This one with Jonathan Bradley over at Screw Rock. (What can I say, I prefer for people to come over to play at my house.) Still stewing over some comments in the last post re: writing like Bo Diddley -- well, one problem I'm having with it is how much it opens up, and what it means for me to disregard some of the (many) possibilities of interpreting it in the first place. Which is to say, I'm afraid it might be cryptic. Words that sound like music? Conveying a sense of energy? Doing a "translation" of sorts? But that would require seeing music as "language," and we're getting into awkward metaphorical use to convey simple, literal processes, i.e. writing about music. (Which reminds me, why shouldn't you dance about architecture? One of my roommates would probably dance about architecture if it moved her in just the right way.)
C4B: Nice post -- and thanks for the link, tho I'd use the word "enthusiast."
You bring up a really interesting issue with infantilization (I had a prof who referred me to an argument that in times of war/conflict, female celebrities and/or actual young girls increasingly become fetishized/sexualized, concentrating mostly on Shirley Temple...never did find/read the thing). But infantilization works both ways, production and reception-wise...I'm always amazed that an aesthetic or, more often, a social distinction can lead critics (of both the professional and amateur variety) to infantilize female pop stars who -- though they often court younger audiences -- don't nec. sound particularly "young." I'm thinking of artists like Ashlee Simpson, Meg and Dia...the artists deemed teenpop largely because of who they are, not what they sound like. (Or sometimes a little of both; I still hear jailbait jokes about Skye Sweetnam, who just turned 19. Most recently from Rolling Stone, who wrote about her featured part in Tim Armstrong's "Into Action," with a bit about Skye's mom calling the cops.) The Veronicas and tATu both come to mind as being able to kind of navigate the waters more successfully than others...but they largely do it through humor and irony and a little WTF-factor (which is funny, since when Ashlee uses humor and irony and WTF it seems to make no difference whatsoever in how she's widely perceived).
SCREWetc.: Oh, yes, it most definitely goes both ways. I always thought the outrage from some quarters about the sexed-up Britney in the "Baby One More Time" video was patently ridiculous. She was almost 17 at the time, and folks were acting like it was outrageous that a 17 year old could even think of acting in a sexual manner. (That said, I was a 15 year old boy at the time, and to a 15 year old guy, the idea that a 17 year old girl is not a sexual being is patently ridiculous).
Good point about Ashlee, too. Apart from "La La" she hasn't to my knowledge really sung about anything explicitly adult, but her lyrics do basically seem to be written from the POV of a woman her age. "I spilt my coffee, it went all over your clothes/I've got to wear mine now" could be sung by a 14 year old, I guess, but I have in mind someone Ashlee's age when I listen to it.
Interesting notion about increased sexualization of female celebrities in war time - I'd heard of something like that before, but never really thought of it in a pop music context. I guess if you care compare teen pop stars now and teen pop stars in, say, the relatively peaceful mid '90s, Alanis Morissette was 21 when "Jagged Little Pill" came out, but she was played as and seen as a lot older than similarly-aged acts like Ashlee or whoever. But then perhaps there's a marketing aspect there, too. A musician with an MTV reality show is most of the time going to be seen as teen-oriented, whatever she sings about.
C4B: Interesting you bring up that particular Ashlee line (one that stands out for me), because I think it's a perfect 20ish lyric (I guess she was just 20 at the time); she's wearing her boyfriend's clothes and now they're ruined and she has to wear her own. (That this could be a metaphor for some larger issue of empowerment [or something] is part of Ashlee's talent/charm, the ability to sell a line like that so you think, well, maybe it's about "coming into her own." But she ALSO sells it [maybe primarily] literally -- damn, can't wear this shirt again, there's a stain on it.) (Frank Kogan has said that the first line in "Shadow" could have been written by a six-year-old -- likewise, the line you quote could have been written by a fourteen-year-old, except this isn't nec. a negative thing, "fourteen" isn't pejorative, it actually enriches "twenty" -- in fact, I think it more accurately reflects "20" than something more self-consciously sophisticated/clever, just as Iggy's "oh my and boo hoo" pretty much sums up my time as a 22-year-old but also could have been written by, y'know, a four-year-old [who was also a GENIUS]). (And final thought, the best lyric I ever wrote was "I'm low/ Oh no/ Gimme some sugar [repeat]").
SCREWetc.: Ha... cute lyric. I like it.
I really do like that particular Ashlee lyric, and I've been thinking about it, and I think in some way it reminds me of the Hold Steady's "You Can Make Him Like You," when Craig Finn (another artist who consistently sings about being much younger than he really is, and his work is all the better for it) sings "You can hang in the kitchen/ talk about the stars in the upcoming sequel." It's such an easy, tossed off line, one not even detailed or clever enough to really be described as observational, but it paints such a vivid picture of not only the scene, but of all the characters in it, and where they are in their lives.
And that's the thing with "Better Off": in that first verse, I can picture exactly the kind of morning Ashlee is having from the clothes to the emotions she's experiencing. I'm even getting a sense of what her boyfriend is like, what their relationship is like - and this is before she hits the chorus where this sort of thing is made more explicit.
I never really have thought of it in terms of an Ashlee coming into her own metaphor, but I think if there is that metaphor there, it's inherent in the entire 20-ish feel of the passage. The early 20s is for many people the time in their lives when they're first becoming properly independent, and the passage has a very enduring the trials of everyday life feel about it, but also a sense of newness suggesting that these trials aren't things the singer has experienced thousands of times before. If the track were a country song by a mid 30s singer, it would have a very different feel, I think.
In short, like you said: it's very 20-feeling, without being explicitly clever about feeling that way.
C4B: damn, can't wear this shirt again, there's a stain on it
You think you know her, she's got stains on her T-shirt and she's the biggest flirt -- but really she's a hardcore monogamist that likes clean shirts.
I once had a contest to see who could write the worst Hold Steady line. I'd still love to see what this would yield in a more receptive (and, uh, larger) audience.
Y'know, I assumed it was a coming-into-yr-own, at least in part, but like most of Ashlee's material, it's fairly ambiguous/conflicted. When she's at her most explicit about the conflict, I think she's less effective ("feet are on the ground but I'm stuck," which is actually a pretty good line, but a little stand-alone clever in comparison to the strange narrative/musings happening elsewhere, the 20ishness in a general sense. 'Course actual 20-year-olds never seem to recognize this sort of 20ishness until they're a little older, because you usually spend 20 pretending to be, like, "a little older," and failing. So Ashlee is also, in her way, potentially more mid-30s than a mid-30s singer, partly cuz she's speaking through Kara DioGuardi a bit, partly because that's also what 20 y/os do).
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