women who were in the charts even 12 years ago - PJ Harvey, Courtney Love, Tori Amos, Björk, Beth Gibbons - they don't even begin to compare. Those were women who weren’t afraid to be aggressive, to be cathartic, to scare people, to experiment with language and sound. Now all we get is blah blah blah “my boyfriend’s a bastard and I am just like you” everygirl bullshit. You couldn't imagine any of the current crop, except Winehouse, actually scaring anyone.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: US blah blah blah
Date: 2008-02-18 10:32 pm (UTC)Re: US blah blah blah
Date: 2008-02-19 12:16 am (UTC)Though I find the fact that people are continuing to just accept the Tori/Courtney/PJ and Adele/Duffy comparison utterly hilarious.