The most important thing to know is that American Apparel is the new Abercrombie & Fitch. Which is to say, all of a sudden even the popular kids are dressing like hipsters. I'm not just saying this because I recently started spending most of my time in the vicinity of 12th and Broadway. I see the change just as much in mass culture, particularly in certain music videos for songs by artists who could not be more mainstream: Katy Perry, Usher, and Taio Cruz. About five years ago hipsterdom started riding a dialectical whiplash headed straight for the dead center of the mainstream. The period of 2004-2005 was the breaking point, the era of "Float On" and the Postal Service and Franz Ferdinand and the soundtrack to Garden State. The last six months or so were the Age of Gaga, which is now on hold until she releases her new album. With Gaga momentarily back-burnered, the air that has rushed in to fill her void is all hipster-inflected. Alternative is truly the new normal.
That poor girl who fell out of a 25th-floor window her first night (or thereabouts) at the Parsons School of Design was, judging from the few pictures I've seen of her, a patron of American Apparel or some analogous brand. The police found a small camera next to her body, and speculated that she may have climbed outside the window to take a picture--presumably, a picture to post on her "online diary." Hipsterdom has spread via the Internet.
The "Teenage Dream" video was shot to look like a Facebook photo album come to life. This shows us beyond a doubt that this abrupt change is because people now spend more time on Facebook than they do looking at professional photography. Mark Zuckerberg had no idea what an all-devouring monster he was unleashing on the world.
Showing posts with label Katy Perry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Katy Perry. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Why People Like Katy Perry
The people who like Katy Perry like her because she reminds them of them. To wit, she is the poster girl for popular kids who dress like hipsters.
Look at the video for the piece-of-shit song "Teenage Dream," the second single and title track off Perry's new album.
We begin with Katy Perry sitting in the passenger's seat of a beat-up BMW drop-top, with her flowing black bangs falling over her Ray-Bans. She's wearing a bunch of mildly exotic-looking jewelery; her tank top is full of strategically-placed holes; she has something in Sanskrit tattooed on the underside of her arm. The guy driving is wearing a faded white t-shirt, old leather boots and a trucker hat, possibly from Urban Outfitters, with something written on the front. Their jeans are both fashionably ripped. Speeding down the highway, they pass other similarly cool and offbeat-looking "emerging adults," who point and wave excitedly: two guys in a rusty red pickup, one wearing big glasses and black-and-blue plaid; and a whole little quirky posse, yellow shades and Indian headdresses and all, in a white convertible. In the remainder of the video, we see lots of horizontal-striped t-shirts, more ripped pants, shaggy long hair, leather jackets, and so on. The party at the end is full of hot white people pairing off, along with one slightly dark-skinned guy and one quirky-looking fat girl to set the mood.
American Apparel has become the new Abercrombie & Fitch. Which is to say, hipsterdom is living out its pathetic final years--its "Vegas years," if you will--among the kids in high school who throw parties every weekend and don't invite you. All they do is look at each other on Facebook all day, and look at themselves, and you want to be one of them.
Look at the video for the piece-of-shit song "Teenage Dream," the second single and title track off Perry's new album.
We begin with Katy Perry sitting in the passenger's seat of a beat-up BMW drop-top, with her flowing black bangs falling over her Ray-Bans. She's wearing a bunch of mildly exotic-looking jewelery; her tank top is full of strategically-placed holes; she has something in Sanskrit tattooed on the underside of her arm. The guy driving is wearing a faded white t-shirt, old leather boots and a trucker hat, possibly from Urban Outfitters, with something written on the front. Their jeans are both fashionably ripped. Speeding down the highway, they pass other similarly cool and offbeat-looking "emerging adults," who point and wave excitedly: two guys in a rusty red pickup, one wearing big glasses and black-and-blue plaid; and a whole little quirky posse, yellow shades and Indian headdresses and all, in a white convertible. In the remainder of the video, we see lots of horizontal-striped t-shirts, more ripped pants, shaggy long hair, leather jackets, and so on. The party at the end is full of hot white people pairing off, along with one slightly dark-skinned guy and one quirky-looking fat girl to set the mood.
American Apparel has become the new Abercrombie & Fitch. Which is to say, hipsterdom is living out its pathetic final years--its "Vegas years," if you will--among the kids in high school who throw parties every weekend and don't invite you. All they do is look at each other on Facebook all day, and look at themselves, and you want to be one of them.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
New Katy Perry: "Not Like The Movies"
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Katy Perry: Saying My Peace
Katy Perry's new album came out today. To mark the occasion, I would like to say my peace.
"I Kissed A Girl" is a great song, and not just in a theoretical, queer-studies sort of way. It's not ironic or camp; on the contrary, it's a great song precisely because it feels genuinely naughty. Perry was raised in a conservative Christian family, and started out a gospel singer. "I Kissed A Girl" is a great song because of the way it captures the exhilaration of a wholesome Christian girl's tentative first shuffles into the profane world.
But I know a one-hit wonder when I see one. Before "California Gurls" dropped, I hadn't heard her name in months, and I figured she was over.
In May, after listening to "California Gurls" for the first time, I was certain she was over. That song, I thought, was the most lifeless, insipid, uninspired garbage I had ever heard in my entire life. It sounded like a copy, almost note-for-note, of Ke$ha's "TiK ToK," except with everything that made "TiK ToK" such irrepressible fun--the dirty synths, the spunky white-girl rapping, the eye for slice-of-life detail--taken out and replaced with Wonder Bread and styrofoam. The lyrics sound like they were written by someone who hasn't been within a thousand miles of either coast, and Perry sings them like she's doing a homework assignment.
It made sense. Her one great song was fueled by the energy released, as in nuclear fission, when the hard shell of her Christian upbringing broke open and her repressed desires rushed out. But an atom only splits once. One burst of lightly transgressive fun, and she was depleted. The song would come out, no one would care, and that would be the end of Katy Perry.
Imagine my surprise when "California Gurls" became the #1 party jam of the summer. People loved it. It was the most popular song on iTunes for weeks and weeks. I didn't get it. My best theory was that California girls, especially those born in California but living elsewhere, like it because it's about them. I imagined them screaming and throwing up their hands when Perry says "West Coast represent." It was a summer fad, I figured; it would pass. Californians have short attention spans.
But as time passed, and "California Gurls" started playing on the radio constantly even here on the East Coast, I began to see the awful truth: Katy Perry is here to stay. People don't just like her songs; people like her, as a star. She has earned a reputation as a reliable, respectable purveyor of shallow, lighthearted, catchy pop, as a less serious and more normal counteragent to Gaga's quasi-artsy excesses. People like her; people think she's good.
Well, let me say my peace. Katy Perry sucks. Her songs are passionless, unoriginal, and barely enjoyable; what little pleasure they yield is pure Pavlov. Her supposedly "raunchy" image is tepid and utterly craven. And worst of all, she has that desperate look in her eyes, the look of someone who knows she doesn't deserve to be famous and is terrified that someone will figure it out. She shouldn't worry: for now, she has everyone fooled except for me.
Gaga is a fearless artist and a superb songwriter with a heart of infinite generosity and a sharp satirical eye; she's the real deal, no matter what anyone is saying right now. Even Ke$ha, one-hit-wonder though she may have been, still has as much organic spontaneity and rock 'n' roll swagger as anyone in pop music today. Katy Perry is nothing next to either of them, and even so people love her. Right now I need to go to sleep; my theory on why people love her I will save for next time.
"I Kissed A Girl" is a great song, and not just in a theoretical, queer-studies sort of way. It's not ironic or camp; on the contrary, it's a great song precisely because it feels genuinely naughty. Perry was raised in a conservative Christian family, and started out a gospel singer. "I Kissed A Girl" is a great song because of the way it captures the exhilaration of a wholesome Christian girl's tentative first shuffles into the profane world.
But I know a one-hit wonder when I see one. Before "California Gurls" dropped, I hadn't heard her name in months, and I figured she was over.
In May, after listening to "California Gurls" for the first time, I was certain she was over. That song, I thought, was the most lifeless, insipid, uninspired garbage I had ever heard in my entire life. It sounded like a copy, almost note-for-note, of Ke$ha's "TiK ToK," except with everything that made "TiK ToK" such irrepressible fun--the dirty synths, the spunky white-girl rapping, the eye for slice-of-life detail--taken out and replaced with Wonder Bread and styrofoam. The lyrics sound like they were written by someone who hasn't been within a thousand miles of either coast, and Perry sings them like she's doing a homework assignment.
It made sense. Her one great song was fueled by the energy released, as in nuclear fission, when the hard shell of her Christian upbringing broke open and her repressed desires rushed out. But an atom only splits once. One burst of lightly transgressive fun, and she was depleted. The song would come out, no one would care, and that would be the end of Katy Perry.
Imagine my surprise when "California Gurls" became the #1 party jam of the summer. People loved it. It was the most popular song on iTunes for weeks and weeks. I didn't get it. My best theory was that California girls, especially those born in California but living elsewhere, like it because it's about them. I imagined them screaming and throwing up their hands when Perry says "West Coast represent." It was a summer fad, I figured; it would pass. Californians have short attention spans.
But as time passed, and "California Gurls" started playing on the radio constantly even here on the East Coast, I began to see the awful truth: Katy Perry is here to stay. People don't just like her songs; people like her, as a star. She has earned a reputation as a reliable, respectable purveyor of shallow, lighthearted, catchy pop, as a less serious and more normal counteragent to Gaga's quasi-artsy excesses. People like her; people think she's good.
Well, let me say my peace. Katy Perry sucks. Her songs are passionless, unoriginal, and barely enjoyable; what little pleasure they yield is pure Pavlov. Her supposedly "raunchy" image is tepid and utterly craven. And worst of all, she has that desperate look in her eyes, the look of someone who knows she doesn't deserve to be famous and is terrified that someone will figure it out. She shouldn't worry: for now, she has everyone fooled except for me.
Gaga is a fearless artist and a superb songwriter with a heart of infinite generosity and a sharp satirical eye; she's the real deal, no matter what anyone is saying right now. Even Ke$ha, one-hit-wonder though she may have been, still has as much organic spontaneity and rock 'n' roll swagger as anyone in pop music today. Katy Perry is nothing next to either of them, and even so people love her. Right now I need to go to sleep; my theory on why people love her I will save for next time.
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