Rambling Rhodes

Whoops, I Did it Again

Whoops, I Did it Again

What a shock. Apparently, I've pissed off yet another Web surfer who unwittingly visited my site. So enraged was she, that she even dropped me an e-mail. I guess she took offense to the Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera barb in the upper right corner. But, don't take my word for it:

You are obviously an undersexed tool with too much time on your hands. Britney Spears is a beautiful and talented woman and you have no business attacking her in such a sophomoric fashion. Get a life. Or, more appropriately, drop dead.

*pause to remove literary knives from torso and drip Visine into my scratched eyeballs*

Well, EXCUUUUUUUUSE me! Okay, lady, you're asking for it. I can handle being called "sophomoric" and "undersexed," but saying Britney Spears is "beautiful and talented" is simply more than I can take.

Britney Spears is NOT talented. For the past three years, I've had to watch that giggly Jenna Jameson look alike parade her body on television and call it talent. Fine, she can probably sing better than me, and she'd probably make it a few rounds into American Idol before the British dude told her off, but she reached super stardom solely because she was packaged like a pornstar lolita. She was the music industry equivalent of Traci Lords.

Worse, she convinced hundreds of thousands of young girls that the way to get noticed in life is to bare your tummy, push up your tits, and show off your ass. Just for the record, I'm for all of that, but not when its paraded around by 12 to 17 year-olds. Combine that fashion trend with schools full of young men new to the effects of testoserone running through their veins, and you have the makings of a sexual frustration extravaganza. Here's a head scratcher for you: surround boys with half-naked girls and try to explain the Bush doctrine of "abstinance only" sexual education to them. Ah, but the inherent flaws of "abstinance only" sex ed is a different gripe for a different day.

More than just her shameless tart persona, and her conspicuous lack of talent, was the fact that her sugary brand of pop just represented, in my mind, everything that was wrong with popular music: the pre-fabricated boy bands playing God-awful songs were the pretty boy equivalent of Britney Spears. Even Shakira, a young woman with actual talent, was forced to dye her hair and shed most of her clothes to really break into the business in America. And let's not forget Christina Aguilera; she has an awesome voice, but OH. . .MY. . .GOD is she a hopeless tramp or what? Tiffany (you remember Tiffany from the 80s, right?) believed it would help her comeback cause if she showed off her giant bazooms in Playboy first. Has anyone heard from her since? I was really beginning to wonder if, for female musicians, the road to stardom meant checking their morals at the front door.

Then, thankfully, I heard a song by Nora Jones on MusicMatch radio one summer afternoon. I downloaded it and a few others, and then I set out searching for more info about her. I was shocked to see her wearing clothes, and a sensible amount of clothes for that matter. And, perhaps more importantly, her music was actually good. Really damned good. Could it be that a talented female musician could make it big without being a whore? I could only hope. So far, she has withstood the test of time, although it's been a short stretch of time to be sure.

I don't profess to be a fan of Avril Lavigne, a name that sounds like some new brand of headache medicine (take two Avril Lavigne every 8 to 10 hours), but I do like the fact that she's not Britney Spears in every way that matters. She dresses in clothes, for one thing, and that's a great start. Second, she doesn't sing about being a whore; she sings about things that high school students can actually relate to. In short, she's a decent role model. Not a great role model, but a decent one.

The music industry analysts are saying that the Nora Joneses and the Avril Lavignes are poised to squash the sickening pop standards set by Britney and the boy bands, and I sincerely hope so. Really, it all sounds so much the same it's like listening to the Legend of Zelda theme playing in a continuous loop. It's time for fresh sounds and new looks.

So long, Britney, write when you get work, preferably on the set of a low budget porn flick. You've gotta focus on your strengths after all, and they sure as hell don't include music.

Posted by Ryan at January 22, 2003 01:34 PM