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There is a good chance you found us accidentally by using the word “taint” in your search (If you found us on purpose, you deserve our accolades). Of course we don’t know what you were looking for, but you stumbled on a damn cool project. Look around; let us help send you on a musical journey. Here you will find a number of album reviews from the strange and extreme to the tame and mainstream. Our reviewers are a bunch of obsessive miscreants. Most of us are avid music collectors and have been involved in the music world for decades. A couple of us have been in or are still in bands.

There are no rules on Tickle Your Taint Blog. Our reviewers might make you laugh, or piss you off; both results are legitimate. One reviewer might write a glowing review of an album another might tear it apart. We may end up adopting a single review system, such as five stars, or each reviewer may use his own or none at all. We may have a new review every week or we could end up with one every six months. This blog exists as a social experiment to build community among a diverse group of music maniacs – our reviewers and hopefully you. Pull down your knickers, lube up and join us in tickling yours and our taints.


Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Katy Perry and Taylor Swift: An Exercise in Self-Flagellation


Katy Perry, Witness (Capitol Records, 2017)
Taylor Swift, 1989 (Big Machine Records, 2014)

by Kloghole

God, I fucking hate sociologists. Well, not all of them, but most of them. I was sitting in the Montreal airport waiting for my plane, surrounded by the din of sociologists describing their “white people problems” to each other. “Montreal is so hard to get to. At least in Philly, my friends run a day care where I can leave my kids during the day. I’ll pay them of course, but…” Now, I am fucking edgy and sitting on the fucking plane. I try to create a quiz for my Intro class, but the whole first part of the chapter is on theories of psychology. I thought I assigned a fucking Intro to Sociology textbook. Don’t we have any fucking theories of our own regarding culture? Fuck. So, I throw down my glasses, and I can now faintly hear what sounds to me like the bubblegum catterwalling of some underfed pop diva. My mind flashes back to a terrifying memory and the awful reality that I agreed to review Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. So, as I sit on the plane, I craft this little gem right next to the poor fuck with so little self-respect he cannot bother to indulge a musical genre that isn’t chartworthy.

While visiting SoDak, we plundered the local record stores. While sifting through the recent arrivals, I spied Katy Perry’s new release. I had the idea to review some music that I thought I would have difficulty tolerating. It was a self-imposed test of trying to be open-minded about certain musical traditions. I failed fucking miserably. Katy Perry fit this category pretty nicely, so I picked up the cd and dreaded the exercise. To further punish myself, I decided to up the stakes and add Taylor Swift to the review, in light of their “feud.” I chortled loudly at the prospect, probably more out of nervous fear than light-hearted mirth.

This was shortly after Perry dropped her album at midnight, and Swift decided to release her entire collection on streaming music sites. I have to say, I do not know either of them very well, so I cannot really tell which is the bigger asshole in this affair, but I can say that Swift’s timing of her release was certainly a real fuckin’ shitty move. I really don’t care how much you detest someone, but Swift proved herself a grade-A shitbag.


I decided to start with the Perry album, probably because I had a little more sympathy for Perry given Swift’s calculated assholeishness. I really did not want to listen to either of them, but I needed to get it over with. I had to drive back to my hometown, so I figured it would provide a perfect opportunity to listen to the two albums when it would offend the least amount of people and I could (and would) have to listen to them uninterrupted. I also was less likely to go to the liquor cabinet and try to numb my senses.

Well, Perry lived up to all my expectations. Absolute vapid nothingness for nearly an hour. The digital instrumentation added to its sterile sound and message. The highlight of the album was “Miss You More” that seemed to have some gravity of emotion, but otherwise the album was glittery pop nonsense. I think I enjoyed the twist of the lyrics “I miss you more than I loved you.” That lyric might actually fit well in a classic country song, but it would have to have a line in there about who got the pickup and the dog. Even her song that is purported to be direct “dis” of Swift was pretty lifeless (I guess the term is throwing shade now, but that is probably already out of fashion).


It came time to put in the Taylor Swift, and I was dreading it, and soon glad that I played Katy Perry first. Taylor Swift’s sickly-sweet dance beats coupled with inane lyrical meandering left me wanting to strangle myself with anything I could find in the car. I reasoned, in very quick order, that if I had started with Swift, I would have ended to whole sadomasochistic, self-flagellation right then and there.

At one point, I pulled up to an intersection, and had to stop next to other cars. To get the full sonic experience, I was playing the stereo quite loud. Because Perry and Swift rely on digitized drum machines, the car was vibrating in the annoying way those cars do when they drive down your street. Keeping my eyes forward, I just wanted to climb out of the car, stand on the roof, and scream to people, “I am not listening to Swift because I like her. I have to do this for a music review!” What an awful fucking feeling – the idea that someone, somewhere may think I like Taylor Swift enough to turn it up. Fuck me.

The Swift album was an extended disc, and I could not believe how many sonic turds these girls could pack in a single album. I got to song 10 on each disc, and was horrified to find out the torture was far from over. What the fuck Perry? Can’t you stop at 10 like a reasonable fucking human being. Really, 15 songs? Oh shit, I just remembered Swift is an extended disc. Goddammit, son of a bitch, shit, fuck.

My extended torture was thankfully mitigated by some interesting additional tracks at the end of the Swift album. It was like getting a sucker at the doctor’s office after a botched proctology exam. She explained her writing process by providing three demo recordings of her playing guitar or piano and singing along. These brief acoustic arrangements allowed the natural quality of her voice to be paired with simple instrumentation. At its core, she may have some strong, and with better lyrics, emotionally engaging songs. Instead, to sell albums to dimwitted, emotionally immature, pop-culture, shit gobblers, she lathers every fucking song with digital high-fructose corn syrup laced with saccharin and MSG.

If you just listen to Perry and Swift’s voices, you can tell that they possess a dynamic range and potential for emotional and powerful singing. They are undoubtedly talented. I thought Swift’s acoustic tidbits were actually listenable, aside from the lyrics. Even though these two are “talented,” their popularity is not that they exceed the talent of the scores of singers who have been relegated to obscurity. Their popularity is their ability to firmly squeeze themselves into the stereotype of ideal beauty in our patriarchal, sexist, capitalist “paradise.” They are commodities, plain and simple. They perpetuate the objectivity of women by being the exaggeration of that very objectification. We may complain, and I do, about artists that objectify women in their lyrics and behavior, but Perry and Swift live that objectification, perpetuate it, and use it to sell their fucking shitty albums.

Their musical talent is not unique nor exceptional. The crap on those two albums can easily be duplicated by other artists. They do not really stand out in the world of aural diarrhea that is that genre of music. Similarly, I was amazed and horrified to recently hear that Shania Twain is one of the top-selling artists of all time. To think that she has written better songs than … okay, you can list just about any classic country singer. Jesus-fuck, are you fucking kidding me? Treat yourself like a fucking sex-doll, and watch the fucking money roll in.

So to sum, god-fuckin awful. GOD-FUCKIN AWFUL. Like most phenomena we face at this historical moment in time, one side of my brain completely understands the popularity of these two artists given the commodification of everything, including people. There is also the other side of my brain that screams, “What in the fuck are people thinking listening to this shit?” How the fuck did this even make it to market?

My rating for this whole experience is six slimy turd nuggets shooting, pop-gun style, out of my ass in an explosive diarrhea. Goddamn. I am not going to do that again. Fuck me. Oh shit, as I edit this, I am wondering, was it that bad? I have a morbid curiosity to play them again, sort of like when you get a rancid bite of food, and you take another bite because you are not sure. On second thought, I am going with my first instincts. I have a lot of other music I can listen to.

Sweet Dreams Motherfuckers!

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