Actually, the mention of B*Witched while I was revealing my inner pop humiliation took me all the way back to 2000 -- the days of Spice Girls, Billie before she became Billie Piper, Blue, Soul Decision, All Saints, Genie in a Bottle, Spinning Around, Melanie C. A frenzied, wondrous time. So as a small tribute to this formative year, I thought I'd post a photo tribute to B*Witched's high-concept denim costumery:

Tarzan denim

Summer of love denim

Brokeback denim

Narnia denim

Eskimo denim

I was discussing with Simon the other day how, for us, itunes is our uncomfortable telltale heart. No matter how we might explain away our musical predilections, itunes is there to soberly tap us on the shoulder and whisper ‘this is who you are, and don’t you forget it’. I’ve always seen my musical taste as democratic, imagining that unlike some people who were bound up in cool, I was unafraid to explore musical territory off limits to more squeamish types. Think B*witched.

If I liked it, I’d listen to it. Particularly pre-Spice Girls era, and in the context of school machismo this was actually the most alt you could get. When everyone else was talking loudly about Pearl Jam I was enjoying Madonna’s Like a Prayer. One reason I felt confident in my belief in pop was that my taste extended away from it too. If I could handle Kate Bush’s The Dreaming, then I must be somewhat avant garde, and at the very least well out of TTfm waters. 

But it occurred to me recently, when I was driving home *feeling* something to PCD’s I Hate This Part, that the breadth of my taste was narrowing, and it was narrowing towards pop. They say that at 30 your musical taste solidifies, which presents the real risk that I might be creepily listening to Miley Cyrus at 55. Is it that the my emotional range is shrinking? Or is PCD's emotional range extending? If Disney truly is the new Motown, then maybe I'm just ahead of the curve?

But what does itunes have to say about the state of my musical taste? It does not lie, after all…

Top 10 most recently played:

1. [Actually I can’t bring myself to reveal this]
2. Give It 2 Me [Eddie Amador Edit) -- Madonna
3. Moments of Pleasure -- Kate Bush [hmm… this seems a bit depressive]
4. Erotica [Confessions tour version] -- Madonna [I stand fully behind this]
5. Give It 2 Me [Paul Oakenfold Edit]-- Madonna
6. The One [Freemason’s Vocal Edit] -- Kylie Minogue
7. See You Again  -- Miley Cyrus

8. Sunset -- Kate Bush
9. Nocturn -- Kate Bush
10. Human -- The Killers

So there you go. My top 10 most recently played is dominanted by one of the worst albums of last year, Hard Candy, which I actively dislike but obviously compulsively crave. Actually before I fiddled with the criteria, Delta’s In This Life was my 8th most played song ever, which I absolutely do not accept. Either that’s in error (which I genuinely think it is), or else I’m some pop music version of a homophobic closeted homosexual.

And another thing...

Piano on the beach? A pinch of Elton John, a dash of Jane Campion and a big dollop of cheese.

Some reasons why Delta Goodrem annoys (trying not to sound like a fan forum bitch...)

She wants to be Kate Bush but she’s actually a Sony pawn: There's a contradiction when a self-fashioned Kate Bush waif launches her career with ‘Born to Try’, an anthem of competitive drive, and a sort of self-reflexive statement about her desire to reach number 1. For Delta this has been an enduring tension between the banal and the creatively high-reaching, as she forges a unique niche as half Celine Dion, half Tori Amos. Her definitive 2004 Arias comeback performance exemplifies this unsettling pop hybridity:

Note the pretentious setting: piano surrounded by candles, presumably scented with jasmine. Note the initial “Delta playing piano” section to demonstrate that Delta can indeed play the piano. Note the movement into farce half way through as she steps away from the piano (even through inexplicably the piano somehow keeps playing), walks to centre stage and deploys some vintage Kate Bush theatrical dancing that veers awfully close to Mr. G. Note also that she cannot hit the high notes. And note ALSO that this most theatrical of lovesongs is about The Poo, possibly the dimmest man alive, as the exquisite Age of Love reality show proved.

She wants to be sugar-sweet, but she’s part of the fame machine: I don’t technically have a problem with plastic surgery unless it's systematically concealed and written off as natural beauty (“I’ve discovered yoga”, “I’ve lost my puppy fat”). This makes other people feel bad and entrenches generic beauty codes. Particularly for Delta who has legions of 4 year olds following her every move, her transformation into Malibu Barbie seems a bit jarring. The photos do not lie [although for legal reasons they are perhaps misleading]. Delta has had [seems to have had] one (or two) nose jobs, which provides more evidence of tension between her quest for artistic credibility and her counter-tendency towards lowest common-denominator conventionality. It’s kind of like Tori Amos getting botox, although at least she had the courage to admit to a bit of “feng shui of the face”. 

Compelling? And for even more evidence...

She should stop shoving her relationship with Brian McFadden in our faces: That’s right. Some of my best friends are married. I don’t have a problem with marriage. But I don’t have to see it every day. Keep it to yourselves, keep it in the bedroom.

I am generally irritated by Natalie Bassingthwaite. She seems fame-whorey and careerist, careerism being endearing only if a spectacular career is actually obtained (e.g. Madonna). Accordingly her new single Someday Soon makes me scoff with particular enthusiasm whenever it's played on MIX FM or Musicxmax. Because this terrible song firmly fits the mold of what I like to call the "self-fulfilling statement of success" second (or third) single, a nauseating pop maneuver that normally follows this familiar pattern:

• Act releases moderately successful first single.
  
• Act releases second (or third) single which is generally a ballad. Single muses about the long path travelled to fame, the cost of success etc. Song adopts a reflective "looking back" tone, generally with shots of act "keeping it real" despite their success. Examples of "keeping it real" can include drinking herbal tea on white couches, or walking along actual, like, streets. 

While, for example, the Spice Girls' Mama represents a "statement of success" third single, it's slightly different because they had actually achieved phenomenal success (although Mama is memorable for its own reasons, e.g. its revisionist version of Spice Girls history, with the Girls inexplicably cast as childhood friends rather than careerist fame-whores meeting at their first audition). But when Nat Bass reassures others that they will, one day, find their showbiz dream (in an odd reprise of her Kate Bush Don't Give Up role) it seems a little premature -- her success seems so tentative, and she seems to crave it so much. 

UPDATE: Here's the official PSB link...

Happiness NOW!

One of my more perverse interests is the bad self-help gurus who frequent day-time television. Today I enjoyed “Happiness NOW!”, by happiness expert Robert Holden, which, as the author told an easy-target Oprah, worked from a law-of-attraction approach… in other words, if you project positivity into the world, you’ll get positivity back. 

To prove his point, Holden and O dragged 6 average Joes onto the set to talk about their happiness or failure to reach happiness. Having completed surveys to measure their “happiness levels”, those who weren’t adequately happy were then systematically berated for not being in touch with their inner happiness, because "happiness starts now". You just have to get in touch with your inner happiness… the world is inside your head… if it’s a happy world you construct then you’ll be happy. Such platitudes were then followed by a smug Dr Holden and O talking about the moments when they each discovered that they were the masters of their universe. This became quite surreal when O was talking about the moment “in 1985” when she realized that her world existed in “her head”, and it was hers to control… Hmmm.

I couldn't find this particular footage, but here's O talking on Larry King about how, I kid you not, a call from the casting director of The Color Purple is the basis of her particular brand of metaphysics:

My problem with this kind of stuff? Where do I start…

1) Law-of-attraction frameworks (eg the base of The Secret – for those who like their metaphysics by Channel 9 producers) provide a false sense of agency based on blaming the miserable and sick for their own state of affairs. This is really just a thinly veiled Social Darwinist approach: she got cancer because she was anxious, he’s poor because he wasn’t positive enough… Rather than working hard or otherwise as the deciding factor between success or a swift descent through the social sediment (eg ignoring class), law-of-attraction simply swaps work for “positivity”. This means people can feel comfortable for their successes because the less successful just weren’t positive enough – genetics, class, prejudice be damned – and dampen their fears of the great unknowns, eg cancer, which can be warded off through positivity alone (which I'm sure is a factor, but not the only factor). This might be my own pathology here (cynic, pessimist), but this sort of stuff irks me deeply.

2) Yapping on about connecting to your “inner happiness” trivializes the mechanics through which people can feel happy and secure. Yes, attitude is important, but there are a whole host of other factors that effect outlook and disposition – financial security, genetics, health, intra-family dynamics etc. Asserting that within any of these contexts one should be able to connect to their own happiness adds another thing to worry about. Why have I failed at happiness?

3) Self-help authors are not disinterested observers. They’ve got something to sell, so it’s in their interest that we believe in a quick-fix to happiness.

4) Telling people that they can feel happy if they want to is very, very similar to telling people to just get on with it.

5) AND (this might be too cynical, but) the same consumer capitalist societies which allow people like Oprah to find their happiness cannot function if everyone is able to create their ideal lives. Oh my god I'm so negative...

But seriously, when did Oprah get completely loopy with this kind of stuff? Is this what happens with obscene wealth and power?

Promising!

I really, really, really like this. Could this be an impending Autumn of amazing pop? I wasn't a huge fan of Fundamental (a bit too minimal for my liking -- to be appreciated, but never listened to), but this seems a bit lighter and... umm, tinklier. Actually, it reminds me of Sugababes' Ace Reject, or The Best Song of All Time. Wouldn't mind some new Pet Shop Boys themes though. The emptiness of beauty, taking too much, "more, more, more" -- a bit Dorian Gray, isn't i?

Mariah's perpetual adolescence

For a few weeks I’ve had a theory brewing about the pathology behind Mariah Carey’s stubbornly unchanging artistic choices. Because for years now it's been butterflies this, butterflies that, blah blah blah. Escaping mansions, emancipation blah blah blah. Apart from the *bizarre* Touch my body with its talk of 'hunting down' potential youtube-happy lotharios, nothing has changed at all in her artistic vision. And I can quickly prove it with a quick tour through some key Mariah moments:

1. Honey - video: Escaping evil tyrants in suits who've tied her up, diving off the balcony of an island mansion into a pool with high-heels, to then dance with sailors while singing about how she wants their honey all over her. Suggesting that she has more fun with sailors than moguls. Implicit butterfly reference.

2. We belong together - video: Running away from a wedding with a hot guy who’s not the groom, escaping another evil looking mansion, wearing the very same wedding gown worn during her nuptials with Tommy Mottola. They must have adjusted the bust. Themes of escape etc.

3. The Emancipation of Mimi - concept. album: She's emancipated.

4. Butterfly - video: Running into fields in nightdress, emoting. Suggesting escape, freedom, blah blah blah.

While initially I was trying to connect her butterfly fixation to ideas of the "collector", and the various creepy serial killer connotations that holds, now a more modest realisation seems  perfectly clear: the one and only theme Mariah has been exploiting for the last decade +  has been her escape from the apparently evil and controlling Tommy Mottola, Sony CEO and ex-husband. There is absolutely nothing else. She hasn't escaped to anything, she's just always escaping. The way she frames her career is still about this new freedom that she has, but that's all. Nothing else. I could speculate further, but the real reason I wanted to write something about Mariah was so I could share Tim's thoughts on the matter, having captured much more efficiently her essence in this recent communication: 

"I have this idea that when Mariah decides that puppies are no longer puppies and are now 'dogs' she drops them down a large in-sink-erator."

Exactly! 

Hot Chip

Just for a change I went to a gig last night that was not being held at Rod Laver arena, to see Hot Chip. And they were very ace. But my god, what an irritating crowd -- I feel like I've been vomited on by 22 year old culture, which is not a nice feeling. A few observations:

1. I am very much older than I was.

2. MGMT are wielding an unfortunate influence on young male culture, with their unkempt Brooklyn boho look fusing in an uncontrolled manner with Australian jock culture. The result is lots of 22 year old guys sporting unwashed mops of hair and bangly things. This seems an extension of Australian jock protocol which demands the display of shell necklaces obtained from family trips to Bali.

3. Young people dance in a strange manner featuring head-jerking and elbow-jabbing.

4. The mixing of Scotch College sports jacket and pseudo-palestinian scarf things is apparently now a "look".

Inconsiderate Kylie fans: Evidence

KylieX2008

The aforementioned artistic laziness of Sticky & Sweet has made me appreciate KylieX2008 and its flaws. Within Kylie-fan-land, this is a deeply controversial tour, having been talked into some kind of symbol of the "Decadent" end of William Baker's reign (which actually shows no sign of ending). There have been quite valid complaints that many of the show's components are actually reformulated aspects of past tours. But also irritating bitchy-forum talk about how there weren't enough hits/were enough hits, blah blah blah. If I was Kylie Minogue and read her forums, I'd resign purely to escape her bitchy bitchy fans. But anyway, I'm not Kylie Minogue and I should just get over it.

The intent of the show was to move away from the Showgirl phase. No feathers, less old favourites, a more minimal look and sound - a move back to the now hallowed Fever era and its comparatively bold simplicity. This was an exciting shift because I and her *better* fans have always thought K is at her best when she's pushing the envelope and isn't in career retreat mode. (Although interestingly this was a career retreat of sorts, since X has sold well below expectations. So well done for not pulling out the feathers.) 

But the centrepiece of this stark simplicity - her giant, stark and simple stage - was, for me at least, part of the reason the show failed to connect. The stage was a monster. Basically a giant light box with a massive slanted video screen floor, and movable video curtains that could shift around the stage creating various effects and moods. No steps, no catwalk, no giant rotating things. Just Kylie standing in a box, and occasionally looking lost in it. While I can appreciate the stark minimalism, I notice that in each show my attention often wandered to the mechanics of the stage - how do the light curtains move?  Where's that light coming from? Where did that giant skull come from? How is it rigged up?

Another mini-issue for me was that lots of the show's best moments were kind of, if you think about, rejigs of past best moments. The entrance as a kind of cyborg-type-thing was like Fever's "Kyborg" rising from the stage; geisha stuff has been done before; elements of Body Language Live ran through it, and I'm sick of her closing with I Should Be So Lucky. But when it was pushing new ground I was amazed. Particularly the skull section, with its contrasting of gorgeous electronic imagery, a glitter skull and, bizarrely, Communist chic. Like every Kylie moment that *really* grabs me, it eluded to themes much darker than it actually revealed, particularly in the songs where that skull was just sitting there, overshadowing everything. This is the peculiar appeal of K: we never get to see what's going on inside, which means that whenever we get the slightest hint of the dark, the complex and the personal, it can wield a lot of power.

But on some level I remained disconnected. I can appreciate that artistically this was a much superior show to Madge's  -- stylish theatre compared to a casino extravaganza. I still don't know what I think of it. I think it was great, if flawed. But I also think that there's been no real shift in her art (yes I said it) since KylieFever. Which makes me wonder what she'd be like sans William Baker? Now I'm sounding like a forum bitch, but it's just a thought.

And speaking of bitches, here's a shout out to the lovely ladies who decided to spoil my view, and the views of all those behind me, with their grotesque "showgirl headdresses", which they refused to take off because they were "very expensive". Nice.

2008 part one: Sticky & Sweet

Look at those massive, massive cheeks!

I've been neglecting things here lately because, mostly, I've been slave to feelings of *I should be doing something more important*, even if not actually doing so. This means I've missed the perfunctory 2008 wrap-up post. So over the next few weeks I'll try to cover the key points, at least. These are: Madonna's Sticky & Sweet tour and Kyliex2008, both of which my meandering search-for-meaning activities managed to get me to last year (or in Kylie's case, 3 times). So to get the ball rolling, here's my take on Sticky & Sweet, a profoundly disappointing tour.

But I should be honest. My perception of Sticky & Sweet is skewed in two ways. Firstly, by the absolute wonder of the Confessions tour, and secondly, Madge's ill-fated decision to purchase slightly too large and distracting cheek implants. This means that, for me at least, the whole show is infused with a sense of decay, decline, tragic-fending-off-ageing-but-failing, and various other negative associations. But also, aesthetically, the show just wasn't very good.

Whereas Confessions seemed like a holistically conceived and realised masterpiece (and I'm not exaggerating), Sticky seemed slightly av. As in the kind of show you might get from Janet Jackson or Xtina. But not a Madonna masterpiece. Here are some of the problems:

1. Awful costumes that accentuated Madge's gruesome and ghoulish new look.

2. Crass lighting and visual imagery that seemed cheap and cheerful.

3. Too much bodgy guitar. Look, we know you can't really play guitar, so if you need a rest just do what every other superstar does and keep the crowd in a holding pattern with a "dance" interlude while you take a break.

4. A bizarre "gypsy" interlude (when in fact, Madge seemed to be sitting on floor cushions, perhaps also taking a little mini-break)

5. A profound sense of soullessness and lack of joy.

6. The fact that Hard Candy is just not that good. And no Stuart Price.

While, yes, she can still dance, I was left with the impression that this was some kind of tipping point moment on the way to a more Cher-like freak show era. And yes, a lot of this is about age. Watching Confessions in 2005,  it really did seem like Madge had valiantly thwarted the ageing process. Not just because she had a more subtle face lift at the time (presumably), but also because she really did seem to be at the top of her game in every aspect. But now there's the sense that yes, she's human, and that also, for the moment at least, she's lost her way. Looking forward to the comeback. 

Her sugar is RAW.