Another Year In Pop: 31

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Some movement in the top ten at last! Kid Rock has turfed Dizzee off the top spot, the Script have whinged their way up to number 3 and Katy Perry's questionable ode to lesbianism is the highest new entry at 4 (its bosh remix is at no.50!), making this week's poll an aptly all-girl affair...

[Poll #1234871]

Comments

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

I mean, I can't believe she even has the nerve to talk about sexual politics when she inserts her BOYFRIEND LOOK I HAVE A BOYFRIEND I AM HETERO AND OK so clumsily into the lyric

UGH NO. This is my least favorite assumption that people make about this song. Boyfriend =/= hetero.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Bi, then, or just coy. It's still a get-out clause. Actually what annoys me most is "I hope he doesn't mind".

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Argh, what? Bi is not a get-out clause!

brb need to go make the Katy Perry post I've been putting off.

[koganbot]

It's the idea in the song that the boyfriend is the real thing and the girl she kissed is just a giggle, and right at the end of the vid where she has the look of alarm when she wakes up in someone's bed and then the look of relief when she finds out there's a guy in it.

But the thing irritated the hell out of me before I even noticed these things. So even if this were an expression of daring lesbian or bi self-discovery (and maybe in a clumsy way it is) it still comes across as clunky and coy and give-me-a-fucking-award-for-swallowing-the-goldfish. It's just so insecure and immature in its core. But this doesn't make it - or her - uninteresting. So I'm curious why you couldn't bring yourself to tick it. There's music here, and something compelling.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

But that's not the idea in the song, really, if you listen to it -- nothing in the song says that the boyfriend is the real thing because he's a boy and the girl is a giggle because she's a girl. The boyfriend is the real thing because he's her partner at the moment; the boyfriend is a boyfriend because "hope my girlfriend don't mind it" would sort of undercut the song.

You could argue, I guess, that she didn't have to mention a partner at all -- but if this were just the story of a single girl kissing a girl, I think it would be a lot less interesting. The whole point is that this is something she's never done before, and doing it now doesn't necessarily change anything -- the boyfriend line gets both those things across.

The video, though, is why I still want to punch her in the face, and why I can't bring myself to tick the song. See my most recent post for more.

[koganbot]

But that's not the idea in the song, really, if you listen to it -- nothing in the song says that the boyfriend is the real thing because he's a boy and the girl is a giggle because she's a girl. The boyfriend is the real thing because he's her partner at the moment

You're not serious. Well, you are, but though your interpretation might work in real life - e.g., a human being recounting to her friend how she kissed a girl and she hopes stuff like this doesn't screw things up with her boyfriend - but as a song, i.e., a public statement, this being one that flaunts its transgressiveness REALLY LOUDLY, and goes "It felt so wrong/It felt so right" and emphasizes the importance of the kiss itself but the disposability of the girl that got kissed, and makes a point that Katy's never done this before (the reason she couldn't say "hope my girlfriend don't mind" is that then heterosexuality wouldn't be nearly the norm that it functions as in the song, both the social norm and Katy's (previous?) norm), all is being worked out in a public space of social symbols. Right, she doesn't specifically say that the girl is just a giggle because she's a girl, she merely treats the girl like a giggle, and what's that supposed to mean to the gallery. This isn't a song about a person in a relationship who happened to have a one night stand with someone other than her partner, this is a song about a girl kissing a girl. That said, "escape clause" doesn't seem the right term, though I think Lex is more annoyed by the coyness than anything else; so maybe "escape clause" is right but it isn't so much that Katy's escaping from her potential lesbianism or bi-ness or bi-curiosity or whatever (I'll have to think more about this, given what I said in my first post, which I may be edging away from now, but fear of gay desire is the social premise Katy's working from, even if she's confused as to where she is in relation to that fear), but that her loud witless cleverness is a way out from an emotional commitment to the situation she's describing. So it's not that she should commit to lesbianism or bi-ness or whatever but she should at least commit to her conflictedness. Which is to say that in this post up to where I go "but that her loud witless cleverness is a way out," I've been describing some potentially interesting song lyrics that contain social and personal conflicts that singers have ought to be making hay with in their lyrics, even when their attitudes aren't mine. But my experience of the music doesn't have nearly as much to do with the interestingness as with the feeling of being continually jabbed in the ribs.

I more than ever think you should go back and tick it, however; the song doesn't live up to its interestingness but the interestingness is there, and so is the music.

(Btw, I'm the guy who put Kid Rock's "So Hott" in my end-of-the-year long list for last year; has the immortal line "I wanna fuck you like I'm never going to see you again." But that blatant comic detachment is a big part of the whoompf of the song, whereas Katy's detachment is just irritating defensiveness.)(Of course, I'd find defensiveness touching if it weren't irritating. And I haven't heard the song in two days, so at this point I'm not even sure what I'm responding to.)

[koganbot]

that singers have ought to be making hay with

I have ought to proofread better before clicking submit.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Right, she doesn't specifically say that the girl is just a giggle because she's a girl, she merely treats the girl like a giggle, and what's that supposed to mean to the gallery.

It means whatever you think it means, and that's what bothers me here -- you think it means that the girl is a giggle because she's a girl. The assumption is that if she isn't serious about this girl, then (a) she isn't serious about girls, and (b) she isn't seriously desiring this girl of her own accord.

but as a song, i.e., a public statement

But I'm not talking about it as a "public statement" right now, I'm talking about it as a story, a set of lyrics. Which, normally, I don't think is a difficult distinction to make -- but in this case, people seem all too willing to conflate the narrative (not a performance) with the performance (a performance). And I don't think it's a coincidence that the song we are unable to talk about as anything other than a performance is the song about female bisexuality.

I also think this is a funny conversation for this community, because it's essentially rockism as applied to sexuality -- we don't think her sexuality is authentic enough.

[koganbot]

So, tick the song already. It's pretty good.

(By the way, I have nothing in principle against claims for or against authenticity.)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

> we don't think her sexuality is authentic enough.

From the video it's fair enough to say that she's not taking things seriously, but whether she's gay or not, she seems to be ridiculing the idea that it ever could be taken seriously. I don't think anyone here is being rockist about her sexuality, rather than she's a bloody idiot who is doing more harm than good but believes the opposite.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It's less to do with how authentic her sexuality, or the narrator's sexuality is - actually, her performative failures don't stop at just being smug, she doesn't convince at any point as a girl who liked kissing another girl. When I hear her sing/bellow the chorus I don't hear a girl, straight or bi or gay, who's enjoyed kissing another girl and worries about what her boyfriend thinks, I hear a loud, obnoxious brat who only cares that she gets to SHOUT AT THE WORLD that she liked kissing a girl. Whether she actually liked it or not - whether she even DID kiss the girl or not - seems immaterial; none of those feelings are in her voice at all, it's all "look at ME".

It really doesn't help that she spends only ONE line in the entire song actually focusing on the girl she kissed - the girl who's meant to be the focal point of the narrative! - and then only in the most cliched, crude, soft porn terms (and not even about the girl, about her LIP GLOSS).

[koganbot]

But these attributes as you describe them could all nonetheless combine to make for a GREAT track, shouting for attention often being an aesthetic virtue (see entire musical career of Lindsay Lohan). Problem for me is that, beyond energy, she just doesn't have a feel for the sensuality of sound. She sings with a lip-smacking sense of being very pleased with herself except that in the experience of hearing it, it's not all that lip-smacking.

[koganbot]

not even about the girl, about her LIP GLOSS

Well, "cherry chapstick" seems to be a metaphor for something more vulval.