Best of ‘08: BYOP

When you have an iPod that holds only 8GB of music and you’re an obsessive music listener…you learn to prioritize.

Only the BEST bands will remain constant on your iPod. The rest will be rotated out and back in when the situation demands.

From the moment I received Get Awkward from Amazon months ago when the weather was still sunny and snow was a mythical legend, I’ve been obsessed. It was a hesitant obsession.

Be Your Own Petis definitely my pick for best album of 2008. At the same time, they’re ’08s biggest loss. In August, the band announced their intentions for the band-breakup. No longer will Jemima Pearl (vox), Nathan Vasquez (bass/backing vox), Jonas Stein (guitar/backing vox) and John Eatherly make beautiful music together. Never will I get a chance to see this brilliant band in action.

2008 has been a good year in music. A lot of renowned musicians have released new albums. Joni Mitchell came back. Sheryl Crow came back with her album Detours. Ani DiFranco came back with Red Letter Year. And then we have the new acts. Civet crashed onto the scene with loud guitars matched only by the band’s defiant voices, making them an easy favorite. Santogold came onto the scene, her poppy tunes more easily accessible than the music of her counterpart, M.I.A. Meanwhile, both Sia and Missy Higgins proved that Australians are quite talented and worth watching out for.

Despite the massive amount of music I’ve found this year, I have kept consistently coming back to Be Your Own Pet. The band isn’t new by any means. Get Awkward was their sophomore album on what I was hoping would be a long road.

Be Your Own Pet, with Jemima Pearl at the forefront, harkens way back to the 90s with bands like L7. These bands exuded confrontation and were only too happy to be loud. Be Your Own Pet shares these characteristics, but do fit in easily with the current pop/punk standards.

The themes on Get Awkward are….well…awkward. Themes about life, love, superstardom, and….food fights?

Pearl turned 20 when they were making the album, and that fact isn’t hard to believe when listening to the CD. It’s a mixture of excitement you can only have in your early 20s–or earlier. It’s mischief. It’s awkward. It’s raw. And best of all, there’s a song about a food fight and there’s a song about a zombie graveyard party.

Yet, the album isn’t mired in buoyant fun. There is the slight hint of the existential search for the self.  In “Creepy Crawl” Jemima sings, “I’m not the girl that I was before/ Feel like I’m lying each time I walk through the door/Sleeping in my own bed feels like a sin/It’s hard to sink back into my life again.”

Get Awkward was also one of the most controversial albums of ‘08. So controversial that certain songs were left out of the full CD due to violent lyrics and released separately on the “Get Damaged” EP. The main song–”Becky” was deemed too violent for mainstream release–and the dose of swearing didn’t help either. The song is like a camp-filled horror/revenge movie where the story is: Two girls are BFFs. Then, to the other girl’s dismay, her BFF decides to ditch her and become best friends with a girl named Becky. The forlorn narrator decides that she’s been had and plots her revenge, which includes waiting with knives after class. Then the ex-BFF is murdered and the narrator ends up locked away.

Like the campy b-rated horror movie, this track isn’t all that controversial. It’s obviously over the top and it’s not going to persuade girls across the nation that the proper answer–when their best friend turns traitor–would be to kill them.

Taken as a whole, Get Awkward is like a roller coaster ride through the thoughts of a girl resisting adulthood. The garage punk rock instrumentation is the perfect match for the lyrics and Jemima’s voice.

It’s the kind of music that you listen to when you’re on a sugar high. It’s the kind of music you listen to when you need a sugar high and don’t have any candy around. It’s the kind of music you listen to when you need to get your frustrations out. It’s the kind of music you listen to because it’s just that good.

And that’s why Be Your Own Pet has my pick for best album of the year.

 

“Becky”:

“The Kelly Affair”:

On the Relevance of Indie Record Stores and New Year Resolutions:

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been living in Utah for over a year now. A year and some extra months. And as much as I love music, I have somehow managed to miss the most Essential Part of the local music scene. The record store.

For the whole time I’ve been here, I’ve been shopping profusely at the corporate giant F.Y.E., which is the equivalent of the evil Music Town in the movie Empire Records. I shopped there mainly for the Used selection, mainly because it’s pretty comprehensive and the stuff I like tends to be pretty cheap because (guess why. seriously, guess… give up? Oh, okaaaay then. I’ll tell you.)  my music is way against the mainstream.  There’s a definite process to the pricing of used CDs, and generally, this works to my advantage.

So a few weeks ago, I discovered that there’s a music store at the mall that I didn’t think had *any* entertainment stores beyond Deseret Books–one of the Mormon bookstore chains in Utah.  But then I found it.

Gray Whale Music.

My indie record store dreams have once more been realized. When I first visited, I had no money, so couldn’t buy anything. I went back today and went on a massive shopping trip. I didn’t mean to. I walked around the store with just one CD that would’ve costed me only $4, but then I found stuff by the Gathering. And then I found out that Tracy Chapman has a new CD out. And then I found out that one of the CD sections had a good selection of grrrl-infused music. So I went crazy. My purchases are as follows:

Sahara Hotnights: Jennie-Bomb (new for me)
Lunachicks: Jerk of All Trades (new for me)
L7: Hungry for Stink (new for me)
The Gathering: Mandylion (Not new, but Awesome. and I’m happy to have added it to my collection)
The Gathering: In Motion DVD (What’s better than listening to the Gathering? Oh, I know! Watching them live! It really is a shame that I missed seeing them as a band. They’ve since broken up)

Anyway. Enough of the shopping list.

On we go to New Year Resolutions.

2008 is practically over. One more day, and it’s over! Where’d it go? and for that matter, *how* did it go? Was it a good year? Bad year? Mediocre year?

I don’t know about you, but for me it was a pretty good year. Sure, it has been far from perfect, but there have been a lot of things that I’ve done this year that I plan on continuing next year.

Such as writing. Thanks to the NaNoWriMo adventure, I’m addicted to reading, and am also finding a weird joy in editing others. Maybe it’s the inherent realization that comes with some editing that makes me realize, “Hey, I’m not that bad!” It’s actually a lot more than that. It’s great to read unpublished works because you can see what goes into a book. Books from stores seem perfect as is, but with writing groups, it’s an amazing opportunity to learn the process that is writing in a direct manner.

So 2009, I hope, will be a continuation of this year.

More Writing.

More Blogging (at least once a week.) I plan on starting with a piece mentioning Stephenie Meyer, so watch out for that. Twilight fans, look out.

Get Published. I’ve got the ideas. I can write. I have ideas for *where* to publish. All I need to do is put all of them together. By the end of 2009, we should be able to expect my name to have appeared in Bitch and Bust and maybe even Venus Zine. I’d like that.

Writing about Music. I love writing. I love music. So 2009 must be about learning to combine the two. Between reading about music, listening to massive amounts of the stuff, I’m gonna start writing about it too. 2009 will feature a band/album a week, if I can keep the resolution. And I think I may start this ‘writing about music’ thing tomorrow…with my pick for best album of 2008.

And that’s all for now. I’m sure there are plenty more…but I think that’s a good list.

What are yours?

Katy Perry-The Postergirl for GLBTIQ Music?

It’s official. Out is completely o-u-t of touch with the LGBTIQ community at large.

Out magazine’s Hot 100 issue features Katy Perry on the cover. And, as a blogger at AfterElton.com says: “It begs the question, ‘What the hell is Katy Perry doing on there?’”

The question is a good one. Perry is a straight performer with a Christian background who really only pretends to go bad on her album, dubiously named One of the Boys. Tracks such as “I Kissed a Girl”, “One of the Boys”, “ur so gay” and “Mannequin” prove that Katy Perry is as heteronormative and homophobic as the Catholic Pope. Only Perry’s a mainstream phenomenon with chart topping hits. That makes her especially dangerous.

So let’s explore the music of Katy Perry a little deeper and find out why, exactly, Out’s choice of Perry as Musician of the Year is like stabbing oneself in the foot.

 

The Music of Katy Perry

If you identify as a feminist or happen to have any feminist beliefs at all, listening—I mean really listening—to Katy Perry’s One of the Boys album will make you feel like you’ve willingly submitted yourself to be tortured. The album is basically the conservative right with a new image. That of the ‘good girl gone bad…but not really’ image. If you don’t believe me…well, let’s go through a few of the album’s tracks.

Take for example the title track, “One of the Boys”. As the very first track on the CD, it makes you wonder if you really want to listen to the rest of the album. (You don’t. believe me.) The opening lines are “I saw a spider I didn’t scream/cuz I can belch the alphabet, just double dog dare me/I chose the guitar over ballet/and I take these suckers down because they just get in my way.”

First of all—how in the world does belching the alphabet help you not scream when you see a spider? Do you mean that by doing that I’ll never scream when I see a spider? And are you stuck in the 70s, Katy? The guitar is more of an equal-opportunity instrument now, it’s really not a “boy” thing. The rest of the song continues in that vein as Perry paints boys as nasty smelling creatures who just wanna make out with girls while the girls are pearly princesses who like reading 17 and shaving their legs so they can make the boys stand in line if they want to date her. Thanks, Katy. We really appreciate all the work you’re doing by putting us boys and girls back into our positions. I’ll go buy my issue of Cosmo now, since I’m a few years too old for 17.

The next track was Katy Perry’s long-lasting chart hit, “I Kissed a Girl.” If you’re still listening to the album, you may want to stop now. It only gets worse from here. This song is a straight guy’s fantasy more than anything else. It’s the musical equivalent of two girls making out with each other so a bouncer can get his kicks and allow them to get in for free. It’s cheap. Easy. And insulting, degrading, and shallow. But that beat is hard to forget once you’ve heard it. And that what makes Katy Perry more dangerous than most neo-conservative fanatics. You can tune them out easily. But trying to tune Katy Perry out… it can be difficult.

Throughout the song Perry assures listeners that she’s straight with the line “I hope my boyfriend won’t mind.” She also assures listeners that while she may be ‘experimenting’, it’s definitely not a serious affair. That girl she’s making out with, the one with the yummy cherry chapstick? Oh, don’t worry. She’s going to be nameless. She was just a pawn in Katy’s game to make herself seem like more of a ‘bad girl’ for her boyfriend. As she sings, “this isn’t what good girls do.”

After that, we have a semblance of a break. “Waking up in Vegas” kills the insults thrown by the earlier songs, as does the not-very-memorable song “Thinking of You.” But then we have a song Out would have done well to know about before they made Perry Musician of the Year. “Mannequin” is the ultimate in boxed gender/male bashing songs. If Perry identified as a feminist, she would be the kind that Nellie Furtado was referring to. (by the way, if you’re still listening to this album, I’m done warning you. Have fun in your musical torture chamber.)

The second and third verses of “Mannequin” says everything you need to know about the singer’s view of mankind. And then some.  

“[I’m] Usually the queen
At figuring out

Breaking down the man
Is no workout
But I have no clue
How to get through to you

I wanna hit you
Just to see if you cry
Keep knockin on wood
Hopin’ there’s
A real boy inside”

 

 Is this not a warning signal? If this was written and sung by a guy, (“[I’m] usually the king at figuring out/breaking down the woman is no workout”), we’d see a lot of character examination of the artist. But then it helps that “Mannequin” isn’t a hit single. But that’s not the end of the story. One of the Boys hit gold status, meaning the album has sold more than 500,000 copies. The album. Not single tracks.

That means there are thousands of people out there who took the CD home and listened to it and love songs like “Mannequin” because of its great beat. Isn’t it great how a good beat takes precedence over message?

But, I digress. After saying how much she’d like to hit the boy she’s with, Perry continues to say how, because he’s not a real man (he’s just a mannequin), he can’t recognize the fact that her love is real. Oh, and if only he’d let her in and be a “Real Man” she’d fix him. Wow, Katy. I can only hope that these lyrics were vomited up and don’t apply to your real relationships. Because if that’s the case, you need to reexamine what a relationship actually is.

Just sayin’.

South Of Nowhere=More Real than Katy Perry

Right after “Mannequin” we have the last very-insulting song and Katy’s first big hit. “Ur So Gay.” Bad spelling aside, this is just a bad song. Where networks like the N (Nickelodeon’s teen network that airs shows like Degrassi and South of Nowhere” are trying to fight back on the usage of the word “gay” as synonymous with “stupid”, Katy uses the word unabashedly to insult her ex-boyfriend.

 

“I hope you hang yourself with your H+M scarf,” she says.

“You don’t eat meat and drive electrical cars,” she says.

“I can’t believe I fell in love with someone who wears more make up [than me],” she says.

“You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys,” she says.

At this point it becomes necessary to take a very deep breath and try to remember the one good line of this song: “You’re so sad, maybe you should buy a happy meal.” That’s a funny line. The one good thing about this song.

The rest….well, let’s take a look. Perry starts the song off by saying “I hope you hang yourself with your H+M Scarf.” Wow. Violence seems to be a recurring theme on this CD. Rather, violence towards men.

Out magazine, you should be very proud of your choice. Really.

Like she’s done with gender throughout the album, Perry starts putting gay people into boxes. If you’re gay, you must be driving electrical cars and vegan. You must be wearing more makeup than her. You must be more interested in myspace than anything else. And the list goes on.

It’s one big insult wrapped into one song.

Oh wait—did I say that “Ur So Gay” was the last insulting song? I kind of lied, but I won’t go into the other insulting song in much detail. A quick premise of the non-single “If You Can Afford Me.” Basically it’s what the title suggests. Ms. Perry seems to think herself the “crème de la crop” and admits to being high maintenance, but a guy who dates her is just gonna have to accept that.

Women, in the world of One of the Guys are girly-girls, and if they break against the grain, they’ll find themselves out of luck when it comes to dating and need a complete revamping so they can become super girly. They like pearls. They’re expensive. They’re all about appearance.

Guys, a la One of the Guys are stinky. They want their girls to be homecoming queens and pretty in pearls. They’re expected to indulge in buying their girlfriends lots of stuff if they want to have a relationship. Oh, and if they don’t fall under these preset conditions…they’re gay.

And queer people, what little time they have throughout the album are either a)experimenting but not real—which only applies to women and b)stupid.

Essentially, Katy Perry is the best thing the neoconservative movement could ask for. They just don’t know it.

And by making Perry the cover girl and Musician of the Year, Out has proved that it is little more than a stray dog, grasping at whatever scraps it can get from the oppressive owner.

There is good news. On AfterEllen.com, the nominees for best Lesbian/Bi Musician of the Year doesn’t include Katy Perry. And she’s not listed as under the Best Straight Ally, either. Clearly, not everyone is fooled by the “I Kissed a Girl” image.

 

 

 

This sign isn't nearly as effective as the subtext of Katy Perry's message. If only they knew, they could work together again, like they did before she got famous.