― paid in cigarettes (paid in cigarettes), Thursday, 17 August 2006 21:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marmot (marmotwolof), Thursday, 17 August 2006 22:06 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tape Store (Tape Store), Thursday, 17 August 2006 22:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― Scourage (Haberdager), Thursday, 17 August 2006 22:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tape Store (Tape Store), Thursday, 17 August 2006 22:31 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 17 August 2006 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shoes say, yeah, no hands clap your good bra. (goodbra), Friday, 18 August 2006 02:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marmot (marmotwolof), Friday, 18 August 2006 03:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― zeus (zeus), Friday, 18 August 2006 18:19 (seventeen years ago) link
"Don't ask me for my number, cause my numbers undercover."
If only it weren't soulless. I've heard more emotion from household pets.
― Mordechai Shinefield (Mordy), Friday, 18 August 2006 20:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 18 August 2006 20:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Friday, 18 August 2006 20:54 (seventeen years ago) link
now apparently things have changed and we have to go around being all beardy and sincere. WELL I WONT STAND FOR IT DAMMIT I WONT.
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 18 August 2006 20:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 18 August 2006 21:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mordechai Shinefield (Mordy), Friday, 18 August 2006 21:12 (seventeen years ago) link
help me out here...
― Marmot (marmotwolof), Friday, 18 August 2006 22:14 (seventeen years ago) link
roffle
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 18 August 2006 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― from The ends of your fingers (prosper.strummer.), Friday, 18 August 2006 22:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― =[[ (eman), Friday, 18 August 2006 22:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― Scourage (Haberdager), Friday, 18 August 2006 22:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marmot (marmotwolof), Friday, 18 August 2006 22:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― scnnr drkly (scnnr drkly), Friday, 18 August 2006 22:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marmot (marmotwolof), Friday, 18 August 2006 22:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― from The ends of your fingers (prosper.strummer.), Friday, 18 August 2006 22:47 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 18 August 2006 22:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― js (honestengine), Friday, 18 August 2006 23:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― darin (darin), Saturday, 19 August 2006 07:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marmot (marmotwolof), Saturday, 19 August 2006 07:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― jergins (jergins), Saturday, 19 August 2006 07:38 (seventeen years ago) link
that's hot
― =[[ (eman), Saturday, 19 August 2006 15:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― oh, wrinklepaws! (Wrinklepaws), Monday, 21 August 2006 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link
I actually get the impression I'd like this, but theres no way in hell I could bring myself to line that evil bitch's (and I mean that in the nicest way possible) pockets.
― Score one for Rodney! (R. J. Greene), Monday, 21 August 2006 14:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― AleXTC (AleXTC), Monday, 21 August 2006 14:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― The Lex (The Lex), Monday, 21 August 2006 14:56 (seventeen years ago) link
http://myspace-111.vo.llnwd.net/00917/11/15/917025111_s.jpg
Paris and Nicole Fans http://myspace-580.vo.llnwd.net/00811/08/59/811999580_s.jpg
Paris Hilton My Space FanClub(Im Not Paris Hilton)
http://myspace-384.vo.llnwd.net/00944/48/39/944089384_s.jpg Paris
http://myspace-582.vo.llnwd.net/00909/28/57/909777582_s.jpg Lisa (Paris Fan)
http://myspace-578.vo.llnwd.net/00280/87/58/280518578_s.jpg *Paris Hilton Fan Site*
http://myspace-639.vo.llnwd.net/00722/93/65/722085639_s.jpg
the real paris hilton
http://myspace-457.vo.llnwd.net/00898/75/48/898458457_s.jpg
The Official Fan Site of Paris Hilton
http://myspace-555.vo.llnwd.net/00912/55/51/912481555_s.jpg paris & nicole fansite
http://myspace-157.vo.llnwd.net/01004/75/10/1004710157_s.jpg Paris http://myspace-735.vo.llnwd.net/00712/53/70/712740735_s.jpg ~PARIS HILTON FAN SITE ONLY~
http://myspace-255.vo.llnwd.net/00824/55/27/824197255_s.jpg ALL ABOUT PARiS HiLTON
http://myspace-511.vo.llnwd.net/01068/11/59/1068919511_s.jpg
― -- (688), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 08:39 (seventeen years ago) link
This is the problem with a lot of the Lex's writing about pop. He wants it to be accepted as Statement rather than just entertainment and applies a lot of quite rockist criteria to it.
I intend to listen to this album tonight, despite Stars Are Blind being one of the worst records I've heard this year.
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 09:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― alext (alext), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:09 (seventeen years ago) link
I just don't understand why Lex would praise the album for its "unashamedly light, plastic" nature and then also single out Paris for providing its "beating, yearning heart" (keywords for "AUTHENTIC" if ever there were any). I mean, which one is it?
both, really.
i don't know why a lot of the people who will freely admit to loving, i dunno, britney spears or kylie minogue on both a superficial look-at-those-beats-and-her-tits level AND a 'deeper' emotional level, find doing this with paris so hard. the point of poptimism surely being that both superficial appreciation and emotional appreciation can co-exist at the same time for the same record and both are equally valid.
― The Lex (The Lex), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:13 (seventeen years ago) link
i mean, duh, of course the paris hilton album is entertainment. she is who she is. and of course it's a statement as well, by virtue of its having these lyrics and having that music and having this artwork. this seems self-evident to me. i think it succeeds as both.
― The Lex (The Lex), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― -- (688), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:29 (seventeen years ago) link
When it comes to Paris Hilton, I think, everyone is a "decadent sophisticate" - it's impossible to approach her without a fuckload of baggage, an already-formed opinion which isn't going to be much swayed one way or another, so the options are something likea) be 'serious' about the paris hilton phenomenon and decry it for how plastic it is, ruining good name of pop etc etc (or alternately be someone who doesn't like commercial pop and sees paris as symptomatic of how commercial pop suxor), so whatever the content of the music you won't be liking itb) be ironic or post-ironic and say "yes it is plastic and also wonderful" (whether you think it's wonderful because plastic, or despite plastic, or in addition to plastic)I don't think the option 'be completely serious and like it' is actually available for anybody. (which kind of hurts me to say because I don't want to believe I ever like music ironically, so maybe I should say one likes it 'knowingly' instead). The statement is an indivisible part of the entertainment: if you react badly to the statement you're not going to get any entertainment out of the product (unless going 'i thought this was going to be shit and i don't like it! i win at predicting my own reactions!' counts as entertainment).
i really want to hear this.
― stop moving. (cis), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:46 (seventeen years ago) link
― tigertiger (tigertiger), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:47 (seventeen years ago) link
Actually i think paris is very silly and not too bright - i saw her being interviewed on a local music video show and it was just excruciating, you could see the wheels struggling to turn in her head as she mumbled the most inane answers to every question. She made Britney seem hyper-articulate.
But this is only an issue w/r/t to her music if I choose to incorporate it into my enjoyment of it (or lack thereof). I'll make that decision when I've heard the album - I like "Stars Are Blind".
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:50 (seventeen years ago) link
these are one and the same! all the pro-pop people decrying this are using exactly the same words as anti-pop people.
i don't think i'm being ironic in my love for it - these are genuinely fucking fantastic songs, whether that can be divorced from baggage in this case i don't know, but i do wonder how much my love of paris ANYWAY informs my love of her songs.
i will do you a cd cis.
― The Lex (The Lex), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:51 (seventeen years ago) link
yes. i think paris's, er, simplicity really helps form the persona on the album: every song basically falls into one of three pretty basic categories - a) boys want to come and get me because i'm so hott, and i like it, but i'm not really into them, but i am really hott; b) underneath my superficial hottness i really really yearn for an ideal of Real Love that i have constructed in my head out of high school rom-coms and fairytale archetypes; c) nicole richie is mean.
― The Lex (The Lex), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:54 (seventeen years ago) link
but I don't think you can assume that a statement HAS to claim to be more than mere entertainment (i.e. entertainment is full of statements, as much as it is full of things which don't claim to do anything other than 'be' (if this is possible)) so statements and entertainment are not necessarily compatible. I was complaining that matt's attack on lex implied that he wasn't allowed to take seriously paris's records as statements because they could *only* be entertainment (rather than *also* entertainment)
I like the idea that paris's baggage means we are all decadent sophisticates, but surely the baggage on paris is nowhere as bad as the baggage on Michael Jackson, say, and no-one sees him as not making statements, however crass and dull they are. When my brother bought a Sam Fox single aged 12 he knew she was a page 3 model (because my mother told him so in no uncertain terms to explain why she didn't like women like Sam Fox) but accepted this baggage -- does that mean he liked it knowingly?
i.e there is always mediation (first lesson in dialectics!) so yr initial opposition of statement to entertainment needs to be made in different terms (I take the difference to be one about ambition, statement says I am something else other than / as well as entertainment ). so-called 'poptimism' sometimes runs the risk of equating pop with spontaneity, but it would be more interesting to see pop as sophisticated i.e. statements, i.e. the things usually denied about it, despite the fact that the statements are really obviously all over it for everyone to see!
― alext (alext), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― AleXTC (AleXTC), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 12:05 (seventeen years ago) link
that'd be awesome, Lex, thank you! "i do wonder how much my love of paris ANYWAY informs my love of her songs" this is surely where pop lies! They can be fucking fantastic in their own right just like some anonyswede chart hit can be fucking fantastic in its own right, it's not the same as the kind of fucking-fantastic that they are because they're Paris Hilton songs off the Paris Hilton album, oh man, paris hilton made an album, that's so [insert adjective here].
no one else (sane) does
I don't think this is true! all the people who bought 'stars are blind'? they're not collectively insane, they have reasons, they must have truly liked it (for whatever mix of reasons, love of tune, love of paris-the-phenom, whatever else) else they wouldn't have bought it.
― stop moving. (cis), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 12:06 (seventeen years ago) link
To take this further, it's not merely about distinguishing between entertainment and meaning and placing pop on the side of entertainment, but also putting other music on the side of meaning! Which is unfair to other music.
I don't see the point of cordoning off pop with special rules that apply to it and not to other music - in fact if anything my point of disagreement with Lex would be that he ocassionally appears to make qualitative distinctions based on what-pop-is (or what-not-pop-is - e.g. indie music featuring boys and guitars, and worst of all boys with guitars) rather than what-pop-does. I'm not sure if he is actually doing this though, it's probably just an impression that some of his rhetorical devices create inadvertantly.
Alex is right here: the word I like to use rather than "statement" is "strategy", which I think is less loaded with conventional notions of "meaning" in art. All successful pop is the result of a strategy-for-success, and this is also the cause of its ocassional sense of spontaneity: sophisticated strategies in pop can be so successful that we don't see them coming. What appears to be simplicity is as much a design so sophisticated you can't see the joins.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 12:07 (seventeen years ago) link