Oh wait a minute, maybe I do like this song.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

On the Katy Perry thread at ILM, someone follows through on Tim Finney's question as to whether or not "UR So Gay" would make sense from a gay artist by linking to a pop-emo group covering it, and John C. follows up with a MySpace link:

False Start - I Kissed a Girl
Max Vernon - I Kissed a Girl

What BOTH of these covers do is expose this song as TWEE. I hadn't thought of it that way until the discussion yesterday, particularly girlboymusic's comments; there are still a few purely lyrics-based stumbles, particularly the "experimental game." But I was surprised finding the song CUTE. It's the annoying, mild-crossover-potential indie pop tune that accidentally got halfhearted Max Martin treatment, the wrong singer, and took the world by storm. It's a Frankenstein -- I like it more now!

Comments

[koganbot]

But Nia thinks we're wrong to react to what the performance in its social context is saying (or if she doesn't think this, then I understand her even less than I think I do).

"Twee" isn't the right word - calling "I Kissed A Girl" twee would be like saying that Lil Jon was twee in "Get Low" 'cause of crunk's underlying Eastern melancholy. But the music to "I Kissed A Girl" has the potential to be used for anger (if instruments and singer used a harder attack) or vulnerability (if the singer were capable). In analyzing the song I feel that a lot of anger and vulnerability were involved in the creation of the song. But none of that anger or vulnerability makes it to the performance of the song or the experience of listening to it (except in that people get mad at it).

self-conscious attempt to be more naive than you probably are while demonstrating that you're not REALLY that naive

I disagree. I think she and the song really are that naive - but by naive I don't mean she'd just left home the week before and never ever kissed a girl before but rather that she's really committed to all the attitudes of the song, it really did feel so right and feel so wrong, she really does want to make the kissing a big deal while simultaneously trying to undercut the significance of the kissing, and she has no perspective on any of this. Of course, I could be wrong, and this all could be worked out by a brain trust of superintellects in the sound laboratory, but I doubt it. And if so, so what? She delivers the attitudes. And she's still a phony.

[koganbot]

Which is to say that such naivité is not practically different from being phony, when she's old enough to think less superficially but won't do so.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

I don't think that at all.

I do think that you can separate the song from the social context, and if you do, you find that the stuff people get mad about isn't really in the song itself. But I never said that we shouldn't ever talk about the social context -- in fact, I'm saying we should talk about the social context, because that's where the problems are, instead of bitching about the song, which is not offensive in itself.