Most played videos on MTV Hits and The Box:
D12 - this is on every ten minutes. Flick off one channel and you'll find it's just starting on another. I don't necessarily mind this.
Eamon - as someone was suggesting on Blissblog, it's the anti(dote to)'Slowjamz' (the weird absences where the obscenities have been cut out functioning like the ******s in the tabloid renderings of Becks' textsex) - a kind of exquisitely prolonged seduction-in-reverse.
Beyonce - intolerable, surely even the most diehard fan must agree. But does she have any, actually? Diehard fans I mean. Beyonce belongs in a cosmos of cool consumer choice, not fanaticism, you purchase the album on the way to Carpet World, you buy it in the same way that you buy pot pourri or air freshener, and for essentially the same reasons. She vampirically leeches the libido out of everything she comes into contact with, translating eroticism's sleaze and secretions into a paradoxically dull gloss.
Black Eyed Peas - the new Fugees. Spizzazzz's Lil Missy Mack hates the girl in BEP (who I think is called Ferdy?) Have you noticed the way her image has been progressively cleaned-up? In the video for 'Where is the Love' she looked trailer-trash grubby, all piercings, unwashed, pony-tail scrunched hair, streetwalker jogging pants and glowers to the camera; by the time of 'Shut Up', she was issued with a wardrobe advisers' simulation of hip hop sportswear; now, in the 'Hey Mamma' clip, she's decked out in short skirt and midriff-revealing crop top, hair and eyes shining with an inhuman lustre.
Basement Jaxx - has, sadly, seemingly disappeared from the play list. Looks like I'll have to go elsewhere for my fembot kicks.
Posted by mark at April 16, 2004 12:47 PM | TrackBack"But does she have any, actually? Diehard fans I mean. Beyonce belongs in a cosmos of cool consumer choice, not fanaticism, you purchase the album on the way to Carpet World, you buy it in the same way that you buy pot pourri or air freshener, and for essentially the same reasons."
C'mon, Mark, I know that people would like to think this about pop, but have you ever seen any of her performances? Those folks are much more esctatic than anyone at an indie-rock show. Just because it's a consumer object doesn't negate it as a focus of fanaticism. Not everyone needs things to be obscurist to enjoy it, y'know?
Posted by: Eppy at April 16, 2004 04:45 PMi know as a fan of widescreen 80's pop (etc) k-p is certainly not just all about the little things in taste.
but i see what Eppy means, cause k-p is rather obsessional on this Beyonce-hatin'!
the calculating business acumen on display in the BEP camp will now hopefully allow poor Miss Knowles a chance to rest easy from attack whilst efforts are targeted elsewhere...
was it you or SR who came up with the dead shark eyes trope Mark?
Eppy, FYI (if you didn't know), i gather Mark is certainly a fan of Destiny's: is that fair to say Mark? just thinking of the interest you've taken in them on hyperdub &c.
i love their first album galore.
'dead shark eyes' is, I think, from Marcello....
Course it's would be ludicrous to suggest that NO pop inspires fanaticism ---- and I'm very far from suggesting that--- on the contrary, in fact. It's Beyonce specifically I'm talking about. When have you seen me write ANYTHING positive about indie btw?
Scott, the obsession is only in proportion to the repetition of the video/ song; if I could ignore it, I would. I've got the reflex action of switching the channel as soon as I hear the opening bars down to a microsecond, but it's still TOO much....
DC yeh, they've had a run of singles that rank with anyone in the history of pop in my book... It's a real mystery to me: why is Beyonce solo so crap when DC were so good, since by all accounts she was the mastermind behind DC?
Posted by: mark k-punk at April 17, 2004 08:09 PMI like Beyonce well enough and I disagree with Mark immesely re the pot pourri comment—everyone should buy their music in supermarkets for reasons I'm gonna elucidate on the blog soon (just mistyped "blog" as "bog"! Maybe I'll elucidate both places!). But I know what he means about Beyoncé's lack of grit. She's also contrary to popular belief, curiously unsexy. Curiously because she's undeniably beautiful, jaw-droppingly so, but there's just something missing... a lack of real personality. I doubt she really could be "naughty" at all. Kelly Rowland, on the other hand, perfectly pretty but not stunning, however she's much more believable...
Posted by: ea$t$side boy at April 17, 2004 08:47 PMjust to add more weight to the 'this side of music blogosphere mainly a lads' affair' argument, i'd second the above and note - in my crass way - that Kelly Rowland can be my destiny anytime...
...boom boom.
P.S.
i still think there's something slightly, well, tacky almost, about this dissection of the force of nature that is Beyonce. but i'm hardly riled like Eppy...;-)
P.P.S.
yes, i used emoticons. how gauche.
yeah, it's not so much a lad's thing at all, but beyonce is black music's pin-up girl but there' something a bit lifeless about here that makes this a little less believable. she just can't be all the things the marketing men want her to be, it's not in here. i'm not really thinking how up for it kelly rowland is, either, otherwise i'd work for loaded or front magazine or something - she just seems a lot more rounded a character, not so much of a construct and therefore much more attractive. i know someone who works w/ beyonce and she's not naturally as willowy as she seems, she's marshalled by a team of advisors etc and kept AWAY from food so as she doesn't balloon. personally i'd like her to see her turn into a happy diva like aretha, but some people wouldn't.
Posted by: ea$t$ide boy at April 19, 2004 11:16 AMoh shit sorry mate i wasn't wanting to sound like i was impugning yr character or anything!
yeah you sound OTM last para. re. BK.
purely from a personal POV, Aretha these days isn't doing so good on the weight issue: can't be good for her heart/diabetes/etc.
Posted by: scott at April 19, 2004 02:34 PM