#sorry for censoring a certain pop singer’s name

[rustbeltjessie]

A bit of a backstory: in late 2015/early 2016, I got on this very intense pop/popular music kick. Basically, I let myself listen to all the pop artists I'd been Too Punk to listen to prior to that*, and got pretty into some of it. Including T*yl*r Sw*ft. And during that time, I found this guy who made parody t-shirts that were mashed up punk or metal bands logos/aesthetics with the names and lyrics of pop singers. One was a Crass/T.S. mashup, and I got it because I thought it was hilarious. After all, I'd always loved Crass and their aesthetic, plus I thought it would be funny to wear it and piss off some Punker-Than-Thou Dudes**. I cut the sleeves/collar off right away, because I do that to almost all my t-shirts, but then I only wore it once or twice in public because...I got over that pop music kick really fast. Especially in the case of T.S., whose music I now find boring (except for maybe a few songs), and who just...kind of grosses me out as a person. I no longer fuck with T.S., but I still fuck heavy with Crass, so over the past couple days I modified the shirt to make it into a straight-up Crass shirt/something I will actually wear. I cut some pieces from an old leopard print tank top I no longer wear (because it was stretched all to hell), and stitched them over the stuff relating to T.S. Then I used some stencils and a fabric marker to add: DESTROY POWER NOT PEOPLE to one of the patches, threw a few safety pins on each side, et voila.

(*I'm still glad I went through it, even though a lot of the stuff I briefly got into then no longer interests me, if only because now I'm sightly less of a music snob and will no longer dismiss something offhand just because it happens to be popular.)

(**Something I still wholeheartedly support doing whenever possible, by the way.)

[fayewonglibrary]

China diva, Faye Wang, changes her Ice Queen? (2003)

Things are going swimmingly for the China diva, who is more talkative these days. But her string of generalisations reveals nothing.

Lesser beings would have looked like a silly Cirque du Soleil clown in that Yohji Yamamoto lime-green ensemble with candy-coloured wraparounds for neck and limbs.

But Faye Wong is no mere mortal - at least judging from the extent of fuss over the 1.72m-tall China singer-actress.

The ballroom in the glitzy Portman Ritz-Carlton in Nanjing Road is done up like a queenly shrine.

Posters of her divine image are plastered all over, and a huge screen plays the chic music videos for the singles from her new Mandarin album, To Love.

As for the star herself, she strolls in alone on time, very tall and imperturbable, in the way that only the truly blessed would be able to pull off.

Her doll face clear and framed by bangs, the 34-year-old looks as unreal as a mannequin.

But what’s truly unreal? That she talks more than usual, albeit in a string of generalisations.

‘To begin with, I never felt I was aloof,’ she says, when a journalist comments that she sounds warmer and 'more approachable’ on record these days.

Then, she actually laughs.

'I don’t have a certain image, that I should be cool or aloof. But there are many sides to humanity. Maybe you only see one side of me. I can only explain this way,’ she says.

Her forthrightness is - pardon the pun - a godsend.

Maybe it is because she is more at home (literally and mentally) with the 60 journalists and cameramen who have converged here from all across China. Maybe, she is a great actress.

Or maybe she is really, really happy.

WHY wouldn’t she be?

She has apparently reunited with Hong Kong bad boy of pop, 23-year-old Nicholas Tse, who has penned a song called MV, which she says is 'my personal favourite’.

Her 19th studio album and her first on Sony has sold more than one million copies in Asia alone within a week of its release on Nov 7, with half of those in China.

She will soon wrap up filming for the eagerly awaited Wong Kar Wai movie, 2046, where she plays a robot opposite such stars as Japan’s Takuya Kimura and Taiwan’s Chang Chen.

She will also be staging eight concerts at the Hong Kong Coliseum next month. Along the way, she set a record in Hong Kong for selling 30,000 tickets via telephone booking within three days.

Just last Saturday, the whole Shanghai Stadium, packed with 80,000 compatriots, sang with her at the 2003 Asia Superstar Anti-Piracy Concert.

Later, after the press conference in a small meeting room, I ask her how much she thinks she has changed over the course of 14 years since appearing on the Hong Kong pop scene as starlet Shirley Wong.

'Well, I’ve gone through a lot… Well, not that much, but you know, it’s more than a decade,’ she says in lilting Mandarin.

'I’m getting older, and I guess I’ve seen through things. I don’t deliberately plan things.’

Loving it: Wong’s album To Love sold more than one million copies in Asia within a week of its release. She goes on to downplay her sense of mission in music - 'I don’t have any’ - and lets on that 'music to me is a form of interest, a leisurely pursuit’.

She hastens to add: 'But then there is nothing wrong about having a mission. Some people have their own pop missions. Everybody has his or her own way.’

By now you realise that for all her new-found loquacity, she is not one for specifics.

She still speaks in a merry-go-round of non sequiturs and fortune-cookie aphorisms, correcting herself along the way in a sort of abbreviated speech, not unlike a Zen master or a shadow boxer.

NOT that you detect any put-on act.

Sad but true: It is the Herculean task of a journalist to crack a celebrity within a brief span of 15 minutes, to sum up an artist in quick-bite pop psychoanalysis, but with Wong, that modus operandi does not cut any glass.

It is not that she is particularly media-wary.

It is just that she comes across as a person who needs years and plenty of trust for her to open up.

For armchair shrinks, it helps that for To Love, she has penned four songs, including a trip-hop number called Leaving Nothing. It has an intriguing line that goes: 'I’ve given you my heart and I’ve given him my body.’

Those lyrics were the subject of a reporter’s query at the conference: So, is this an accurate reflection of your love life?

Her answer, delivered placidly, is candid: 'Actually, even if I give a yes or no to your question, you wouldn’t exactly understand what I’m trying to say.

'I don’t mean to be difficult. However which way I explain, your comprehension and my explanation aren’t going to be the same.

'But, of course, the song is a reflection of my love life. But if you want to know what this 'you’ refers to, and what 'him’ represents,’ she says, and pauses for a laugh, 'it’s not something I can say.’

She confesses she is more of an instinctual kind of person; that she has always followed her heart, but 'most importantly, it is to make oneself happy’.

By way of example, she says she does not mind letting her seven-year-old daughter (her child with ex-husband musician Dou Wei), Jingtong, 'try’ the music scene when she grows up - if she has the talent and interest.

More beguilingly, the singer admits freely that she does not like the songs she sang 10 years ago, although she will sing her early Cantonese hits at her Hong Kong concerts.

'It’s to cater to my fans who still want to reminisce. In music, I’m not one for reminiscing. I like new things’ is her matter-of-fact take.

SUCH an honest answer may rile other people’s fans, but this is one diva whose disciples adore her precisely because she displays such brazen individuality in a pop scene filled with manufactured nymphets mouthing rehearsed lines.

Asked how she feels that Chinese censors have banned one of the songs, In The Name Of Love, because it contains the line 'Opium is warm and sweet’, and she says blatantly she has 'no strong opinion’.

'After all, it’s a Cantonese song, and the lyrics are by Lin Xi. I didn’t write them,’ the Beijing-born native says without missing a beat. 'Personally, I like my own original Mandarin version with my lyrics.’

Not surprisingly, she says she prefers singing to acting because 'it’s more natural and individualistic’, even though she did win raves for her performance in 1994’s Chungking Express.

She describes how director Wong would play a song by Norwegian neo-classical pop duo Secret Garden for her on the set of 2046.

'It’s a very, very sad song. Sorry, I can’t remember the title. It’s for a crying scene. He would play the song to let me cultivate the right feelings for the scene. In that way, it becomes easier. Yes, that’s the way I get into the mood, through music.’

Talking about 2046, does she know that her co-star Tony Leung Chiu Wai said she is a great actor during a recent interview on Taiwanese TV?

Her reaction is immediate and out of the blue.

'Ahh… who did he say it to?’ she yelps, catching her breath.

It is entertainment doyenne Chang Hsiao-yen on her talk show Swallow Time.

'Tony would say the same about any other actor. Don’t believe him. I don’t believe him,’ she says, girlishly embarrassed.

'I really don’t think I can act.’

To Love is out in the stores.

Faye in Her Own Words

ON PACKAGING

'I believe that if people like my albums, it’s not because of my packaging. All the clothes and make-up are only accessories. They don’t matter, really.’

ON WHY THE TITLES OF ALL THE SONGS IN HER NEW CD CONSIST OF TWO CHARACTERS

'It’s the habit of modern people. We like to abbreviate in our everyday speech. It’s just fun. Names and titles aren’t important.’

ON HAVING NO CAREER GAME PLAN

'You can’t deliberately set out to find something. If it isn’t there, it isn’t there.’

ON HER ACHIEVEMENT

'If I have any achievements, it’s a combination of my assets as well as luck. Not many people can accomplish what they want, so I’ve been fortunate. Whatever you do, you will be most confident if you follow your own feelings. As for the rest, it’s fate. You know what fate is?’

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SOURCE: THE STRAITS TIMES

[spellofhelterskelter]

Lady Marmalade Video Analysis

Overview

Lady Marmalade is a video performed by Christina Aguilera, Mya, Lil’ Kim and Pink, featuring also Missy Elliott, 5 artists that were totally in vogue the year the song was released (2001). Lady Marmalade was the main track for the movie Moulin Rouge, so the cabaret style and the image of the femme fatale were used as distinctive elements of the video and the red was presented as a dominant color.

  Aesthetics

As it was said, Lady Marmalade is completely based on a cabaret style and the luxurious lifestyle surrounding the Moulin Rouge, the famous Parisian cabaret, on the 1900’s, but mixed with contemporary pop culture elements, like red leather boots and hip-hop style jewelry. The customs, makeup and hairstyles are over exaggerated and sensual, evocating lust through lingerie with lots of lace, corsets and hot pants, finishing the look with high heels and lots of diamond-like jewels to accompany the expensive, sensual and empowered woman portrayed in the video. The colors in this video are strong and saturated, still dark, with black and red as main colors of customs and props to accentuate the concept of lust and luxury and to emulate the modern Moulin Rouge.

    Lyrics

The lyrics tell the story of Lady Marmalade, a girl from the streets of the red-light district, who seduced a man inviting him to spend the night with her (in the song, the lyrics are in French, “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?” translated as “do you want to sleep with me, tonight?”), which leads us to think that Marmalade was actually a prostitute that prowled around the Moulin Rouge or the local red-light district in New Orleans, since the original version (1974) was actually inspired in that city, but while Patty Labelle, the original singer, admitted the nature of the song, the 2001 version added one new verse that fight against this interpretation and add a whole new perspective, denying the simplest interpretation that was given to the song by adding the words “we independent women, some mistake us for whores”, which challenged the original meaning of the song and giving it a more empowering, rich, luxurious feeling of a strong and independent woman that just lives her sexuality freely. The song also talks about luxury and money and a expensive lifestyle (“we drink wine with diamond in the glass, by the case, the meaning of expensive taste”) and it puts an special accent in the strong woman image that is not dominated by anyone’s opinion (“disagree? Well that’s you, and I’m sorry, I’ma keep playing these cats out like Atari”). The lyrics are in tune with the video, that show us two sides for each artist, one that appears to be on a room (or bedroom) with maids that are dressing them or giving them some sort of grooming or attention while they look unsatisfied or bored despite being surrounded by luxury and attention.

    Editing

The video starts with Missy Elliott welcoming to the Moulin Rouge while a curtain opens to show a stage with a heart made of lights with the word “Moulin Rouge” on top. Then, a very expensive-looking and elegant Lil’Kim starts with the introduction and then the rest of the singers appear in the screen one by one and join the initial part of the song. Then, Mya starts singing the first verse and dancing accordingly while the performance part is intercalated with images of Mya being taken care of by her maids. Then, the same is repeated for Pink, who performs and dances to her verse and, at the same time, is shown in a more “intimate” side, in a bedroom. The next is Lil’ Kim and the strategy is repeated until we reach Christina and then we switch to a view of the performance of the 4 singers, who are subsequently presented by Missy Elliott when getting to the end of the song and the video is closed with a rain of confetti and the artists posing as the song ends.

  Reception

The song became a hit instantly, reaching the number 1 in the Billboard hot 100 in USA. It also reached the top in 15 different countries and stayed in the top 40 list for 17 weeks. The video was also named of the sexiest videos in history and it became “Video of the year” in the MTV Music Awards that year. The song itself had different receptions, being considerate too provocative and therefore being censored in some countries, where instead of “do you want to sleep with me” the verse would say “do you want to dance with me”. As for the video, even on these days it remains as one of the most iconic videos in music history and the song is still an anthem of luxury and glamour and female empowering.

  Goodwin's Theory

According to Goodwin’s theory about the relationship between the song and the video, we could say that Lady Marmalade is used in a illustrative way to promote the single, this means, the video is related to the lyrics and is used to explain the song in a certain way; it gives us an idea of what the song is trying to tell. As for the narrative, Lady Marmalade follows the principle that the singer should be the star in the video, since this helps to give a recognizable face and “personality” to the video and is a way to engage the viewer since it makes it more realistic if you see the actual performer interpreting the song. This is called the “star image”, where the performer is actually the center of attention in the video, and it helps creating an image of the artist and giving a memorable face to the video itself. In terms of the notion of looking, this video is particularly an example of the female body voyeurism, since the whole video shows women in lingerie and dancing with provocative movements that accompany even more provocative lyrics. The 4 main singers also follow the beauty canons that still rule in our time: rather slim and athletic bodies with a tiny waist and prominent bust and hips, feminine faces covered in makeup and perfect hair, dancing provocatively to a pop song. Since this is the theme of a movie, the video has a very close relation to the movie, following the same style of scenography and costumes, so intertextuality is a very powerful element in this particular video, since it could perfectly fit as an actual scene of the movie. As for the performance, the use of illumination, close-ups and transitions help to set the mood and the atmosphere of the video, at the time it gives the “star quality” to the performers since it forces us to center our attention in them and what they are wearing and what they are doing. The video is dynamic, it goes from one scenery to another and gives us to aspects closely related , creating some sort of “private” and “public” face of the artists and making the video rather fast and interesting, accompanying the beats of the song. In conclusion, this is a video that is closely related to the song itself and its lyrics. It gives us a vision that the song is trying to show using techniques like beauty, captivating dance and perfect female bodies. It embodies the very soul of the song and it’s made in a way that can fit in the movie that is representing and promoting. From the aesthetics to performance to singers themselves, Lady Marmalade is a captivating video that has been in vogue for almost 20 years and that gives us a concept and an image that even on these days stays strong in the society: the empowering of female gender.