Best line in "Thief of Hearts" is "Here she comes, litte miss think she can have his child, well anybody can do it..."
Sort of deliberately self-deluding in the same way as "Irreplaceable".
― Tim F, Friday, 29 October 2010 14:23 (thirteen years ago) link
and then there's "thinks she'll get respect if she screws it", because of course so much of these slut-shaming songs is about status - losing it & needing to reassert it.
― prolego, Friday, 29 October 2010 14:33 (thirteen years ago) link
so much of these slut-shaming songs is about status - losing it & needing to reassert it.
^^^^^^exactly.
― Wheal Dream, Friday, 29 October 2010 14:34 (thirteen years ago) link
social status, too: often slut-shaming is barely-veiled snobbery, in that brazenly sluttish behaviour is held to be common or vulgar
it's interesting that we haven't yet discussed the (many, many) songs by MEN which slut-shame! maybe because there's less "point", it's what we expect of them, esp taking genre into account...?
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Friday, 29 October 2010 14:38 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah I think you answered your own question Lex. It's still interesting, but not in the same way as women shaming eachother.
― Tim F, Friday, 29 October 2010 14:41 (thirteen years ago) link
Because it's somehow inherently more interesting when women do it, because of the asserting status/power thing and the whole political jostling thing of it.
When men do it, it just seems gross.
Also I do think it's actually more common in women than in men, because of the "slut shame the other angle in a love triangle" aspect and that competition over sexuality in that way is one of the few ways in which our society *allows* women to exercise power - men have so many other ways in which they can demonstrate power over others, while women have this tiny constrained space in which to do it, so they use it more like a fine tuned weapon rather than the blunt dismissal of when men do it.
― Wheal Dream, Friday, 29 October 2010 14:43 (thirteen years ago) link
nothing to add, great thread. request to tim & lex, though. if you wanna highlight specific lyrics, could you, you know, post them (instead of youtubes)? way more efficient.
― naked human hands and a foam rubber head (contenderizer), Friday, 29 October 2010 15:26 (thirteen years ago) link
^this was my idea behind the thread. sigh...
― Varèse Garagebande (kkvgz), Friday, 29 October 2010 20:43 (thirteen years ago) link
this is like 50% of Zeppelin's catalog
― klacktoveedesteen (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 29 October 2010 20:45 (thirteen years ago) link
Got a little woman and she won't be true...Except it seems that the point is rather that the shame comes from female peers.
― Varèse Garagebande (kkvgz), Friday, 29 October 2010 20:56 (thirteen years ago) link
i didn't realize for a long time that dolly wasn't praising jolene's behavior.
― Philip Nunez, Friday, 29 October 2010 20:57 (thirteen years ago) link
jolene isn't slut shaming at all though. POV hasn't an unkind word to say about her rival. she's humiliating herself herself in desperation, different kind of thing.
― naked human hands and a foam rubber head (contenderizer), Friday, 29 October 2010 22:17 (thirteen years ago) link
Loretta Lynn "Fist City" (love this song)
You've been makin' your brags around town that you've been a lovin' with my manBut the man I love when he picks up trash he puts it in a garbage canAnd that's what you look like to me and what I see is a pityYou'd better close your face and stay out of my wayIf you don't wanta go to Fist CityIf you don't wanna go to Fist City you'd better detour round my townCause I'll grab you by the hair of the head and I'll lift you off of the groundI'm not a sayin' my baby is a saint cause he ain'tAnd that he won't cat around with a kittyI'm here to tell you gal to lay off of my man if you don't wanna go to Fist City
Come on and tell me what you told my friends if you think you're brave enoughAnd I'll show you what a real woman is since you think you're hot stuffYou'll bite off more than you can chew if you get too cute or wittyYou better move your feet if you don't wanna eat a meal that's called Fist CityIf you don't wanna go to Fist City...I'm here to tell you gal to lay off of my man if you don't wanna go to Fist City
― klacktoveedesteen (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 29 October 2010 22:20 (thirteen years ago) link
Shakey OTM x2
― Telephoneface (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 29 October 2010 22:29 (thirteen years ago) link
is jessie's girl the opposite of this?
― Philip Nunez, Friday, 29 October 2010 22:33 (thirteen years ago) link
Here are the "Light of some Kind" lyrics:
i wish i didn't have this nervous laughi wish i didn't say half the stuff i sayi wish i could just learn to cover my tracksi guess i'm not concerned enough with getting away with it
'cause every time i try to hold my tongueit slips like a fish from a linethey say if you want to playyou should learn how to play dumbi guess i can't bring myself to waste your time
'cause we both know what i've been doingi've been intentionally bad at lyingyou're the only boy i ever let see through meand i hope you believe me when i say i'm tryingand i hope i never improve my gameyeah i'd rather have these things weighing on my mindand at the end of this tunnel of guilt and shamethere must be a light of some kindthere must be a light of some kind
i must have blown a fuse or somethingcause it was so dark in my mindshe came up to me with the sweetest faceand she was holding a light of some kindand i still think of you as my boyfriendi don't think this is the end of the worldbut i think maybe you should follow my exampleand go meet yourself a really nice girl
'cause we both know. . .
in the end the world comes down to just a few peoplebut for you it comes down to onebut no one ever asked me if i thought i could beeverything to someonethere's a crowd of people harboured in every personthere are so many roles that we playand you've decided to love me for eternityi'm still deciding who i want to be today
― Tim F, Friday, 29 October 2010 22:35 (thirteen years ago) link
This song's like...a sea urchin. Some people love it and some people are disgusted by it.-Todd Rundgren
I hate more or less everything on the fourth side. Or, well... No... I don't, but I hate the idea behind side 4.
― Tied Up In Geir (Geir Hongro), Friday, 29 October 2010 22:40 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm seeing a WHOLE lot of slut-shaming in the reaction to Keri Hilson's sluttastic new music video
― no hipster hats (The Brainwasher), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 03:25 (thirteen years ago) link
is it possible to clearly separate slut shaming directed at pop performers from more general objections to sexual explicitness & crassness, or from complaints about appropriateness of content to venue/audience?
― phish in your sleazebag (contenderizer), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 07:11 (thirteen years ago) link
nope
― 3:10 to Your Ma (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 07:42 (thirteen years ago) link
What is this the nineteenth century?
― Shut up and pay, you vain pompous matinee idol (u s steel), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 07:44 (thirteen years ago) link
i'd agree, NV, given the inclusion of the word "clearly" in my question. take it out, though, and there's a lot of room for equivocation - room enough to recognize that some instances of what might look like slut shaming might be better attributed to other impulses.
and yeah, it is the nineteenth century. and the eighteenth and the 12th and the 22nd. at least some of the time, somewhere, in this or that mind or culture. standards & values are hardly lockstep universal.
― phish in your sleazebag (contenderizer), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 08:08 (thirteen years ago) link
hey, I was v. ambiguous at my daughter singing along to "If You Seek Amy" but I guess my response to that wasn't exactly "OMG that Britney's shameless".
― 3:10 to Your Ma (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 08:12 (thirteen years ago) link
the keri hilson video in question:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xES7NPeZS2k
idk, i don't get any particularly desperate vibes from it - but maybe that's cuz i'm familiar with keri hilson, her boss-bitch persona and the amount of control she probably has over these things. it's in keeping with the song, too.
the only issue for me is that control - whether "alutty" videos (and photoshoots &c) are a genuine expression of what the artist wants to convey, or whether it's something they have to resort to when they don't want to do it, or whether they're just being wheeled out by record label bosses and told to take their clothes off. or a mix of all three! it's kinda impossible to actually judge this, and in many cases it's more insulting to assume that the female artist doesn't have agency. obviously there are times when it rings more true than others but that's pretty subjective.
as for sexual explicitness and inappropriateness - they're not bad things per se and i totally welcome them. it's up to parents to parent.
i thought it was amusing earlier this year when (dancehall mc) lady chann tweeted about how much she loved rihanna's "rude boy" and doing a guest verse on a remix of it. and then the following week tweeted something like "HOLD UP my 8-yr-old daughter is singing "come here rude boy can you get it up" around the house :/ "
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 09:42 (thirteen years ago) link
i mean that video is certainly O_O but it's also about the best visual representation of a song that goes FUCK ME FUCK ME IT'S THE WAY YOU FUCK ME in the chorus
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 09:44 (thirteen years ago) link
the shaming probably has something to do with the fact that the singles off this album so far have been non-starters -- i haven't read any criticisms of it myself, but i imagine that if this was the first single it would've been seen just as a new direction for her, as opposed to "desperation slutiness!!" (which is how i took it at first too)
― jagger reupholstered my pussy (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 09:48 (thirteen years ago) link
she has previous for explicit songs, though - it's never been an integral part of her persona (and i'm guessing won't be after this) but it's enough to make me think she's comfortable with songs like this, rather than resorting to them out of nowhere. and she just seems too smart and level-headed and versed in the ways of the industry to be anyone's puppet here.
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 09:52 (thirteen years ago) link
did "pretty girl rock" tank? i thought that hadn't even been properly released yet. sad if so.
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 09:54 (thirteen years ago) link
This song isn't even good, please wake me for commentary when the song is worth listening to. I hate reading a lot of p.c. political commentary over a song that isn't that good. It makes it look like critics or academics don't know what good music is.
― i prefer to discuss your bourgeois origins (u s steel), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 10:12 (thirteen years ago) link
well i'm pretty sure u don't
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 10:15 (thirteen years ago) link
― 3:10 to Your Ma (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, December 1, 2010 3:12 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark
You shoulda been there when my son started singing along to "3".
― Julian Osage Orange (kkvgz), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 10:23 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah, I know this is opening a whole can of worms, but I do think that there are other options than just those three. That when you are operating in a culture whereby women are rewarded for how well they *perform* sexuality (in a way they are not rewarded or even discussed, for their technical skills such as to production skills, writing music, lyrics, etc.) you create an environment whereby the perhaps excessive display certain aspects of womanhood (looks, sexuality, etc.) are totally normalised in a way that precludes other choices.
So I don't think it's always just a case of "well, this particular woman had agency and made a choice to present herself in this way" so much as "what were the other choices that were available to her within a culture that values women for looks and sexuality above all else?" Agency doesn't happen in a vacuum.
But, you know, I'm just a boring old feminist who's read too much Ariel Levy. And it's really hard to ask these questions without descending into slut shaming, which I don't want to do.
tl;dr: Lex, it's more complicated than that, and you of all people should know it.
― Karen D. Tregaskin, Wednesday, 1 December 2010 10:38 (thirteen years ago) link
Something I guess where the individual could have agency/power over their own choices - and exercise that - but at same time the exercizing of that choice reinforces what choices there actually are.
― colby, Wednesday, 1 December 2010 10:56 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah i get your points karen, but
a) i'm not going to criticise a performer for performing - keri hilson made a deliberate choice to be a performer as well as a songwriter - but on the other hand her songwriting is kinda the hook on which she found that success as a performer, so i'd disagree that that element of her career hasn't been discussed
b) "precludes other choices" - again talking about keri hilson specifically, i don't think this is the case at all. raunchy videos like this get people all aflutter but her biggest hit came with this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_RqWocthcc
in which she basically wears normal, casual clothing throughout and bar a few doe eyes at the camera (in a song about love) doesn't "perform" sexually. just to reiterate, that was her biggest hit. so i wouldn't say that performing non-sexually is an option that's closed to her.
i'm kind of wondering how keri hilson herself would respond, say if an interviewer brought it up, to the theory that her choices in her career are limited - that she doesn't hold that power - given how much of her public image is of a business-minded, in-control woman. i find it hard to believe that someone who's worked behind the scenes in the industry for as long as she has doesn't know exactly how it works - it could come off as slightly patronising to assume otherwise.
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 10:59 (thirteen years ago) link
don't think that came out 100% well :/
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 11:02 (thirteen years ago) link
also EVERY career involves biting the bullet at times and doing things you're not 100% into or comfortable with. and that's ok! not that i'm saying that keri's uncomfortable with this - i have no way of knowing.
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 11:04 (thirteen years ago) link
i think one can express concern about the hypersexualization of female roles in pop media while still granting individual pop artists the right to express and present themselves in any manner they might choose. and sure, as lex says, the dictates of commerce (driven by the dictates and manipulation of desire) push people into all sorts of compromises that they might not independently choose, but it's probably best to refrain from assuming that this or that performer has been so coerced, even subtly, unless we've got good, case-specific reasons to think so.
which is to say that there's nothing wrong with keri's video, nor is there anything wrong with thinking there's something wrong with it.
― phish in your sleazebag (contenderizer), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 11:21 (thirteen years ago) link
just wanna
my response to that wasn't exactly "OMG that Britney's shameless"
acknowledge
― i'm assuming that it's tity boi, host of the mixtape (sic), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 13:03 (thirteen years ago) link
A more interesting question is why someone would come out with something that isn't the best example of their work.
― i prefer to discuss your bourgeois origins (u s steel), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 13:12 (thirteen years ago) link
and here is keri herself to opine on this: http://twitter.com/MissKeriBaby/statuses/10114357736251392
well said that lady.
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 23:37 (thirteen years ago) link
Dion - Runaround Sue
When he messes around, it's OK because he's The Wanderer, but the same doesn't go for Runaround Sue.
― kornrulez6969, Wednesday, 7 October 2015 18:03 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFyRhgCvqaUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEWiHZBBd00https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WNLrqLoPSMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bRA0kMl5vE
― everything, Wednesday, 7 October 2015 20:26 (eight years ago) link
opening gambits of this thread are fucking awful, wow. kinda feel like it would be better to have another, untainted one for collecting songs or reviews for the rolling evidence drawer. who was kkvgz, and what became of, I assume, him?
― Gorefest Frump (Doctor Casino), Thursday, 8 October 2015 04:42 (eight years ago) link
now creating problems as the useless mod how's life
― let no-one live rent free in your butt (sic), Thursday, 8 October 2015 05:56 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuwPtiTxT8A
― hunangarage, Thursday, 8 October 2015 15:48 (eight years ago) link
'run for your life' - beatles
― flappy bird, Thursday, 8 October 2015 18:20 (eight years ago) link
an "overripe tomato" - ha.
― skip, Thursday, 8 October 2015 18:27 (eight years ago) link
Devil In Disguise - Elvis PresleyChristine's Tune (Devil In Disguise) - Flying Burrito BrothersMaybelline - Chuck Berry
― kornrulez6969, Thursday, 8 October 2015 19:18 (eight years ago) link