Female Sexuality and “Attention grabbing Girls” in Pop-Music

 

‘Pornography and the music video’

How has female sexuality become such dominant topic in pop music? In recent years female pop musicians have become more sexual causing debate over whether Record companies are promoting misogyny and sexualising women and critical males are accused of being women haters. The best selling single of 2013, Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ created scandal over how it promoted ‘rape culture’ and violence to women however arguably the lyrics were taken out of context. Singles by women only accounted for 2 of the bestselling singles in 2013, whereas the top 8 Music-Videos viewed on YouTube were by women or had ‘scantily-clad’ women featured in, whether it was Rihanna naked in a bath or Miley naked on a wrecking ball.  The music video is becoming the way to ensure a sexual image, which in the age of the internet and social media, where anyone can make show an opinion or make a comment means the open themselves up to any disapproving individual disgracing and ‘slut-shaming’ you.

Musicians as a brand

Musicians in the mainstream pop have become complete products, selling themselves and everything related to them due to the contracts they are bound under with their Record Labels such as 360 contracts or due to media expectations. Beneath an article from Perez Hilton’s blog on celebrity news on the latest ‘obscene’ photo or bisexual statement by Miley Cyrus is a ‘Make like Miley’ advert for Doc Martin’s boots that she is pictured wearing, which may just be to market a product but also advocates for her behaviour, if accidentally. This type of promotion objectifies women, treating them as if they are almost merely product or fictional objects of our amusement or desire.

Call girls and Gaga’s replacement

Sex may not ‘sell’ these female products but it promotes them:  whether it is through the scandal they create, attraction or desire to be like them, society is fascinated by sexually attractive celebrities.  With the ‘consume and trash’ climate of pop-music these days, immediate publicity rather than lasting legacy seems more important to record companies meaning female musicians must get into the media in whatever way they can. Miley Cyrus, whose use of ‘Rachet’ culture, scandal and bisexuality as her own objectification created the most critically publicized marketing campaign of 2013.  Miley and her marketing team want her ‘brand’ to earn money immediately and shed her child star status and mature from Disney Star to mainstream pop, just like Britney Spears with her  video for ‘Baby one more time’, which would now appear tame in the sexual climate of today’s pop music.

Bisexual Brands

Let’s look at the previous holder of the ‘Shock Throne’ -Lady Gaga, who when she first emerged had a similar video to ‘We Can’t Stop’, with ‘Just Dance’ depicting a party, with sexual acts, drugs and alcohol and statements suggesting a ‘bisexual’ background as well as bisexual acts in the music videos for ‘Love Game’ and ‘Paparazzi’. All this particularly helped with this idea of Gaga as sexually experimental, spreading her ‘scandal’ through the media, with the excuse of advocating for women’s rights and the gay community. Other musicians who have come out as bisexual includes Jessie J, Rihanna and now Miley Cyrus. There are criticisms of the Bisexual brand with Rihanna and Shakira’s Video for ‘Can’t Remember to Forget You’ being accused of making bisexuals seem attention seeking[1].

The muted Lesbians

Compare these ‘suggestively bi-curious’ females for publicity, to those who were more private about their personal lives.  Romy Madley Croft of the mysterious band ‘The XX’ kept her sexuality under a veil for the beginning of their career, only admitting to having a girlfriend on a friends blog. She said of the matter that it was “the same as everything about (the xx). We don’t want to make a big deal out of everything” [2]and this meant we know little about her private life, so her and the bands creative output is more important than the media portrayal of the “scandal” of her being gay.

Control

The recently successful 17 year old, Lorde from New Zealand, appears to be extremely well educated, with an interest in modern American Literature and to understand the nuances of feminism. In her videos she dresses more covered up than most of her female pop peers, and does not appear to flirt in songs or videos, calmly confronting the camera, as if addressing a lost youth to see through the crass of pop mainstream. She is being marketed at a young hipster audience, bored of sexuality and the ‘bling’ of American culture and this with her mature aura and the apparently self-run twitter account show an intelligent girl who appears to be is in charge of her own image and career. Yet Miley Cyrus is credited as an executive producer on her Bangerz album and talks as if every aspect of her current career is her own idea, so maybe this idea of control is way of marketing her, like she isn’t being exploited in anyway. However Lorde, won 2 Grammy’s and a Brit-Award this year without black girls ‘booty’s’ or swinging on a chain ball naked in her videos.

No one stays with a prostitute / Pretty woman isn’t real

On the scale of sexual shocks ‘Taylor Swift’ is fairly low, compared with former pal Cyrus. As a comparison between Album sales of female pop musicians in their first week ‘Red’ by Taylor swift sold 1.2 million albums in week in 2012, massive figures compared to Miley Cyrus, Katie Perry and Lady Gaga’s 2013 album releases which sat around the higher 200,000’s. Perhaps this proves maybe sex and popularity does not sell as well as whimsical girlishness and fairy-tale belief in love? Swifts image as the unpopular wallflower persona she appears in her songs coupled with her girl next door long legged blond beauty physical image is clearly working.  Her media presence sells her songs too as listeners not only identify with the songs she writes, but also try to work out which of the celebrity males she’s dated is lyrically discussed. Yet Taylor Swift’s image of purity and wholesome is viewed by feminists as “play(ing) right into how much the patriarchy fetishises virginity, loves purity, and celebrates women who know their place as delicate flowers”[3]. While people may be reading about and watching ‘Media shocking’ Miley Cyrus everywhere her Bangerangz tour has not sold out. It seems apart from eventually purchasing or importing one of her songs because you can’t get the infectious tunes out of your head that her ‘sex’ is not something we want to come back to for more and music that is good sells well with good marketing.

 

Footnotes

1) My beef With Shakira and Rihanna? They’re making life harder for Bisexuals’ (The Guardian Online) Bella Qvist 7^th February 2014 Address-  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/07/shakira-rihanna-making-life-harder-for-bisexuals . Last Accessed: 23/4/14

2) Rommy Madley-Croft is ‘The XX’s’ beating Gay Heart’(After Ellen) , 9^th October 2012- Trish Bendix Address- http://www.afterellen.com/romy-madley-croft-is-the-xxs-beating-gay-heart/10/2012/. Last Accessed- 23/4/14

3) Why Taylor Swift is the Reigning Queen of Pop’ (Culture Vulture) by Jody Rosen. Address- http://www.vulture.com/2013/11/taylor-swift-reigning-queen-of-pop.html . Last Accessed: 23/4/14

 

“L’cHAIM!!!” – The Cali Valli Girls giving Life to Pop

‘Days are Gone’ is the much awaited debut album by ‘Haim’, three sisters from San Fernando Valley, California humming golden sunny lands full of promise and inspiration. Though first we start a thousand miles from California in Aylesbury, the balding, complaining fat man in the crowd of Buckinghamshire towns, where I spent my teenage years. I am stuck for some undefined amount of time.  I feel lost much like the masses listening to mediocre pop music “genius” at the moment cluttering assembly line charts (I’ll address the real music lovers here not those stupid kids that hang on David Guetta’s every stagnant dance beat because it’s what they listen to on a “crunk” Friday night), I’d love someone to take me by the hand and lead me through life, out of this forest of frauds. I need some form of escapism so I put my headphones in and blast ‘Days are gone’ and drift to a world far away from the Aylesbury Vale.

The fanciful tale of the three little Haim girls goes something like this:

“Once apon a time three little girls lived in a place of sunshine and beauty called San Fernando Valley. The oldest of these gifted children was Este; the middle child and most alluring Danielle and the spritely youngest girl Alana. Their Hebrew Father and American Mother played the magical music of their time of 70’s Classic rock and Americana music to inspire these impressionable talented children. As soon as the girls were old enough to sing, Father Haim earnestly formed a family band ‘Rockhaim’ to play to all the people of the Valley in special parties and occasions of celebration. And so the Haim girls spent their days riding motorcycles through the sunny streets, running through lush Californian forests, practicing their music in the Living room of their parents house (if the depictions in the music videos of ‘Forever’ and ‘Falling’ are to be full-truth of their upbringing) and breaking the hearts of young boys through San Fernando. One day a man wishing to create a formulative pop group of five girls heard the Haim-girls sing but he only wanted the oldest two girls……..”

… At this point the story turns into a cheesy, teen-pop female equivalent of a Jonas Brothers nightmare. Este and Danielle joined the manufactured, “All American Girls” pop group The Valli Girls. “We’re just ourselves. What you see is what you get” … a quote I’m sure the now 27 year old and Ethnomusicologist graduate Este wishes she could go back to rip the blond hair extensions she wore as a valli girl from her naive teenager head than hear again. Yet musicians must ‘pay-their-dues’ in the industry and the Haim-sisters quit the band and pursued other musical paths.

“….But the Haim girls were destined for more. They united under their family name and play their inspired and inherited folk-rock like their heroes Fleetwood, with the drum beats of Phil Collins/Genesis and Destiny’s Child..”

Whoa!! Destiny’s Child? Yes the Haim girls have simmered in the music of their youth creating “folk-rock with a few R+B/ Hip-Hop styling’s thrown in for good measure”. And how sweet the vitality of this recipe tastes.  Such things as the Synth licks scattered around the chorus of ‘If I could change your mind’ add something of that R+B influence the girls talked of, sounding like a Whitney Houston ballad, without the tedious cheese. Credit must be given to producer, James Ford (who recently worked with the Artic Monkeys on 2013 album AM) for his clear ‘studio polish’ and input, particularly in ‘My Song 5’ adding the ‘Dr Dre beat’ and bass adding a sassily sexual feel to this song of a girl scorned and lied to by a cheating man- “Honey I’m not your Honey-pie”.

This debut ‘Days Are Gone’, struck some issues with me with the first three tracks disappointing me. Not musically, they are brilliant punchy 80’s pop inspired tracks establishing the well publicized concept of this being a ‘break-up’ album. No I am irritated for myself and other patient fans of this band as these tracks have not only being featured on the promising E.P of ‘Forever’ released a lifetime ago; back in February 2012 but are exactly the same studio version. In fact three more songs on this debut: ‘Don’t Save Me’, ‘Go Slow’ and ‘Send me Down’ have been released before and are in exactly the same state. This feels like laziness but ‘spunky’ sisters of Haim have been rather busy in the past year and a half; touring with big names such as Ke$ha, Florence and the Machine and Mumford and Sons in the States in August 2012 as well as the festival season, overdoing it slightly at Glastonbury; “I almost died at Glastonbury”, the oldest sister Este said after suffering a diabetic attack during their set.

Since they first emerged Haim have been proposed as the ‘Fleetwood Mac’ inspired girl rock-pop group. The main vocalist Danielle, the more smooth but reserved of the girls, does not possess the vocals of endearing rawness that remind you of Stevie Nicks yet there is potential for  the vulnerability and emotion recognised in Nicks style in songs like ‘Edge’ and ‘Running if you call my name’ . It just feels like she’s holding back, not doing the lyrics of the songs the emotional justice they deserve and trying to keep the ‘Cool-rock guitar girl’ persona she probably held well when playing with Julian Casablancas but needs to burst out of if she is to be the front-girl she could be. Through perhaps been in a band with members of her family forces one to ride in the ‘back seat’ with her sisters, rather than drive.

Clearly extremely comfortable in each other’s company (as you would be with people you grew up with) they have a charming energy through focusing on their music, there seems to be a unity, a bond that is in their musical blood like those shared genes mean they are on the same wave-length fusing their musical ideas together. Their music is so tight that I’d be advising parents to create little touring-toddlers if they could produce what these girls have.

The frequent use of three part harmonies between the girls are so tight and blend so well together, a quality that only the 21 years of being musical prodigies together could produce. ‘Days are gone’ and ‘The Wire’ allow the different voices of Este and Alana to take the main spot for a bit which adds a nice variation with their unique voices.

The family name “Haim” quite fittingly means ‘life’ in Hebrew.  Everything about these girls breathes life! Their interviews give stage to an array of bizarre but entertaining activities- Tap dancing, dance routines learned from MTV during their childhood (‘Hit me baby One more time’, the first time I’ve appreciated a creative output of Britney Spears in around a decade) or Himalayan Throat singing .  They come across as dorky and self-admitting ‘nerds’, but are also extremely out-going particularly the oldest sister Este, who seems to negate the typical ‘quiet moody bassist’ figure, is  the most infectiously humorous (“You must be Irish cause my penis is Dublin”) much to the embarrassment of her two sisters. Yet they definitely have gumption and ambition –“we’re Haim and we’ll kick your ass”.

This band of young girls is the antithesis of Aylesbury. It feels like a breath of life but completely acknowledging everything that has happened that is important to these girls, musically and in their lovelorn personal lives. They pull through it recognising that at times when life gets difficult you have to step up –“if it gets rough it’s time to get rough”. So thank you Haim for bursting with ‘life’, shining it all over pop music and may the chronicles of the Haim Fairy-tale continue.  Just never visit Aylesbury or you’re talent and ambition may be sucked out of you.