PARIS HILTON - PARIS

that's hot

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.

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)

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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~

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ALL ABOUT PARiS HiLTON

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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.

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.

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.

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 like
a) 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 it
b) 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.

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".

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

I guess the distinction i'd make is that one of the meanings of "style" is that it sort of exists for the purpose of identification - i.e. "I recognise this as a ballad".

Whereas for me "strategy" is about how music forces you to come up with new categories or notions in response, how it prevents you from merely saying "I recognise this as a ballad" and moving on indifferently. How it sneaks in some point of difference which might move Lex to paradoxically talk about the living, beating heart inside plastic pop. One of the implications of "strategy" is precisely that slightly Macchiavellian overtone of doing something in a way that can't be identified until it's too late and it's a fait accompli.

So "style" and "strategy" become two sides of the coin perhaps: familiarity versus surprise. Both of which are crucial to how we receive music.

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].

YES!

Lex, I suspect I will like it for reason b - it's astonishing how little pop actually deals with the notion of Real Love head-on when you think about it.

yes, Reason B is my favourite reason as well - and this reason is particularly effective because of who Paris is, the gilded princess with everything who not only hasn't found Real Love but also has no idea what it is beyond a hotchpotch of childhood references (but her Real Love fantasy is also very alluring...)

To prevent this from just being me hijacking this thread with random meanderings, my point here is that I agree that the danger of simple pop(tim)ism is the entrenchment of this notion of pop as simplicity/spontaneity/entertainment - and the problem with this notion is precisely that it unwittingly buys into notions of "manufactured pop" whereby people like a pop song just because it is the same as the last pop song they heard (pop fandom as consumption as brand loyalty).

The problem with this is not so much that it undersells pop, but more fundamentally that it's not how people actually engage with music - at least I don't think it is. I do believe that everyone likes music insofar as it slightly exceeds their expectations, and can't quite be explained simply by reference to their enjoyment of a prior song.

Ie Thom Yorke's attack on Blair no matter how noble matters less if the music is viewed as tedious and dreary by the majority of listeners, even those predisposed to like it. Whereas this piece of fantastically eurphoric Serbian Eurobeat about a bear may mean nothing whatsoever if everyone agrees about its sonic aceness.

If the statement and the music are both there, brilliant. But no one other than the usual rockist grouches are making the argument that the Paris album is shite because its a plastic pop album, it's because it's a BAD plastic pop album, especially compared to Britney, Xtina, Rachel, GA, whoever. What I was criticising Lex for is his assertion elsewhere many times before that the actual music of Stars Are Blind is of secondary importance to What Paris Is Saying.

I may be approaching this from a skewed point of view because I am very good at just not noticing hugely prominent celebrities ie I had no idea who Nicole Richie was before about four months ago and cottoned onto Paris relatively late as well, so I disagree totally that its impossible to listen to the album without baggage. I'm 90% certain, for example, that my mum doesn't know who Paris Hilton is.

I'm not sure I like spontenaeity in pop really. I like it when an awful lot of work has gone into making something feel spontaneous, but that's a side issue.

Many xposts now .

all coat-trailing about urban sophisticates and ironists and entertainments and statements, soul and lack-of-soul apart, when it comes down to it, this is what it comes down to:

"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."

it's the songs, stupid!

i agree, though i'd insert the word 'only' before 'simplicity/spontaneity/entertainment' - i don't think there's anything wrong with emphasising these aspects of pop, but i do think it's a mistake to emphasise them to the exclusion of anything beneath them. and it's a mistake that lots of sites, eg popjustice, make - it's the kind of thinking which leads to a very conservative defn of pop as "a proper tune which the milkman can whistle".

it's the songs, stupid!

it's NOT a bad plastic pop album, and EVERYONE (except alex/tim/cis/myself) is criticising it purely because it's paris. it's a really fucking good album with really good songs which are made even better by the fact that it's paris singing them and that she gives them some sort of heart/meaning/statement.

I think it's a bit sad that so many people upthread seem to find it impossible to believe that P Hilton can have put her name to a terrific, or even good, pop record.

When I read you talking about it though Lex the impression I get is of someone who was determined to like it before he heard it. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS before the carpers start - I *love* that feeling of "This is going to be the best record EVER" before I play something for the first time. It just means I don't necessarily trust you on it.

i don't hate 'stars are blind' but 'a fucking fantastic song'? really?

I think the thing about the Paris Hilton baggage is that it's very simple and consistent - esp as opposed to the M Jackson baggage which can contradict and cancel itself (plus he was around before his bulkiest baggage came into existence, so if you want to wilfully ignore it that is, I think, more possible). It is more like the Sam Fox baggage, I guess, though I don't know that much about how her records played off her mythos (weren't they heavily sexualised? (the way that the 'stars are blind' is kind of shiny and listless and 'if you show me real love, baby, i'll show you mine' is really key, I think, it's like a comment on the paris-persona while also being a lovely dreamy pop song)).

(How long until the Coleen record comes out, btw? There must be one around the corner.)

Xpost - Tom OTM really. However I will freely admit to having a kneejerk reaction when the Tara Palmer-Tompkinson record comes out (which IS actually happening).

I agree.

when i read back what i wrote it reads like someone who has thought that and is indescribably happy that he has been proved right!

(in my plan b singles column, i wrote that i expected it to be amazing in a very specific way, but i was genuinely shocked that it was emotionally compelling as well - i mean, 'stars are blind' was certainly not what i was expecting)

OMG

:D

Worth noting because unlike The Lex, I didn't want to like/love Paris as pop star (or anything really).

I'm actually only criticising the one Paris record I've heard because it sounds like a bad UB40 cover

what makes it so bad exactly? inauthenticity? should it be 'stronger' in sound even tho this wouldn't be a true reflection of PH's personality (supposedly - she's playing up to a girly stereotype perhaps, but not necess. a bad thing)? this UB40 comparison seems pretty lazy.

;-)

xp

Tim -- 'style' = my term of the moment for thinking about things, makes slightly more sense with literature than music so I should have kept it to myself really. I think I agree with everything else you're saying.

Matt -- if poptimism means elevating the entertainment value of something above everything else, then I have no interest in it at all! Surely the correct name for this is 'hedonism' or possibly 'decadence'.

Bashment -- 'it's the songs stupids'. Julia Lennon principle -- where does the song start / stop? It's never 'just' a song.

Of course I haven't heard the Paris album, it may be drivel for all I know.

I personally do not rate Sam Fox's singles that much - "Touch Me" is OK but she's no Sabrina.

Yes, Paris didn't 'fall from grace' as it were. In many people's minds she started from zero/with nothing and her rep could only improve as a result. It's now v difficult to see how I could dislike her/idea of her more or as much as I did when The Simple Life first started showing now that she's made a pop album this is not bad (even if it's not in same league as Xtina or whoever), which seems like a good thing.

well indeed, but when you're paris hilton you surely have to work *double* hard to get the song right because you have nothing else going for you.

This isn't quite what i was saying though alan - I was saying that poptimism (in the sense of a style of talking/writing about music) can unwittingly buy into the same characterisation of pop as rockist decriers of "manufactured pop" use. In other words, I think it's a rhetorical failure to say "yes, it's nothing but entertainment, and that is why it is great!"

As much as it would be to say, "no, no, it's not just entertainment, it's filled up with meaning just like yr much vaunted rock!" Which is (I think) what Matt was accusing Lex of doing.

I tend to self-identify as a popist/poptimist though - I don't think these tendencies are fatal.

Where can I hear this record? Is the bear being mistreated?