PrettyBaby

Unreleased is the new indie.

Bitchez stealing my "True Romance: Ultraviolet Edition" concept

Yes? I just recently outed an MRA sympathizer on another forum, so I don't need to be told how ridiculous that can get. But if there are feminist/egalitarian men who are bothered by the subject of my fangirling I'd like to know. Argh. I like the album, but the DI/BOMO/Famous section is the low point for me. "Body of My Own" has great lyrics, I just wish I liked the music better. "Doing It" ...my first thought was, "This song could have been on the radio in heavy rotation in 1985. This is not a compliment." I'm in the process of tweaking the track list (of course) to make myself like these three a little more by splitting them up. "London Queen," well it's no "Barbie Girl" but it's adorable. I don't get the hate at all. I'm definitely adding "Allergic to Love" before "Breaking Up" tho. "SuperLove" demands a spot too.

Was not expecting this. Go Chloe and Charli!

This is a good point. At its worst, "girl power" can take the form of misandry (something feminism in general sometimes is charged with unfairly). But at its best, "girl power" can be a shorthand/introduction to encouraging females to stand up for themselves, and importantly, for each other. When that is the focus, i.e. challenging arbitrarily restrictive norms, I can see a certain kind of shallow consistency in indulging "girls behaving 'badly'" while ignoring "boys behaving 'badly,'" if that makes sense. I've been meaning to ask everyone here what you thought of certain aspects of the Breaking Up video. Overall I love it, but a couple of parts bothered me a little: girl posse vs. boy posse, and the one time she "slaps" the Ex (after gagging, binding and dragging him). I'm more bothered by the message others could make of it, than by concern for Charli's intent. I initially interpreted it as "This guy is a jerk, and this guy's friends are also jerks, and Charli and her friends are sick of it." No biggie... unless. Did it make anyone else feel uncomfortable on second thought, like maybe it can be seen as girl power attacking guys in general?

Page 400 guys!

Gives me Lykke Li vibes.

I want one :/

This week I finally managed to get digital copies of my favorite K-Tel compilation, Rock 80! I used to listen to this on cassette over and over... It's a blast from the past of my childhood. The other 12 people on the internet who remember it, remember it fondly. A few of these specific track versions were hard to find or never made available on CD or mp3 Bless the old-timers on YouTube who rip their vinyls Rock 80 1. Cars - Gary Numan 2. Brass in Pocket - The Pretenders 3. Driver's Seat - Sniff 'n' the Tears 4. Cruel to Be Kind - Nick Lowe 5. Is She Really Going Out with Him? - Joe Jackson 6. Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar 7. Call Me - Blondie 8. Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio - The Ramones 9. My Sharona - The Knack 10. I Want You to Want Me (live) - Cheap Trick 11. Hold On - Ian Gomm 12. One Way Or Another - Blondie 13. We Live for Love (original LP mix) - Pat Benatar 14. Pop Muzik - M #punkrawkpop #prepussypowerpussypower

I Can Fly

I mean, how dare she? I thought I was listening to Born to Die in English, and then she just goes and totally fucks with my mind like this? I had to go back and check all her songs and make sure they weren't in Spanish for realz. Is she like some kind of a pathological liar? No. No, she is not. It's called a brain fart. We all do it. Some of the less verbally eloquent among us do it more often then others. We mean to say one thing, and our brain goes and retrieves a different but related word or phrase. Those of us who are more careful/pedantic consider whether we have said something misleading and whether we need to correct ourselves, but not everyone does. Apparently she has featured Spanish (or French :/ ) lyrics in a song here and there on all two of her albums the past few years. But on the spot, it didn't come out that specific. That, to someone who can relate, is the simplest explanation. While the age thing may be an example of more deliberate falsehood (and as someone with less knowledge of Southern CA geography than Lana, I have no idea what to make of the East L.A. comment), to make exaggerated statements along the lines of "she lies all the time" strikes me as more than a bit hypocritical, especially when it crops up in a magazine article's liberally embellished styling. "...saying that some of your best friends are Latino..." ...Really?

SUPER ULTRA 2.0

Did they leave before or after Like a Stranger EP?

Sensible people often look the other way. This is part of the problem. I think both Eminem and Lana Del Rey's subject matter warrants scrutiny, but both deserve fair consideration of what they are trying to say before dismissing them as "glorifying violence." But it is possible for one to handle their subject matter well while the other doesn't. The more I think about "Shady Cxvpher," the more I get the vibe that Eminem uses sexist/homophobic slurs that are motivated by class struggle, not gender/orientation issues. (For example, it's not so much that Eminem is pissed at any woman who won't sleep with him, as much as he's pissed at any woman who thinks she's too good to sleep with him.) That doesn't make it okay, of course. But it does explain why some fans see him as "not misogynistic." Of course, deliberate use of such slurs makes it more serious than a matter of simple "insensitivity."

Oh, Eminem. You have been hurt. For far too long you have carried the burden of a pseudowarrior mentality in a post-warrior society, along with the accompanying dickhurt. But yeah, he's not joking. He may still be "punching up," though. I think in a weird way he's commiserating with Janay Rice, saying she didn't get justice because she's not one of the "Beautiful People" that our culture cares about. While implicating himself as one of the "Rich People" feeding upon the beauty of others, and he does Ray Rice one "better" by targeting one of the Beautiful People he could catch hell for harming. Thus flaming us all for our entitlement issues, while mocking his own? I don't know, I haven't followed Eminem and his themes. Am I close?

It seems to me that we are trying to discuss this "kerfuffle" using different ideas about how communication is supposed to work. Is the responsibility completely on the speaker (Eminem) to say exactly what he means? Or is it completely dependent on the receiver (fans, casual listeners, participants in the culture at large) to decode the message and declare what it means? Or is it a shared responsibility to put forth effort and care into the encoding and decoding processes? Maybe. According to the Auteur model, whatever Eminem meant to say is controlling. (And we must deal -- that is, successfully interpret the meaning, or Be Wrong.) But under the Death of the Author model, all that matters is what the audience heard. (We may hear different messages, and thus react differently, but any reaction is on some level "correct.") On the other hand, according to a Cooperative model, what Eminem meant is important, but what we take from the song is also important. In that case, there are *two* questions to consider: did Eminem "speak" well enough to be heard, and did we listen well enough to hear him? (Under the cooperative model, we may be overreacting if we misunderstood because we didn't do our part ...or our reaction may be legitimate, if Eminem didn't do his.) This, to me, is the question: did Eminem tell his tale the right way? I take it that for you, it depends on whether he is still successfully shocking us. I agree that the *character* in a song does not always need to be presented as a role model. Sometimes a message is simply, "Life is like this." But is that all there is to Eminem's message in "Shady Cxvpher"? Or is it more accurate to say the message is "Life is like this for men, so women should accept it and men should carry on"? Or is it more like, "Life is like this for men and women, so we need to break this pattern"? I'm not a fan or even a casual listener of Eminem, so I don't feel like I can say for sure. But it strikes me as somewhat naive to assume that just because an artist has successfully painted a picture without beating you over the head with it (so to speak), therefore there is no deeper meaning. IMO, in art it matters not only how you say it, but what you're saying. Or inept at getting your message across. Which is quite possible. But in order to say whether he has created a subtext, we need to look at the context. Me too. I agree -- he picked Lana for a reason, and this is part of the context he's speaking into. And he's doing it provocatively -- but does this mean he's trolling, in the sense of wanting a negative reaction and nothing else? Eminem several lines earlier in 'Shady Cxvpher' said More crucial context. I wish I could find the lyrics in full (but darn Google is more into the controversy itself ATM) I think you are pointing out another very important piece of the context he's given us. Yes, he could make it even easier on us by explaining himself, however briefly -- but is he obligated to? I'm thinking for most subjects tackled by most artists, the answer would be "no" ...but are there special circumstances in this case? I think you are right about violence against women being a real problem. Additionally, who are his fans, and who are his casual listeners? I think we need to include both in his target audience. Perhaps his fans will understand where he's coming from, but will his casual listeners? And for someone of Eminem's stature, we also need to consider the general public -- participants in the culture at large, including us, who are receiving the message now. True. (Unless they are extremely young and/or impressionable. Such people do exist. But do we want to tailor all of our media expressions to them? I'm thinking NOT.) Personally I am more concerned about people who are already prone to violent acts hearing this song and becoming either emboldened, or at least feeling vindicated/legitimized to continue the cycle. What will be the message when people repeat the lyrics of "Shady Cxvpher" to friends, to family, to romantic partners? The neutral message ("This is life")? Every time? And I share evilentity's and longtimeman's interest in the reactions of Lana and Janay. But I believe this song has the capacity to impact the culture at large as well. I think this is a valuable conversation to be having.

Basically her marketing team should take a page from Taylor's team's playbook

To clarify, we could vote for songs that recycle some lyrics but are musically and otherwise distinctive (i.e., "Every Man Gets His Wish" and "Hawaiian Tropic" and "Daytona Meth"), and that won't violate #6, right?

Dangerous Girl is overrated. MMITPM was painful but it's gotta go.

SEXIEST SONG: You Can Be the Boss, For K Part 2, Burning Desire SADDEST SONG: Flipside, Butterflies Part 2, Pawn Shop Blues MOST ROMANTIC SONG: Video Games, Yayo, On Our Way MOST UNDERRATED SONG: Rehab (For K Part 2 demo), Try Tonight, Million Dollar Man MOST LIVELY SONG: Off to the Races, Driving in Cars, Puppy Love BEST MAY JAILER-ERA SONG: A Star for Nick, Try Tonight, Move (Find My Own Way) BEST AKA LIZZY GRANT SONG: Yayo, For K Part 2, Gramma BEST LYRICS: Every Man Gets His Wish, Pawn Shop Blues, Off to the Races BEST PRODUCTION: Kill Kill, Gramma, Yayo (2010) SONG BEST PERFORMED LIVE: Pinup Galore, Yayo, Radio BEST COVER (SONG/PERFORMANCE): Goodbye Kiss, End of the World, Chelsea Hotel No.2 - WORST SONG: I Was in a Bad Way, Scarface, Hit It & Run (2:57 version) MOST OVERRATED SONG: Gods & Monsters, Money Power Glory, The Other Woman MOST POLARIZING SONG (SONG YOU LOVE THAT EVERYONE ELSE HATES): CU L8R Alligator, Flipside, Million Dollar Man - BEST LANA MOMENT 2014: Shades of Cool video

I was hoping you'd do this again! Love the new categories. May I inquire as to whether you will or will not be gaming your own system this year?

You guys have no idea how excited I am about this Kingdom duet. Check out Arcadia's "So Red the Rose" (side project of LeBon and Rhodes from way back) if you never have

Okay, this is a great collection of songs. I think with the first tracklist you have flow *IF* you switch places for "Hundred Dollar Bill" and "Us Against the World" (assuming the 3:13 version of HDB... I just associate the 4:01 version so much with AKA.) I think you've achieved sonic flow with this tracklist. Thematically, I can't help but feel UATW should be moved to early on. I also think Live or Die should have a place somewhere. (Other possibilities are Queen of Disaster, TV in Black & White, and Prom Song (Gone Wrong).) I'm keeping this collection but this will be my tracklist: 1. Dum Dum 2. Us Against the World 3. Put the Radio On 4. Last Girl on Earth 5. You Can Be the Boss 6. Driving In Cars With Boys 7. Live or Die 8. Hundred Dollar Bill (3:13 demo) 9. Kinda Outta Luck 10. Hollywood's Dead 11. Damn You 12. Serial Killer 13. You and Me