Prodigies & Monsters

Post-Positivist Faerietales

2012/05/26 • 11:08 AM 0

Pitchfork TV’s Frames

If you haven’t seen this series already, you need to check it out. Carrie Brownstein and the GZA’s are my favorite, without classification.

Carrie Brownstein on Pitchfork TV’s Frames

–MLA

Filed under: The Jam

2012/04/19 • 8:23 PM 0

Repackaging the Boy Band Aesthetic: I Want it That Way (But Only if You Want it That Way, Too)

So lately Hilary has been giving me shit for posting boy band videos on the blog without following up with a critical response explaining their presence. Mostly, I think she is concerned that Prodigies and Monsters will lose its street cred if too many sweet boy band jams appear too frequently on the blog. I’m not worried.

That being said, I have been listening to One Direction and the Backstreet Boys lately while doing awesome shit, like cooking risotto, building my new bike, and giving my cats mani-pedi’s. Yet, indeed, my listening activities are not without critical reflection. I’ve actually been planning on writing this post for about a week, but I have been working on a couple articles for publication (the topic of a forthcoming post), and haven’t had the time to weigh in on the reemergence of the boy band, 2012.

If the recent emergence of One Direction and The Wanted displays anything worth considering beyond parody, it is the resilience and adaptability of the model. While the boy band always contains the same essential elements and archetypes (subtle misogyny, feigned vulnerability, undeniable confidence, pan-sexual appeal in the figures of the ‘funny’ one, the ‘sensible’ one, the ‘bad boy,’ etc.), it’s elements and archetypes never fail. The boy band, like capitalism, thrives on crisis. It not only emerges when the top 40 is on the back swing, it romanticizes crisis, makes crisis a part of the everyday, and, through crisis, sets the stage for its return. When the boy band last appeared – here I am thinking of boy bands like the Backstreet Boys, *Nsync, 98 Degrees, and O-Town – the economy was fat, the internet was new, and Clinton was acquitted for impeachment by the Senate. All signs pointed to impending doom.

One need only look to the song titles of each boy band’s first album to see how the boy band simultaneously prophesizes its own demise and lays claim to eternity. Backstreet Boys, “I’ll Never Break Your Heart,” *Nysnc, “For the Girl Who Has Everything,” 98 Degrees, “I Wanna Love You,” and O-Town, “All or Nothing.” In each example, the boy band promises what it can’t possibly deliver while asserting itself to be the single, unique guarantee of wholeness and happiness–capitalism personified. The savvy reader has already realized that this is the condition of the crisis: I’ll never break your heart, but, then again, hearts are always broken; you have everything, but me, until you don’t; I wanna love, I do, but I might not love you forever; with me, you can have it all, without me, you have nothing. Just add the word bitch to the end of each clause–as if it wasn’t already there in erasure–to drive the point home and bring the misogyny of the crisis to the fore.

The boy band has a particular knack for calling the crisis of heteronormativity and female self-confidence more generally into acute ambiguity and doubt. Lance Bass wasn’t the only one to make us wonder which member of the boy band is gay, and who he is singing those sweet love songs to. With the emergence of One Direction and The Wanted, the story remains the same while the group aesthetic is repackaged. Recently, a singer from The Wanted admitted that their hit song, “Glad You Came,” is about being mildly interested in the fact that the woman in the situation actually had an orgasm too. In their hit song, “One Thing,” One Direction lets women know that they don’t have self confidence until One Direction tells women that they have self confidence (bitches), but only through a subtle reversal. Not as brazen as the Backstreet Boys, One Direction delivers the crisis in an upbeat take of “I Want it That Way,” sung in the same key. What is completely nefarious about the boy band’s reemergence is the creative license One Direction and The Wanted take with the tried and true archetypes of boy band lore. One Direction’s entire aesthetic is built on the illusion that A.J. McLean, Justin Timberlake, Drew Lachey, and Jacob Underwood have been cut from the team in favor of an entire cast of upper middle class, well intentioned young gentlemen. With the absence of the ‘bad boy’ One Direction has everyone believing that the economy is in recovery, the crisis has been averted, and One Direction wants it that way, but only if you want it that way too. The Wanted, not so clever, and whose longevity is in my estimation much less certain than that of One Direction, has aggregated all the bad boys into a bad boy boy band super group. They are riding out the recession on their trust funds and only kind of care if you have an orgasm. One Direction will always put the work in until the job is done.

While it’s yet to be seen how long the reemergence of the boy band will last, we are not a witness to the end times. Indeed, the boy band is the crisis, and the crisis has just begun.

–MLA

Filed under: Everything's Political, The Jam, Boy Bands

2012/04/18 • 5:30 PM 0

Songs for Wednesday

Bow down to One Direction, “One Thing”

Himanshu (Heems), “NYC Cops”

–MLA

Filed under: Everything's Political, The Jam, Songs for

2012/04/09 • 12:40 PM 0

On Hipster-Bashing

Since my relocation to the little gem of a city that is Bloomington, IN, I have not been queerbashed a-once; I have, however, been within earshot of a long, long stream of hipster-baiting and hipster-bashing, and I’ve become convinced it’s uniquely a response to the pretty firmly ensconced rotating contingent of anarcha-queers in this little town wherein Greeks and punks claim public space in roughly equal measure. As a rebuttal of sorts, let’s consider this little excerpt from “Fashion Anarchy: An Interview with the Boulavardier,” republished in Queer Ultraviolence: Bash Back! Anthology:

What do you think about hipster fashion?

First off, I think the term hipster has a definite air of femme-phobia to it. All artists, non-crusty musicians, or people who dress fashionable, yuppies, and teenagers magically become a hipster at the drop of the hat. It’s a defense mechanism for people who are afraid to see the world for what it is and afraid to step out of their comfort prisons and explore new forms of expression, And its use as a pejorative is not only rampant in anarchist circles but in conservative, yuppie, liberal circles…Almost every mainstream circle out there hates these damn hipsters, that should really tell you something. The criticism of hipsters is that they are not political and they’re too coked up to smash the state, but in reality, most of these so-called hipsters are potential allies if not accomplished anarchists in their own right and are only a-political because some upper-crust or elitist asshole made them think anarchism is a new religion.

A-right? A-right.

–HJM

Filed under: Gender Thangs, Love Letters, The Jam, Bash Back!, hipster, queer, queer ultraviolence

2012/04/06 • 10:38 AM 0

Dance-archy

I am about to make your lives better. I am going to do so by linking to this bandcamp site:

Dance-archy; being incredible remixes of a handful of songs composed by west coast punks (The Hail Seizures, RVIVR, Blackbird Raum) that you will want to booty clap to.

That is all. You can thank me later.

–HJM

Filed under: Love Letters, The Jam, Blackbird Raum, dance-archy, dancepunk, RVIVR, the Hail Seizures

2012/03/28 • 6:15 PM 0