Demi Lovato – Here We Go Again
So I’m hearing it’s not the best song on her album…
[Video][Myspace]
[6.53]
Anthony Easton: The single that Kelly Clarkson should have recorded.
[7]
Martin Skidmore: Is it a terrible indictment of rock that many of the most exciting examples of the genre are made by teen female Disney stars?
[8]
Dan MacRae: I can’t type anything over my brain screaming “hooray!”. Once my brain figures out that Demi/Miley/Kelly might be responsible for a Pat Benatar revival, it will make for quite the harsh come down.
[9]
Keane Tzong: A tired, mawkish sentiment, poorly expressed and sung, accompanied by an instrumental whose express purpose seems to be to ensure that the song remains as neutered and safe as possible. The most positive thing I could think to say about this is that it’s certainly signature Demi Lovato. I look forward to reading the inane praise this will no doubt receive from the rest of the Jukebox, though.
[1]
Martin Kavka: Anthems to unhealthy codependence and senseless forms of acting out are dangerous things, and I fear that Disney-Radio-fed kids will infer from this that throwing tantrums is mature behavior. But there’s no denying that, aurally and visually, a gaggle of Busted/McFly/JonasBros can’t hold a candle to Lovato’s singular charisma.
[6]
Alfred Soto: She handles the pleasure-in-pain stuff like the pro she is, and she even tosses in a couple of unexpected flourishes: the audible breaths between verses, for example. Not great stuff, but I don’t change it when it’s on the radio.
[6]
David Raposa: Ehh — would’ve given this perfectly OK post-“Complicated” Radio Disney product the benefit of the doubt were it not for the guitarist wanting to sow his Berklee College of Music oats in the coda with some unnecessary wheedley-whee. It’d also be nice if someone could produce a tweeny girl rock/pop record and NOT catch the singer’s every gasp and gulp.
[5]
Dave Moore: I appreciate Demi’s workmanlike qualities — she’s one of the brainier of Disney’s current roster, but clearly a “professional,” with all of the baggage and occasional distance that the word brings. But this one hews a little too close to its formula, a “Since U Been Gone” rip (identical climactic bridge!) with a few bar band touches. As always, Demi sells it convincingly, but it doesn’t have any of the standard Paramore bluster of “La La Land” or unexpected quiet passion of “Don’t Forget” or the Robin Thicke smooveness of the best song she’s done this year, “Behind Enemy Lines.” An oddly safe lead single for someone who’s put out more strong material in one year than many of her contemporaries can manage in several.
[6]
Anthony Miccio: Rocks harder and hookier than most Disney fodder, but the repeated cries of “Here We Go Again” only serve to underline Levato’s relative facelessness in pop-rock. With her kind of corporate firepower, hard’n’hooky is the least we should expect.
[7]
Erika Villani: It’s a solid bit of post-breakup pop, a blaring and straightforward story of an off-again/on-again relationship, with a chorus catchy enough to get stuck in your head after a few listens: this could easily be the new Miley Cyrus single, or the the new Jonas Brothers single, instead of the new Demi Lovato single. But her album is packed with songs that can’t be confused for anything other than Demi — full of playfully cutting kiss-offs, personal details (“the necklace in your car that wasn’t mine”), and enough conviction for ten Hannah Montanas — and I’m taking points off this song simply because it isn’t those songs.
[5]
Alex Ostroff: Demi Lovato was swiftly written off in my mind as another Miley-come-lately; I was wrong. “Here We Go Again” grabbed me by the ears and forced a reevaluation. Reminiscent of the stellar middle third of Autobiography, Demi cops Ashlee’s growl and her push-and-pull romances. She adds judgmental friends, a soaring chorus in place of Ashlee’s more understated hooks, and a double dose of sass. “Got Dynamite” rocks harder, “Everytime You Lie” is smarter, and “Catch Me” is deeper, but this was made for hairbrush singing and bathroom mirrors, the true measure of pop.
[9]
Alex Macpherson: Her second album is hooky, smart, thoroughly enjoyable and frequently mindblowing; its sneakily addictive lead single (still only about the fifth best song on the album!) is an exuberant ride on the rollercoaster of emotional codependence, in which Lovato makes returning to an unhealthy relationship sound positively triumphant. She’s addicted to the thrill. And now, so are we.
[9]
Chuck Eddy: Proof Katy Perry is not as evil a shemo-pop role model as some people probably think. Though I still prefer when Demi steals Led Zeppelin riffs.
[7]
Additional Scores
Chris Boeckmann: [9]
Michaelangelo Matos: [4]
So far, her going up on the second line of the chorus has pleased me immensely every time. Great album, great voice that can decide to be whatever it wants to be, now and in the future.
This is a Canal Street knockoff of Autobiography at best, which would have been enough for a [4] were it not for the overwhelming positivity I feared (but which didn’t really come to pass?). I hear much more of Avril’s nasal, unarticulated whine in this particular track anyway.
I’d just like to point out that Erika and I are spoilers here. Tho Keane, I still don’t see how you can really think this is poorly sung. (If Maroon 5 recorded “Every Time You Lie” I would probably like Maroon 5 more.)
Like the last time I read Keane dissing Demi’s voice I reacted, like Dave, with bafflement; I mean, it’s not even a Cassie/Taylor Swift situation where she’s getting by on qualities other than her technique, she has a pretty obviously good voice. And then I remember that Keane is an admirer of that harpy Elly Jackson’s voice, and I breathe in and just leave the madmen be.
Matias is right: what’s increasingly striking about Demi Lovato is her sheer versatility. One minute she’s doing straight-up Disney-pop frolics like this; the next swinging along to a showtune; the next you can actually hear that she’s a huge metalhead. And she’s so rarely unconvincing.
If I hadn’t been too bored by this song to find anything to say, I probably would have given it a 3 or a 4 myself… and I’m not a La Roux fan, but I’ll take Elly Jackson’s voice over Lovato’s incredibly bland one any day of the week.
Having just heard La Roux for the first time, I am inclined to agree with Lex.
Why are we hating on my tastes again? Have I walked into Moopy?
You wouldn’t say ‘bland’ if you heard how, on ‘Got Dynamite’, she goes from slick, knowing rock vocals through the most unexpected Mariah Carey trill on the bridge and then shows off her pipes with a “got dynamii-iiiiiiii–iiite” for shits and giggles. Kick senseless my defenses, indeed. (The fact that she does it even better live.. well I’ll leave it there)
And it’s not even like Demi Lovato really does have an “obviously good voice”; it’s got nothing to recommend it at all. Like her most immediate Disney male counterparts the Jonas Brothers, she’s notable for the extra-musical references she makes (metal this, metal that) but fails to incorporate into her music whatsoever- it’s not like her anodyne vocals OR her even more enervated instrumentals reflect that at all (the breakdown in “Don’t Forget”? Laughably childish, like a child throwing a tantrum on a toy guitar). It’s not versatility if all of the genres she’s supposedly referencing have to be explicitly identified post facto.
(Note that I have managed to say something without even once deciding to malign Lex’s taste! It’s not that hard now, is it.)
Also, I am not in the least sorry to say that I see no need to search out her deeper cuts if the singles she releases, so feted by the Jukebox here, are as representatively awful of the album in question as I think they are. It’s simply too much effort on my part for way way way way WAY too little reward. But since I cannot differentiate one of Lovato’s constipated whines from another, I will just retire to the madmen’s corner and leave everything be.
But wait — at least three of us have stated here that this isn’t representative of the album (and I believe one or two of us stated that “Don’t Forget” wasn’t representative of its album either), and isn’t a particularly good example of why we like Demi — so if you continue to hold the belief that this track is “as representatively awful of the album in question as [you] think,” then that’s just a failure of logic. It has nothing to do with attacking your tastes and everything to do with you acting as if we have called this song a stunning revelation of Demi’s unquestionable and unfathomable talent when we’ve basically done the opposite of that. (Although if we were attacking your tastes, I would consider it karmic payback for your making fun of her chin.)
And I linked to three of those deeper cuts right there in my review, so you wouldn’t need to do any searching at all.
Careful reading of all the blurbs here indicates that “Here We Go Again” is actually supposed to be representative of the album in some indefinable way: the positive reviews for the song (specifically the two Alexes’) indicate that it isn’t the best track on Here We Go Again, but it’s pretty good. (And of course the fact that it is the title track of the album in question calls forth the general assumption that title tracks are, somehow, representative of the albums from which they’re lifted). Like I said, there’s no incentive for me to go looking.
You may not have “called this song a stunning revelation of Demi’s unquestionable and unfathomable talent” but you have made clear its place within the Lovato canon; based on this consensus I don’t think I want to waste even the fifteen minutes of my time searching out the supposed better tracks from the album.
As for the attack on my tastes, having Alex Macpherson dog the reviews of mine with which he disagrees just so he can vent his spleen (again) about Elly Jackson (or, who was it last time? Natasha Khan? But it’s mostly Elly. He’s like Cady in Mean Girls at this point with his word vomit) is tiresome on two levels. First, it’s because he does it everywhere else and I don’t see why I should have to read about it when it’s absolutely not germane to the discussion at hand, and second, because I really don’t see why I should be singled out for criticism as though my tastes are somehow conspicuously worse than his.
OK, it’s not so much a personal attack as an attack on your taste, which is every negative review here by implication. And you do make a big thing about your antipathy towards Demi Lovato. The fact that I love D.Lovato’s voice and can’t stand E.Jackson’s shrill, whereas for you it seems to be the other way around, is totally relevant, anyway, as it indicates the massive gulf between what we value in vocals; parsing what those qualities are might be more helpful than flinging around phrases like “word vomit”. I honestly don’t hear what’s offputting in Lovato’s voice (tho), it doesn’t strike me as a Marmite thing at all.
Lovato isn’t really “notable” for her love of metal, it’s just something she’s mentioned in a couple of interviews, and it absolutely isn’t an influence on her music for obvious reasons. What’s funny is that here and there, there are several details scattered through the album where it sounds just a bit heavier than it needs to be, or her voice a touch throatier – not “metal” at all, but just the slightest of nods to its spirit. Not that you’ve bothered hearing those particular songs, anyway.
Well, “Party” on her debut album was totally (and fairly convincingly) built on swinging ’70s hard boogie riffs and a Led Zep time change (which I referred to in my blurb.) (But some people don’t think ’70s hard rock is metal anymore, and I don’t know whether any of her new tracks are similar.)
Otherwise, I liked the first album fine, but wasn’t a big enough fan to make hearing the new one a priority. If I was, though, there’s a good chance I’d sound defensive, too, if somebody called my praise “inane” before they even read it.
I’d sound defensive, too, if somebody called my praise “inane” before they even read it.
This was the only reason I singled you out to begin with, TBH. I think, given that your last critique of her voice was its so-called “squeakiness,” that you haven’t really engaged with this music enough to draw that sort of conclusion of our judgments (not just tastes, which is a convenient thing to hide behind — nothing I said had anything to do with taste, and what Lex said wasn’t “word vomit,” nor is it something he’s partaken all that much ’round here anyway. Anyway, the fact that Elly Jackson is a despicable person fully deserving of vocal derision is an on-the-record fact, not opinion; this is in part what Lex is reacting to along with the voice, and one reason he keeps bringing it up (it’s not like she’s getting less popular) but it’s not like someone with a shrill voice can’t do good work or not be a despicable human being; and anyway I like plenty of despicable people’s music).
“Anyway, the fact that Elly Jackson is a despicable person fully deserving of vocal derision is an on-the-record fact, not opinion”
Come again?
(again, not a La Roux fan)
Yeah, I was gonna ask exactly the same question. For those of us out of the La Roux loop (for instance, those of us who live in the U.S.A.), can somebody please explain what exactly is supposed to make her so inarguably despicable? (Not as singer — that’s opinion. As, like, a human being.)
Elly Jackson is a despicable person fully deserving of vocal derision is an on-the-record fact, not opinion
I am sure Lex is pleased.
The problem with this kind of comment is that La Roux has no place in this discussion. Though I do enjoy Elly’s voice, and I don’t enjoy Demi’s, there isn’t and shouldn’t be any connection between the two. They sound nothing alike, so there’s no disconnect- not to my mind, at least- in my reviewing one poorly and the other positively.
So, here is a general rundown on what I think about Demi Lovato:
– I dislike her voice
– I think the instrumental to this song is really quite shit
– (this is most salient) I think the idea of Demi Lovato- as a musical product, as a person- is a very bad one
Bringing Elly Jackson into the discussion can be attributed to Lex’s instant dismissal of anyone who does like La Roux, blinding (cf. Poptimists) hatred of her, and desire to use majority opinion to judge against me because my tastes don’t and won’t align with his. But it’s not actually important at all, and in fact should never have made its way into the conversation in the first place.
As for the more serious charge, that I just too shallow to play with the big boys here- if you have a problem with my “engagement” with the songs I write about here on TSJ, then that is all-pervasive and it’s something you should maybe address as a problem with my reviews as a whole and not as a problem with one review of mine with which you disagree. And this certainly isn’t the place in which to discuss things if you really honestly believe I’m unfit to write things about these songs, instead of just pulling accusations out of thin air to support your fondness for a song and performer I don’t like. You can email me instead.
Damn iPhone. Of course that last should read “I am just too shallow.” All other ridiculous typos are the fault of my hacking that out on a tiny screen; I am sure there are many.
And this certainly isn’t the place in which to discuss things if you really honestly believe I’m unfit to write things about these songs, instead of just pulling accusations out of thin air to support your fondness for a song and performer I don’t like. You can email me instead.
OK, perhaps I got overheated there.
First things first: Re: La Roux, references to despicableness are in a few places, but I’ll just refer everyone to her Quietus interview, which I meant to link in my hissy fit above:
“There’s far more ways to be sexy than to dress in a miniskirt and a tank top … I think you attract a certain kind of man by dressing like that. Women wonder why they get beaten up, or have relationships with arsehole men. Because you attracted one, you twat.”
This is one of a few interviews that Lex has been responding to.
Disagree with Ian: La Roux has a place in the conversation to the extent that she has a place in the conversation.
Keane, I’m only reacting strongly because you’ve kind of started it, both in your blurb and in dealing with us in the comments. I don’t think you’re “unfit” to write about anything, but my accusations are coming from the words you’ve written in this post and others, not from thin air. That I think you’re wrong on Demi, not on a taste level, is a legitimate charge that we can talk about here. That I think you’re being unfair in this thread and personally attacking people where they did no such thing to you is also a legitimate charge, one that you should have thought about before you called people out here to begin with.
For comparison, Bill O’Reilly, on women who “ask for it”:
“Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She’s walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she’s out of her mind, drunk.”
Woops, forgot to link that one, too. Anyway, yes, La Roux is (1) despicable and (2) her music sucks. One’s a fact and the other’s an opinion. Guess which one!
Er, that first part of first response was re: Keane’s comment about La Roux, not Ian’s. Meant to refer Ian (and Chuck) to the Quietus interview.
“I breathe in and just leave the madmen be”, and Lex’s comments previously (which influenced the tone of my submission for this song), are comments that I took to be quite aggressive and confrontational toward me. Your version of events may be convenient but I don’t believe them to be true.
The tone of your posts is baffling to me (I think it is meant to anger me?), but again, this is something better left to email.
I dunno, I don’t see how Lex calling Elly Jackson admirers (not just you) “madmen” is any different from you calling Demi Lovato admirers “inane.” I don’t think either comment was out of bounds, though to be fair your claim is about what DL admirers themselves might write, as opposed to what Elly admirers merely like.
My tone is set to “huffy,” I guess. The reason I’m keeping this public is because there’s a conversation worth having here about Demi and singing voices and professionalism etc. etc.; my tone got sour as the complaints got more personal. I’d prefer NOT to use email, as there’s nothing that I need to say that can’t be shared with anyone else.
The only question I really wanted to ask anyway was: What exactly is your idea of Demi Lovato as a musical product (I take it you mean this in a “Disney product” way, not in the “final result of her music” sense) or a person? This is something I’m genuinely curious about, and haven’t been able to figure out from your commentary so far. What exactly are we arguing about (just in regard to Demi), product and person-wise?
I wouldn’t have used the word “inane” had I not already been assailed for disliking Demi Lovato’s work simply because I really like La Roux and Bat for Lashes. I do genuinely think she is a shit singer and that she has really bad instrumentals behind her. Which adds to the problem; even without comparing the two voices (which I don’t think is something that can or should be done anyway) I could listen to the video-game bleeps and bloops of a La Roux instrumental album all day, and probably be just as pleased with the experience. There is nothing memorable about the tracks over which Demi Lovato sings.
I guess my problem is that I don’t really think there’s anything to the “problem” you suppose there to be in terms of professionalism and my using “personal” slights; as far as I’m concerned, the ongoing snide remarks lobbed my way crossed any boundaries (boundaries to which I wasn’t paying any attention) long before I decided to use the word “inane”, which, yes, I wrote in a fit of pique after realizing that the last time I wrote about Demi Lovato a whole bunch of comments came my way about how terrible my taste is in general and how that is reason enough to discount everything I say entirely. I don’t know that you needed to step in and get sour to reinforce the “us” / “me” dichotomy everyone seems to be pushing, myself included; it hasn’t helped matters, and your tone, more “condescending” than just “huffy”, has been totally counterproductive as far as helping me understand what the hell is going on.
As for Demi Lovato- I think the “Disney product” and “final result” are inextricable from each other, which is of course my opinion (SHOCKING) and not yours. I think Demi is sad and formless. She’s not a nu-Miley, she’s not her own product, she’s just a sad, plain girl with limited talent suppressing any personality traits she has on Disney’s orders (and then “crying” “out” “for” “help” with that most tiresome expression of teenage girl sadness, taking a razor to her wrists and parading around with short sleeves on). When I think of Demi Lovato, the only word that comes to mind is “pathetic”.
Musically, I find much the same. Demi carries on her unusual ability to be, well, pathetic, in that the Quirks she puts on display are clearly Disney interventions- the “metal” thing may have been real, as real goes, but her subsequent retractions, so as to make her less threatening to the consuming yoof, were all Disney. And that forward-backwards, hot-cold thing she has going where she flirts with edge, flirts with something extra, non-Disney, but never really grabs hold of it or owns it, reflects in her music: the mark of any of her “influences” is so faint as to be nearly undetectable unless you have bought the Demi Lovato story in full and really want to hear it. To see Demi praised for somehow producing work that expands beyond the Disney template, when (from my limited experience) that work does nothing of the kind, and when the personality producing the music is as irritating- and not even in a fun way, like Miley- as I think it is, well, I am not inclined to be kind.
Condescension wasn’t my intention, so if you feel condescended to I apologize. I’m glad you’re responding despite the sourness.
I think the “Disney product” and “final result” are inextricable from each other, which is of course my opinion (SHOCKING) and not yours.
Well, the idea that a final result of a Disney product may not sound like a “Disney product” isn’t just an opinion. Demi is actually an interesting example of that — she has a lot of styles that don’t immediately code Disney-angst, and I imagine (anyway) that most people are referring to High School Musical and Hannah Montana (not “Miley Cyrus” solo) when they refer to “Disney Product”: there actually aren’t many Disney-poppers who do angst these days, though a bunch of them include a little bit of angst with the rest of what they do.
and then “crying” “out” “for” “help” with that most tiresome expression of teenage girl sadness, taking a razor to her wrists and parading around with short sleeves on
But this to me seems to be the opposite of what Demi is doing, uncomfortableness with how you’ve framed teenage cutting aside (do any pop stars actually use this sort of expression in public? I’ve never seen it before). Her entire persona, from her television show to her albums, is based on the premise that she’s an average, generally sunny & bright girl without capital-P problems, just everyday ones. Her TV show is even called “Sonny with a Chance” (from the two episodes I’ve actually seen, it’s much better than “Hannah Montana,” though that’s not saying much). Your connection to Ashlee’s Autobiography, I think, is an apt one — turning the really mundane diary stuff into the tragic; Ashlee: “the sky is falling and it’s early in the morning and I feel OK somehow”). I won’t claim that Demi is anywhere near as good as Ashlee, tho.
Demi carries on her unusual ability to be, well, pathetic, in that the Quirks she puts on display are clearly Disney interventions- the “metal” thing may have been real, as real goes, but her subsequent retractions, so as to make her less threatening to the consuming yoof, were all Disney.
Did she retract anything she ever said about metal? I don’t even know what this refers to exactly, but a Google search sez she told someone she digs Lamb of God.
that forward-backwards, hot-cold thing she has going where she flirts with edge, flirts with something extra, non-Disney, but never really grabs hold of it or owns it, reflects in her music: the mark of any of her “influences” is so faint as to be nearly undetectable unless you have bought the Demi Lovato story in full and really want to hear it.
Agree with you on this — I want her to break away from the “Here We Go Again” style, because it seems like she’s best when she doesn’t actually sound like that. I could see her falling into the Kelly Clarkson trap of having a total auto-pilot album of essentially nothing but other people’s scraps, though she hasn’t done that yet. But I still think that she’s produced a lot of good songs (maybe more than Miley through her entire career under two names) in a short period of time. (And I don’t know much of anything about the Lovato story, and this is from someone who reads her friggin’ Twitter updates.)
Anyway, I think she does expand beyond the Disney template, if by Disney template you mean the general Kelly C. confessional sound template, but not in this song. Or, really, in “Don’t Forget.” And that’s largely, I think, because Disney tends to dilute previous successes in stuff they actively champion. Case in point: Miley Cyrus’s biggest success, “See You Again,” which is (1) head and shoulders above the rest of her work and (2) not like much else Disney has produced, wasn’t given a proper advertising push from Disney until after it had already become popular on radio (it was getting airplay on Z100 before it got airplay on Radio Disney, which as far as I can tell is unprecedented for an in-house star).
But I do think that if you listened to a few of her other songs, like the ones we mention above, you won’t hear the same influences or (maybe) irritations. I don’t think you’ll like her, but I do think you’ll at least take the point that if there is a “house style” that you don’t like, it doesn’t really define what she’s currently doing (regardless of whether or not I like it; I like some of it but not all), hence doesn’t define the product OR the person.
*”but it’s OK somehow” is the Ashlee line. FWIW I mean that to be representative of a mindset, not the greatest line ever committed to paper, though I do like it.
Not sure how Lovato could be all the way down the ladder to ‘pathetic’ when Miley Cyrus seems to get a free pass as ‘fun’. Nevermind here that the two or three good songs Cyrus has got fades compared to the many more Lovato has, but that Lovato should be branded “sad’, ‘tiresome’ and ‘shit’ with the argument being that she’s more a product of Disney for trying to not be a product of Disney… It seems quite obvious to me, that for each album (two so far) she has more control over the sound and the songwriting, and that when she’s grown too old to play a Disney channel heroine the transition to just releasing records of her own vision will come quite smoothly.
This song is not surprising or subversive or edgy, it’s a familiar sound (though executed subtly enough for me to like it a lot), but I don’t see the harm in releasing safe, popular singles to sell a much more varied and rich album. It’s not new to Disney, and if I was Lovato I would be a little annoyed at someone saying she’s not her own product after she’s so explicitly stated this album is. She’s heard it before, of course, and made a song about it.
Re: Elly Jackson being a staggeringly ignorant little bitch – a few select quotes from her.
“Girls look a bit stupid playing electric guitar and drums. It suits blokes better. But girls look wicked playing synths. When they play drums or whatever, it looks a bit butch.” (The Guardian”)
“She had short hair, I don’t think she was a lesbian, she wasn’t some big butch woman coming over and going [adopts big butch voice] ‘yeah wicked, you make lesbians alright’, it was a girl with short hair, who wasn’t very girly, who didn’t have a tan, who didn’t have massive boobs, didn’t wear high heels.”
“I know that there’s far more ways to be sexy than to dress in a miniskirt and a tank top. If you’re a real woman you can turn someone on in a plastic bag just by looking at them. That’s what a real woman is, when you’ve got the sex eyes. I think you attract a certain kind of man by dressing like that. Women wonder why they get beaten up, or having relationships with arsehole men. Because you attracted one, you twat.” (The Quietus)
“[R&B is] very kind of empty, like hollow and not rooted in anything good or healthy…Lyrically it’s just like really really bad – I think a lot of it just doesn’t mean anything. I think a lot of it is, ‘Baby I love you, I want to kiss you’. It’s just like what are you on about? Shut up.” (BBC – this one from a woman whose breakthrough single opens with a fire/desire couplet and contains insights such as “What are feelings without emotions?” Not to mention said single breaking through on the strength of a shitty remix from a genre which wouldn’t exist without R&B.)
AARGHHHH UGHHHH DIE. No apologies for “going on about it” because as Chuck reminds us, some people may not have noticed these quotes – she’s mostly been given a free pass for them, apart from one justifiably enraged feminist response on the Guardian blog.
Re: Lovato – I think Matias and Dave pretty much sum it up. I really don’t know why the whole Disney thing is such a dealbreaker, or why against all the evidence some people think that Disney teen artists are all homogenous in the first place. I mean, you can’t say this sounds very much like, say, the Vanessa Hudgens album, or Miley Cyrus’s excursions into country.
What do La Roux’s interviews have to do with her music? Throughout its history, pop has been full of great artists that were complete assholes, in ways far worse than mouthing off about gender roles.
I just wanted to provide some context for Lex’s crusade (that it wasn’t a matter of distaste for her vocals) — this is a woman who is currently saying this stuff very publicly, repeatedly and consistently, and not getting called out for it in any meaningful way. This has zero to do with her music, which doesn’t address any of this shit (I think I said that, though maybe I didn’t), but it has everything to do with why she seems to make her way into conversations that aren’t (just) about her as an excuse to remind people of what she is currently saying while acting as not just a music media darling, but as one who speaks for women artists. (God forbid I actually make the point here that Demi Lovato is a generally positive role model for her audience — who don’t get a ton of very good role models from Disney — along with being someone whose music I happen to personally enjoy.)
God forbid because I don’t wanna get pegged as “guy who wants his favorite musicians to be good role models.” But if we’re gonna have a “who’s better for women artists” fight between Elly and Demi (and why not have it here?) Demi even wins with her mouse ears on. Agree with Matias, though, that Demi is best poised to actually escape the influence of Disney, since she seems to operate first and foremost as a pro singer/songwriter. She has options; she could be a solo artist, or she could be more like Fefe Dobson, who never got her sophomore album off the ground but wrote a good Miley track (“Start All Over”). Miley’s currently figuring out whether she’s going to need to go country or Christian, or whether or not pop radio will accept her without solid backing from Disney (someone should ask Hilary Duff how that turned out for her…)
How commercially successful acts are marketed is always interesting, and what grates here is that La Roux is being sold, not least by herself, as a strong female figure and role model in pop, a smart woman whose opinions matter. And for the most part this seems to have been accepted by the media and the public, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary. Amazing, the amount of credibility you gain by keeping your clothes on and having a stupid hairstyle – almost as if you’re trading as much on your looks as any skimpily-dressed Pussycat Doll!
Anyway, I already think her music is 100% atrocious on every level, and this kind of bullshit pushes her into SEETHING RAGE territory for me. She’s not being “provocative” or “controversial”, either; and no, mouthing off in interviews doesn’t make one a “great pop star”. She’s just being an ignorant little bitch who needs to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. In interviews, when recording music, all the damn time please.
More discussion on the exact problem with La Roux on my LJ a few weeks ago here.
I dunno Lex. You UK-ers can think what you want, but to me La Roux is a couple of MP3s. The extreme feelings you have about her seem less about her music or any actual popularity she may have and more about a storm in the teacup that is the British Isles.
I don’t think either position is totally fair. La Roux is a much bigger deal than “storm in teacup,” though she’s not poised to take over the world. But at a time when the bar for entry to seeming mega-popularity on the charts is so low, I don’t write off moderate successes like I could have once upon a time. The chart reality is that La Roux is just as poised to “take over” in a larger sense than the British Isles teacup as anyone else (not saying she’ll storm the Billboard charts, but that she may not just be “a couple of MP3s”), even if she hasn’t done it yet.
“La Roux is a much bigger deal than “storm in teacup,” though she’s not poised to take over the world. …The chart reality is that La Roux is just as poised to “take over” in a larger sense than the British Isles teacup as anyone else”
^Not cognitive dissonance, even if it reads like it — what I mean is that even though she doesn’t appear to be poised, she’s in the same position as every other hyped artist, which is worth a lot more in 2009 than it has been in previous years, simply because the industry’s shrunk so much.
Her last two singles somehow got to No 2 and No 1! IDK, it’s easy to dismiss anyone who you manage to avoid as a “storm in a teacup”, but the quantity and tone of the hype merits the outrage imo. Plus, you feel safe now, but the UK has a history of exporting our shitty pop acts overseas.
o wow i nnever knew she was a chrsitian cuz christians dun sing bout boys nd dating nd sexx