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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