La Roux - In For The Kill (Skream's Let's Get Ravey Mix)

Stuck On Repeat doesn't sound half as bad to me - there's some resonance in the synth bass giving some sense of depth and drama. I really like it (also like recent GA b-side 'Memory Of You') xp

still not a patch on Propaganda's 'Dr. Mabuse' or early PSBs which is what they should all aspire to but can't

"Men write about women in a far more interesting way, and I try and take things from that. Women always cuss men in song; men write in a way that's more fragile, urgent and desperate."

- GUESS WHO??????

what an intolerable human being she is.

Calm down, dear, it's just LaRoux.

i wonder why she generates so much hate. (and yes i can't stand that song/video either)

Heh, I saw that quote this morning and thought "Uh oh, A CERTAIN SOMEONE is going to kick off when he reads this...!"

i'm more baffled by how anyone can actually stand her. her music, her opinions, everything.

Argh, this is one of the failings of twitter, I've been trying to think of a way to say this to you, Lex, in 140 characters and can't do it.

What saddens/enrages me most about La Roux (or at least the way she is presented in the media - which makes me wonder about the gender of her *interviewers*):

There's something so... adolescent to her outbursts. She reminds of nothing so much as the teenage tomboy who is suddenly burdened with a woman's body and the expectations that that body brings. And suddenly, overnight, she has to notice that the entire world has been divided up into two genders - and that it is divided very *unevenly*.

Yet, being like a petulant child, rather than realising that it is "society" or sexism or misogyny or those expectations that are to blame - she decides that it is the *WOMEN* themselves that are at fault. (this goes along with the whole "women who dress like sluts deserve to get abused" thing she spouted last time.)

It's like, she doesn't want to be a woman, she recognises that being a woman in this society, with the things it values, is the lesser deal. But rather than rail against the society, she decides she doesn't want to be a woman. She wants to identify with men, identify with the way they dress, with their lyrics, etc.

She's held up as some kind of paragon of "androgyny" - she completely isn't. In her hatred of women and their "weakness" she doesn't come across as being the slightest bit interested in re-assessing gender roles or redefining what it means to be Woman on her own terms. She wants to make a claim at being male (good) and denigrate female (bad) in the process.

This to me is not interesting or positive. This to me is just reinforcing that patriarchal duality rather than actually having the courage or taking that grown-up step to say "it's not my gender that's wrong, it's the limited roles into which our society forces genders that is wrong."

Is she really the daughter of somebody in "The Bill"?

Google (and the Sun) tells me yes!

I know nothing of La Roux and your post, Kate, makes me glad that I don't - I am far too old to care what petulant children think about anything - but I shazam'd a magnificent thing I heard at the shops and it turned out to be 'Reflections are Protection'. I checked out the rest of her stuff last night and have been disappointed thus far, but that one tune's great.

not Burnside tho, which is surprising as she probably calls ppl "slaaaag" all the time xp

Let's take some counterpoint from the expert here...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/13/lauren-laverne

Are you a feminist?

Yes, of course. I know why you're asking it, because people now say no. But how stupid do you have to be to say, "No, I believe in gender inequality"?

agree with kate about her motivations. to have this bullshit sold to the public as a strong, feminist role model is disgusting. plus SURELY after the last 3-4 times, someone from the record label must have spoken to her - so why is she STILL running her pig-ignorant mouth?

Because it's being sold by a generation of people who bought all that post-backlash garbage about "being a feminist = hating men" and there's really nothing a backlasher loves more than a woman-hating woman because, like, she can do all their dirty work for them, while they are still being seen to be "including women" etc.

(sorry this bit is a bit more ranty and not as well thought out as what I was thinking above, in fact, I'm probably going to be told of for saying it, as it is probably sexist or something)

sounds to me like it's ideal from their point of view xp - no such thing as bad publicity and all that

why is she STILL running her pig-ignorant mouth?

A certain amount of controversy is good for sales. Plus, I'd think her opinions go down well with some teenagers, both male and female.

(XP)

^basically this - I mean I think there is such a thing as bad publicity but in a broad sense I'm not sure the shit she comes out with is capital-C Controversial

A million women or something read the Daily Mail every day and seem to get on OK with the undercurrent of self-loathing <amirite/>

haha based off the one song I heard, I feel like she says this shit because she knows her music sucks and is desperate not to lose media focus

haha lex the more you post of hers the more forgiveable i find her: i am developing a sense of why she says the things she says, and perhaps the ire has been blunted by repetition.

"Men write about women in a far more interesting way, and I try and take things from that. Women always cuss men in song; men write in a way that's more fragile, urgent and desperate."

this makes total sense in light of the canonical fact that she doesn't listen to r'n'b and thinks it's all "baby ooh i love you". She has noticed a lack of nuanced female perspective in the music she listens to: what she hasn't noticed is that, most likely, 80+% of the music she listens to has lyrics written by men reflective of the male heterosexual experience.

That is a pretty obvious fact to miss, is the thing.

i mean, it's not just that rnb has a lot more of a nuanced female perspective than indie does; it's also that her way of not-listening to rnb involves making a completely false assumption about the lyrical content.

xpost

yeah but she's kind of, you know, not super bright about gender - kate is super super otm above with "the teenage tomboy who is suddenly burdened with a woman's body and the expectations that that body brings."

Even if she doesn't listen to R&B and she just listens to whiteboy indie all the time - it's still inexcusable to posit that females don't write interestingly about love in a world that contains, oh, PJ Harvey, Kristen Hersch, Marnie Stern, Tori Amos, Courtney Love, Joni Mitchell AND ON AND ON AND FUCKING ON.

My problem, like the Lex's, with her discussion of music is how utterly pig ignorant she comes across.

i hate when girls say they are "not a man-hating feminist or anything lol"

well, I hate it when anyone says that actually

i mean, it's not just that rnb has a lot more of a nuanced female perspective than indie does; it's also that her way of not-listening to rnb involves making a completely false assumption about the lyrical content.

ha so what you're saying is, it's ignorance on top of ignorance!

i also hate the defence which runs: oh, but we WANT our pop stars to say mad things and be mouthy in interviews! uh, no. la roux is as much of a crazy provocateur as lady gaga is an avant-garde artiste, ie not much. she's coming out with offensively ignorant and pretty conservative bullshit, and it's pissing people off, not entertaining them.

i only really care what pop stars say in interviews when it's me interviewing them. otherwise i'll be more than fine with great music thx.

ILX so much more evolved and enlightened than the rest of humanity, as usual

I'd say it was entertaining considerably more than it's pissing off. I'm sure plenty of her target (teenage) audience find it all very thought-provoking and exciting.

I think you're vastly underestimating the intelligence of teenage music fans there. (Or at least, based on experience of the ones that I know.)

Eh I've seen quite a lot of people clowning her about this but no-one holding it up as some sort of piercing insight... I might be looking in the wrong places I dunno

Well, I'm old enough to remember finding the things David Bowie spouted about this and that (incl. 'exploring' androgyny and gender) vaguely exciting. That's what it reminds me of.

I don't agree with what she says, by the way. I'm just reminded of certain things and I can imagine some 13 and 14 year olds going for it.

Oh come ON.

I mean, at least it was still actually trailblazing and shocking when Bowie did it, at a point in time where it was still fresh in most people's minds for homo/bisexuality to be a criminal offense?

Even 10, 15 however many years ago, I can remember thinking that Brett Anderson's comments about being "a bisexual who has never had a homosexual experience" pretty cringe-worthy.

At this point, La Roux isn't even transgressive or trail blazing or even interesting. It's just conservative, retrogressive crap.

I wasn't suggesting it was as innovative or ground-breaking as how Bowie was, but that it was similar in its effect on the target audience, albeit LaRoux is insignificant as a pop star even in today's terms, compared to how Bowie was in the '70s. I maintain that there are people out there of a certain age who will think it's exciting and thought-provoking.

loooool, from the moment I saw this thread was updated I just knew it was going to be Lex ranting about something she'd just said.

La Roux singer Elly Jackson has blasted Taylor Swift's music as "manufactured princess pop".
...
Jackson added: "I do think people should stand up more against rubbish music and people should say, 'No, sorry this isn't that good'. It's not. Taylor Swift's music isn't good, it's manufactured princess pop, we've got enough of it, let's have something else."

shut the FUCK up, for real, elly jackson. you're a fucking pygmy next to someone of taylor's talent.

was in the pub with a friend of a friend who works as a celebrity hunter for the N0TW. He declared to me that he wants to become a serious music journalist and in the same breath spoke of how sorry of his disappointed that La Roux failed to win the Mercury. He then read aloud a supportive text he had sent her on the day. And her reply. :-|

so what was it then? if you don't say i'm just going to assume the worst. email if u want!

She has a better voice than Taylor but I don't really want to listen to either of them.

okay maybe not "better", but more open, less pressed

okay never mind, forget I said anything

I don't think I'd grasped exactly how irritating La Roux is musically before now.

I can't really imagine a worse voice.

Basically I was reacting to a massive amount of echo put on her voice in a remix; remove that and it's pretty obvious she has no idea what she's doing when she's trying to sing. Taylor, OTOH, has tinges of the Britney quack in her voice but by and large seems to be producing the sound she's going for.

Whatsit from La Roux sings like a Dalek.

I can't help but really love her songs. There's something "off" about each song - be it the pronounciation or the beats - but at the same time I quite like it. It's never instant love, I can't get it, nor do I really listen. All the song have something in common, I instantly recognize it. And in a funny way it's the fact that I just like it that is the common element. Whatever.

(I feel a bit silly posting here bcz I don't really care that much abt music but I enjoy La Roux; Lex I am happy to try and answer any "how could anyone like this" qtns you may have.)

As daughter of a famous celeb, how the fuck does 'er from La Roux NOT count as "manufactured princess pop"? With her levels of self awareness, I'm just surprised it wasn't a "Lily Allen only got to where she was because of a famous parent" exact quote.