Let me break it down for you: she’s writing herself into existence. She’s giving herself a part to play because, God knows, no one else will and she wants to matter in this life. As far as I can tell, it’s working. I went straight to iTunes and bought her new release “Born To Die” in toto (how often do I do that??) because it was more than a collection of songs or a performance, it was a phenomenon. Maybe all the more so because she’s not overwhelmingly talented. The minute I hear the whisperings of “how dare she,” I’m interested. I don’t have to like it, it doesn’t have to be worthy.
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Liz Phair on Why Lana Del Rey Scares Rock’s Boys Club - Speakeasy - WSJ
Liz Phair is fucking awesome.
And this—what I was talking about with Meg, with Melissa, with so many people—the rage at women who aren’t “overwhelmingly talented” but dare to speak up anyway. Dare to be messy and angry and demanding and wanting and taking. And not—not—in a way that is grasping and hurting other people and shutting them out of the space, but in a way that clears space for the rest of our rage and desire afterward.
I listened to LDR maybe once and brushed it off, didn’t care, but the minute there’s a giant backlash about a woman artist I, like Liz Phair, am interested.
“how dare she.”
(via champagnecandy)
Interesting thoughts. It occurred to me, hearing Madonna’s new single the other day on the radio, and considering her remarks about Lady Gaga being, “Reductive,” (which I find hilariously ironic given Madonna’s new single is a pure ego-driven pile of mush) that the new female narrative in music is changing.
Nicki Minaj, not Gaga, could rightfully be called the new Madonna. Minaj is as radical in her presentation, boldly sexual and in full ownership of that story, as Madonna was in her heyday. Rihanna and Minaj, and Gaga, Del Rey and even Rebecca Black, are challenging the perception of what an audience will embrace, what the industry deems acceptable, and what a woman in the throes of performance is. We accept that Ani Di Franco and Amanda Palmer will work from the outside of the industry narrative, but do we accept that women working inside the industry can be just as, if not more subversive?
Maybe it’s time that we do, because for all the flaws in the story of how women are shaping pop culture, the issues of sex and race and power: there are stories that are not what we expected, and they’re sliding in under the radar.
(via champagnecandy)
