Lizzo - Big GRRRL Small World

Natasha Bedingfield is just a highly tenuous and random name to drop in 2019 (seriously how many readers would even remember her?) And putting her in this context, especially up against Aretha, is always going to look like you're ladling on the damnation and sprinkling on a tiny bit of faint praise.

Also I don't think it's controversial to suggest that the boundaries of what does and doesn't constitute 'good rapping' (or good rap lyrics) have become so elastic over the last decade or so that it's OK to raise an eyebrow when a writer or publication chooses to start enforcing them in some cases and not others. And to interrogate the reasons for that.

FWIW I don't actually enjoy Lizzo's music that much and haven't felt the urge to hear this yet - but the review doesn't read to me like its meeting the music half way. It might be trying to meet the artist half way, or the message, or the fans, but that's not quite the same thing.

Natasha Bedingfield is just a highly tenuous and random name to drop in 2019 (seriously how many readers would even remember her?)

I really thought you were joking at first

Dan... your jacket late on that one homie

tashbed is one of those artists like ashlee simpson whose reputation is wildly different between the critical bubble and most other people

I have no dog in this fight but someone here at work just played that "juice" song and surely I'm not the only person to notice its similarity to this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4306i99LMXo

it is amazing how often the handwavy arguments about algorithms in today's music business could just as well have been applied to the machinations of radio since at least, like, the mid 80s if not even earlier

― dyl, Monday, April 22, 2019 9:36 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah its exceedingly annoying!! suddenly after two decades of being a poptimist you decided the popular will is ... bad?? perpetua as adorno is just an unexpected turn

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Monday, April 22, 2019 9:43 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i honestly think its just abt getting old & the platonic idea of pop in 2019 being pretty difft from the platonic ideal of 'pop' in 2001

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Monday, April 22, 2019 9:44 PM (yesterday) Bookmark

it needs to be acknowledged tho that the fixation on algorithms and pop music is an outgrowth of the fixation on algorithms and our every day lives in general. radio programmers weren't organizing our friendships or news in the mid 80s. it's a relevant conversation your points notwithstanding

also for all the handwringing about how algorithms and cultural cartography and ad placements are affecting our relationship w pop music..... lizzo isn't popping on any charts

I guess the album was number 1 on iTunes but who knows what that means anymore

but yeah I really agree with everyone that Lizzo is an EXTREMELY weird artist to hang the algorithms have changed music argument, she's had a very traditional career arc building up little by little over 6-7 years through working, touring, steady releases until signed to a major, tv and festival appearances, placement in tv and commercials, making music videos etc....

I'd argue her arc honestly could have been about the same 20 years ago

The album is currently #1 on iTunes and #12 on Apple Music in the US, so it will probably debut quite high on the Billboard 200 next week.

ha xp

itunes is a small sliver compared to apple

she's had a very traditional career arc building up little by little over 6-7 years through working, touring, steady releases until signed to a major, tv and festival appearances, placement in tv and commercials, making music videos etc....

she even "broke" on Ellen's show.

itunes is a small sliver compared to apple

fwiw, on the (US) spotify chart the highest she is currently is #91 with "Truth Hurts," so if the evil algorithms are conspiring they're not doing a very good job of it

i've heard "juice" on one of the adult r&b stations here a couple times. (it's #28, down from its peak at 26 but still bulleted, on that format's billboard chart.)

the same station has played an ad for the album plenty of times tho. i noticed the same kind of ad for janelle monae's album when it came out, so i assume that's the kind of thing a label will do for an artist with a new album when their single isn't very far up the airplay charts yet. ("i like that" from janelle's album did end up being a big hit at that format, but not until like 6 months after the album's release.)

relatives of mine who aren't big rap fans, are excited by her. The retro aspects and Missie Elliot influence and the singing are likely factors I am guessing

.@Lizzo slayed "Truth Hurts"!! 😍👰🏾 #BETAwards pic.twitter.com/BxtjsgzuWG

— BET (@BET) June 24, 2019

her breakthrough hit being a song that is nearly two years old is not something i expected

the power of the Netflix soundtrack bump.

i heard “juice” on the iheart pop radio station today - it was no. 2 on their nationwide countdown

and she’s playing a secret show sponsored by the other pop station tonight

"new man on the minnesota vikings" is an incredible pop lyric

Has anyone else seen a small segment of Black Feminist Twitter getting mad at Lizzo because she trademarked the lyric "I did a DNA test and found out I'm 100% that bitch", which came from a random person's 2017 tweet then got turned into a meme, which is how Lizzo saw it and where she lifted it from (and apparently gave credit back to when asked about it) but didn't give credit back to the woman who originally tweeted it because... Lizzo didn't know this woman existed when she wrote the song?

me, seeing that yet another Black woman ripped the words of a Black woman creative on twitter and leans into defensive gaslighting rather than admitting they made moves to profit from IP they didn’t create: pic.twitter.com/TlxiI5hF5A

— ashley yates (@brownblaze) June 25, 2019

For context, before I saw this I also saw the same segment of Twitter dismissing her as Black Music For White People, which IMO is standard "black people being shitty about black people with ties to Minnesota" bullshit

yeah saw that, this thread is the original tweeter I guess (original tweet in second tweet in thread)

I still till this day struggle with the fact that a fat black woman got famous off what I said and I wasn’t that woman looooooooool

— whew!na (@MinaLioness) June 25, 2019

Great set at Glastonbury which seemed to go down really well with everyone

top trending artist on Apple Music as of this morning.

Glastonbury set was great but she needs a band behind her really, she's a fantastic live performer but the sound was slightly off, everything that wasn't her voice was too quiet.

getting big enough to see the start of a twitter backlash

she's really got the knack for killing it when the spotlight is the greatest, her ceiling is incredible

Not as worried for her as I was for chance re backlash, she has songs casual music fans like while chance never had too many crossover moments that sold who he was to regular people

What's the gist of the backlash, is it just that one 'stolen' line?

I can confirm that in my world of 30-something white ladies, she has fully crossed over.

saw a bunch of stuff about how annoying her fanbase is, and the dumb way her perfectly reasonable quote about Future was taken in the most bad faith way

just feel like she's getting the we stan an icon treatment which comes with an inevitable backlash esp given her audience with non rap fans

Do yourself a favor and don't look at the number of people who called Lizzo, a human person, their spirit animal during the VMAs last night.

— Daniel Ralston (@danielralston) August 27, 2019

she is getting the weird gross fetishization that famous black women get from white people (i recently heard a 30 something white woman say that she was more into lizzo "as a personality" than her music). not a reason to have a backlash against lizzo obv.

You know, it really sucks huge ass that Missy is getting dragged into all this shit because the narrative in the 90s was "she's a genius making the most forward thinking pop music around" and not I WANT MY FULL FIGURED QUEEN TO CRUSH MY LARYNX

I can confirm that in my world of 30-something white ladies, she has fully crossed over.

― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, August 29, 2019 1:52 PM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

ain't this the truth. my wife and my female coworkers have very little in common taste-wise, but reppin Lizzo is definitely on the shortlist.

When I looked the other day the top comment on Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts" was

This song makes me feel like an independent straight black woman.

I'm a dependent gay white boy.

Which really neatly sums up the fetishistic gaze behind a lot of her popularity quite nicely

Stan culture makes everything kind of annoying like when someone wears a weird outfit and Twitter is like THIS IS ICONIC ABSOLUTE LEGEND and then no one remembers a day later

but in terms of the backlash to Lizzo her approach was her approach before all this I don't see it as calculated

🎶 New man on the Minnesota Timberwolves 🎶

cc: @KarlTowns @lizzo 😂 pic.twitter.com/FQveOCZA2K

— Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) December 9, 2019

my wife and my female coworkers have very little in common taste-wise, but reppin Lizzo is definitely on the shortlist.
― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Thursday, August 29, 2019

thoughts on "rumors"? i have mixed feelings about the production but it's kinda great anyway

yeesh

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lizzo-dancers-weight-shamed-pressured-touch-nude-performer-lawsuit-rcna95161

not good

There's more

https://jezebel.com/lizzos-former-documentary-director-says-she-walked-away-1850699044

saw a tweet about her forcing her dancers to "eat bananas from each others' poodles" and honestly thought it was a joke

That’s the part of this I can’t wrap my head around, like when is it okay to pressure someone into eating a coochbanana?

Beyoncé appeared to leave Lizzo off the list of musical icons she references in her song, “Break My Soul (The Queens Remix).” Videos recorded of the concert show the singer repeating Erykah Badu’s name four times at the time Lizzo would typically be called out. Her name, however, continued to flash on the screen behind Beyoncé.

Then again, it could actually be blowback from this: https://pagesix.com/2023/08/01/erykah-badu-shades-beyonce-over-tour-looks-guess-im-everybodys-stylist/

*sigh*

lizzo basically turned herself into pop ellen degeneres & now is now catching the same backlash, which seems fitting