Erykah Badu: C /D, S&D

Yeah, this has gotten a whole new level of ugly.

what looks like trying too hard to people who think about pop culture all day long just looks like success to people whose engagement isn't as deep-game

― decrepit but free (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, June 6, 2012 8:48 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

one of the most enlightening / enlightened things I've ever read on ilx tbh. very eloquently sums up my 'Hulk smash'-level rage when I see dudes on stage dancing for chicken and making bank doing it.

dancing...for...chicken...?

Chewing on the expression "dancing for chicken" xp

http://resurreccionepiscopal.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/dancing_chicken.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcoqeNdMAfA

^absolute first thing that came to mind

I thought chicken-dance but nobody wants to see that

now i really hope If Assholes comes back and explains "dancing for chicken" because i'm so mystified by it. like the best guess is that it's kind of like some randomly specific variation on 'sing for your supper'?

I confess I googled it, thought I was behind on chicken-related slang

As a director I am unimpressed... As your fellow artist I am uninspired

i am really glad she went there with this. like it wasn't just exploitative, it was a really shitty video. they were doing they're usual 'omg kitschy AND challenging' thing, which is what it is (and it seemed to even be what she expected), but the execution/production was just embarrassing. so tasteless

the video would have been been perfect if they just did the blowfly version

http://open.spotify.com/track/3fxjEEwnvYWHmVkbOk3sXd

Jesus Christ you guys, do none of you remember this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkxvxV-S4wM

oh god those wayne coyne fan tweets making me more livid than anyone should be this early in the morning

ha i hadn't noticed whether badu was RTing her rallied masses as well. i want to be precious and suggest a distinction - between criticising, & then referencing your support, & being criticised, then relying on yr audience's reflexive defence - but i'm probably just being a badu fan here. the most reassuring thing about this def the sign that she isn't totally engaged w/the weak collaboration. she's making a record w/flying lotus, iirc, so that'll be nice.

Does anyone know anything beyond that Twitter back-and-forth? There's clearly quite a bit of backstory needed here. 'As a woman I feel violated' is kind of a heavy thing to throw out when we don't have any idea where or how exactly the communication breakdown occurred.

the most reassuring thing about this def the sign that she isn't totally engaged w/the weak collaboration.

What about last week, when she was enthusiastically RTing Coyne about it?

The whole thing could be some kind of set up, I guess.

What about last week, when she was enthusiastically RTing Coyne about it?

^^^

people are going to believe what they already had decided to believe in a situation like this: if you liked Eryka Badu & not the Flaming Lips, you're going to insist that she shares your estimation of them & did all along (even though her long piece insists that she digs their work, still). what actually went down here isn't something anybody not directly involved is actually going to know: Badu liked the idea and got buyer's remorse when she saw the video? Badu liked the idea and people in her camp hated it when they saw it and told her "put some distance between yourself & this," and she told the Lips "I'm going to need some plausible deniability on this"? Lots of complicated shit goes on between artists & management & publicists & handlers & friends-in-camp, etc., and if, when an artist speaks to the public, you ever think "he/she's shooting from the hip here," you're naive, unless the artist is somebody crazy like Britney. It's not "a set up," but the stuff people are responding to is just the outward resolve on something that nobody's actually going to know the details about. attributing lone-actor agency to a successful artist is some believing-in-the-Wizard shit imo

Wow you are totally off-base and historically incorrect there, aero.

That is, there are so many examples of regrettable, retractable A-list tweeting, it seems impossible to me that it could've come from anywhere but a single person with too much caffeine, alcohol. Furthermore I can't even imagine a world where Erykah's rant was precluded by a phone call with an e-mail from management saying "we've gotta burn this". She's tweeting rage at Wayne's wife for god's sake

Furthermore I can't even imagine a world where Erykah's rant was precluded by a phone call with an e-mail from management saying "we've gotta burn this".

you can't, really? you're right though that Twitter means you do get people just saying whatever comes to mind & putting it out there, but this whole thing smells like backstage stuff getting repackaged

If anything, in my experience in dealing with managers of A-to-F listers, there's a lack of agency in this regard. The attitude of most management is "stay off the internet / stop talking", definitely not "start beef with band X"

I gotta cede ground to the guy who knows more A-listers than me!

I was talking about my own management ;) I do agree that "we'll never know" but this is a woman who live-tweeted her birth, like, I can't even follow her

"buyer's remorse" sounds a bit like a defense lawyer in a date rape case

people tweet all kinds of things but in my experience managers have a lot to say about what business-specific stuff gets tweeted/tumbl'd/etc

"buyer's remorse" sounds a bit like a defense lawyer in a date rape case

yes, defense lawyers do use this, it's gross when they do. I don't see a lot of comparisons between "I don't look how I hoped I'd look in the video I agreed to be in, it's different from how it was pitched to me & the video sucks & that pisses me off" and rape, maybe you do idk

I don't deny that Erykah probably only realized the full extent of the video's tastelessness after its release, and I'm not even sure she didn't invent a few "facts" in that missive from yesterday. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't a movie orchestrated by anyone but Erykah herself.

And good on her for it.

which magical behind-the-scenes wizard told the GOOP girl to tweet the n-word

NO she didn't she DID? she DID

what is "GOOP"

xxpost

Is the video really 'tasteless', though? I mean, I agree with her assertion that it's pretty much just surface and no depth, but I wouldn't call the video itself tasteless. The way it was handled sounds a little tasteless, for sure.

D'you figure I'm correct in my understanding (as I don't think she really came out and said as much) that the core of her beef with the video itself is that it isn't made explicitly clear that the naughty bits aren't her own?

Gwyn probably fired an intern over that one xp

The attitude of most management is "stay off the internet / stop talking",

I could paraphrase so many fucking conversations about Corey Taylor right now but I won't.

I don't see a lot of comparisons between "I don't look how I hoped I'd look in the video I agreed to be in, it's different from how it was pitched to me & the video sucks & that pisses me off" and rape, maybe you do idk

But I HAVE seen people making this comparison in this case! I've wondered if there's a way to be curious about the suggested disparity between the pitch for the video ("you're completely nude, in a tub, covered in glitter and blood and semen") and how it turned out, without fielding a 'blaming the victim' accusation!

Anyway, you're OTM - there's no possible way to know everything that's gone on here.

I actually liked the video, anyway. I like both Erykah Badu and The Flaming Lips, which seems to be rare here?

btw the whole "Gwyneth wrote 'Ni**as in paris' in a tweet" controversy was stupid

I actually liked the video, anyway. I like both Erykah Badu and The Flaming Lips, which seems to be rare here?

Yeah, I'm in the apparent minority there with you. Like 'em both (although generally more in the past tense with Flaming Lips), like the song, like the video.

Good grief, can someone dis-invent the internet please? Wayne really does come across like a total arse on twitter. Never really listened to any of his records, and now feel I would probably discriminate against him after looking at his twitter page. The sad thing is that it is argument about some tasteless, crass video which is just candyfloss really, its not about music.

Flying Lotus material can't drop soon enough imo.

D'you figure I'm correct in my understanding (as I don't think she really came out and said as much) that the core of her beef with the video itself is that it isn't made explicitly clear that the naughty bits aren't her own?

― Quiet Desperation, LLC (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, June 7, 2012 10:19 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

she decided not to appear nude...but brought along a similar-looking sibling to do the nude scene. for the video of a song she sings on. how could she not anticipate that assumption?

it sounded to me like she was as upset about the lack of a chance to see and approve the video before it went online as what actually went online.

That she's doing some damage control is highly likely, but everything she says about the video's artistry is true. Win-win.

"I don't look how I hoped I'd look in the video I agreed to be in, it's different from how it was pitched to me & the video sucks & that pisses me off" and rape, maybe you do idk

Ehh, I read "pisses me off" as violated a contract and released some nude footage of my sister that we hadn't approved. Still strikes me as creepy.

My guess is that Badu is used to operating in a world very different from the Lips camp. Coyne puts himself out there, Badu is surrounded/protected by a machine. She's probably used to certain things, professional expectations, that a DIY sort like Coyne doesn't have to deal with.

First off im siding with the Lips here cos if she had a problem w it, yeah deal with it through management. There is a professional way to deal with this stuff.

Secondly, I'm frankly confused about the "This is tasteless" criticism unless they filmed 90% other unused footage and 10% naked glitter stuff. Maybe look into who you are collaborating with before you decide to record a song with them and shoot a music video with them too. If you've seen the past half dozen of Lips videos, they all have nudity and fake blood and b-movie shock stuff in them it's not anything new hell one of the first promo pics ever they made someone pretend to be dead on the ground in the background with fake blood for shock value.

I haven't had a chance to read all this, but she's always done one-off, "non-authorial" (as someone else put it) collaborations of varying quality between albums and they've never really had any bearing on the results of her more official output.

Also worth keeping in mind that Badu is possibly crazy.

This is dumber all around than the Nicki Minaj/Flex feud.

I don't understand what she wants from them. They removed the video.

She probably wants him to stop saying shit like Dang!!!!! @fatbellybella you really know how to do it!!!! You hatin on me has gotten the video 100,000 more views !!!LOVE LOVE LOVE on Twitter

I kinda want to wait until this all shakes out before making any judgments about who did wrong by who, but Coyne certainly isn't doing a whole lot to avoid looking like a douche in this sitch.

Also worth keeping in mind that Badu is possibly crazy.

trying to be the king of meme music with all his FOUR DAY LONG SONGS FEATURING KE$HA WOAH DUDE

i feel you, but haven't they been doing this sort of thing all along (zareeka etc)? one person's creative high-concept release is another's crass gimmick (see also bjork).

― 40oz of tears (Jordan), Wednesday, June 6, 2012 9:57 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

OTM. Lips have been doing this kind of stuff for ever. Even going back to the 90s with Zaireeka, the Parking Lot Experiments, the boombox concerts, the walls of xmas lights, Christmas on Mars movie (which they started working on back then), the bubble machine, the song about masturbation, etc. This isn't some thing they are cynically just starting to do now with the internet, it's kind of their MO.