I've been holding out, because if there's anything more alienating to my halfbaked Marxist perspective than a rich chucklehead singing a catchy anthem about how she can't be bothered to go to rehab in a country where underpriced Afghan heroin and social desperation have made opiates the opiates of proletarians who can't afford the sort of lovely rehabs she could drag her bourgeois ass to but probably need them far more, it could only be Jennifer Lopez singing about how she's still from the block.
And then yesterday, one of the gym attendants turned off the top-40 shit and put on Back to Black. Maybe it was relief that I wasn't listening to Britney Ciccone Aguilera carrying on over some 'borrowed' backing rhythm & melody that was crappy even before it was bastardized, or maybe it's that I'm an absolute sucker for anything doo-woppy, but I was really enjoying it. Then "You Know I'm No Good" came on. I'd heard it before and had ignored it due to the Marxist thing, but stuck on the rowing machine I had ample opportunity to actually listen to what she was singing - and singing, no less, in that strong voice.
Okay. It's not Shakespeare. It's not even Lennon/McCartney. But it makes sense, scans, and it's evocative, and I can't remember the last time I heard pop that did that. Unless you count the Bad Seeds, and that's something else altogether. For one thing, Nick Cave isn't a 24 year old who sings about banal-but-deadly girl things in a rich girl voice. And sadly enough, all those girl bands from the 50's and 60's who Amy Winehouse and her producers are ripping off never managed to do that because producers then never cottoned on to the fact that the style of music did not necessitate singing charming repetitive inanities about loving, loving, loving and following, following, following, giving the whole delicious phenomenon a bafflingly short shelf life.
Anyways, my halfbaked Marxist objections to everything about Amy Winehouse stand, but I really like Back to Black, so I shall steal it. Problem solved.
2 commenti:
i'm glad you stole it. makes me feel better for having bought it. i got over her real quick. she makes me feel icky somehow. i can't look at her for very long, when she's on TV.
did i tell you i got a new job? i'll e-mail you later.
You got a new job? Tell me ALL. Hope it makes you want to shoot yourself less.
I don't look at her on TV. I'm willing to listen to an educated middle-class girl in her early 20s self destruct if her voice and her producers are good enough, but I'm certainly not going to watch.
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