Yesterday my Walkman – no iPods here, thank you very much - threw up a blast from the past – No Doubt’s excellent Just a Girl from their classic 1995 album Tragic Kingdom. On the track, Gwen Stefani sings: “This world is forcing me/To hold your hand… I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite/So don’t let me have any rights/ Oh! I’ve had it up to here!“ As statements of intent go, it’s hard to miss the raging feminism inherent in the lyric. Which is why What You Waiting For? off her solo album almost ten years later was so disappointing. It featured the charming lyric: Take a chance/You stupid ho. O RLY, Gwen?
This image is the only thing under 'The 90s' in all historical documents
Let’s take a look at the canon of Nelly Furtado now. Remember her as the cute neo-hippie who sang about her Portuguese roots and how she was like a bird back in 2000? Then there was her sophomore effort, Folklore. Fast forward three years and we move to her all-conquering comeback album Loose, in which the lead singles were called Promiscuous and Maneater, decidely sexy dance songs with a far less innocent edge. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a shift in musical and fashion style. But I remember watching Nelly doing the publicity rounds for the album release, and interviewers would note the change in direction, both fashion-wise and musically. More often than not, Nelly would giggle and say, “I know, I was so serious back then. Bo-ring!” And that annoyed the hell out of me. Similarly, hearing the later Stefani lyric disappointed me. When I’d I rocked out in my room to Tragic Kingdom as a teenager, I had it on good authority (her songwriting) that she was different; she was a feminist and she was angry about the status quo. The ‘stupid ho’ lyric felt like a betrayal.
What you can't see is the aggressive sunburn slathered with aloe vera on her back...
So I guess what I’m getting at is the seemingly inevitable disappointment that comes with being a fan. It’s rare that any pop canon will not feature at least one dismal offering, so I expect that. And as human beings, we get so caught up in trying to debut and define a new feeling that we bury and dismiss that which we we felt/were previously. But I especially hate it when women I like, or respect even, just switch things up so dismissively. I mean, I get that you’re allowed to change (aren’t we all?), but perhaps acknowledge that what you were was important. When you deny or belittle it, you deny and belittle us, the fans and our feelings as well.
That concludes my earnest little rant. I will now bake a cake with my anger and then proceed to eat my feelings.
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The rewards for compromising are so great, you see it happen with so many female artists. *cries salty tears into radical handkerchief*
When I first saw the Promiscuous video, I was convinced Nelly was parodying the sexist/”sexyface” culture …
If only! How great would that have been?!
@ Elly: The rewards are so great, that people are encouraged to do it all the time. It’s so entrenched that even has its own little lingo. WHAT WOULD EMMELINE SAY?
@ Doctor plog: If only, indeed! At least P!nk often parodies and mocks the status quo. It’s one small step for a pop star, but (hopefully) a giant leap for feminism.
You may be interested to know that I baked a pretty delicious banana loaf when I got home yesterday. Between fistfuls of warm baked good, I pondered this issue even more. Shortly afterwards, I fell into a sugar coma. Today, I am cradling a small food baby. Just FYI.
Oh, that “take a chance, you stupid ho.” So troubling. And it bothers me because I love that song otherwise, and think the video for it is incredibly beautiful and inventive, and pre-dates any number of Alice rip-offs. I know that line can be read as one of those horrible, bullying things we tell ourselves sometimes (Stefani’s clearly only telling herself to smarten up), and therefore understandable in that context. But still. That kind of thing doesn’t need to be normalised in a catchy pop song. It’s bad for the world.
And that Nelly Furtado switcheroo really hurt. It felt like such a repudiation of everything she had held as precious before. Her Folklore album is still on regular rotation on my iPod, and is one of the very few that plays perfectly from start to finish, but I’ll be damned if I’ll listen to Nelly Doin’ Tha Sexay on Loose. But you know, if I’d first encountered her on that album, I probably wouldn’t mind so much. They’re very decent songs, musically speaking, and I can make room for any amount of pop trash to bop around to as I do the dishes. But musical betrayal cuts deep. It feels personal, doesn’t it?
@ Adriana: That lyric was troubling, wasn’t it? I get that it’s meant to be like a personal gee-up that we all use albeit with different language. But yeah, the fact that it’s out there, normalised as a regular identifier of womanhood makes me uneasy.
As for the Nelly turnaround, I genuinely didn’t recognise her when Loose came out.. And yeah, it hurt. Cos I liked that she seemed less styled and less overtly ‘sexy’ (I realise even her ‘unstyled’ look was probably micro-managed to within an inch of its life, but still). And I love several of the songs on the album, but every time I remember what she used to be, my hip gyration slows down a tad…