Lipstick Feminism

A cupcake dress can be misleading. A candy-cotton scented auditorium filled with girls wearing cherry printed short shorts, bright red lipstick, blue wigs and bare mid-drifts can give you the wrong impression. Sugary sweet pink decorations, trimmed in lollipops and gummy bears and poofy-skirted back-up dancers might make you think Katy Perry is just another air-headed poptart of a musician.

But she isn't. Underneath the Willy Wonka aesthetic and shimmery sequin wardrobe, there's a message. Katy's kinda political.

Some parents might be outraged as their children sing "Are you brave enough to let me see your peacock?/Don't be a chicken, boy, stop acting like a beeotch/I'ma peace out if you don't give me the payoff/Come on baby, let me see/what you're hiding underneath." But hundreds of male musicians produce entire albums about coaxing the clothes off "shorty" and leaving if they don't get the "pay off." Katy's one of the few women who are singing about getting guys to drop their pants instead of the other way around. Why shouldn't women be allowed to embrace sexuality like the men? While she prances around on the stage in a purple leotard and peacock feathers, Katy's not-so-subtly telling women they can play the boys' game. Maybe ten year old girls shouldn't be saying "beeotch," but they are empowered, allowed to embrace what the men have always been allowed to express.

A lot of Katy's songs have feminist undertones. "Pearl" is pretty blatant; it tells the story of a girl repressed by a commandeering man who eventually learns to break free. "Circle the Drain" tells off a deadbeat boyfriend more interested in drugs than his girlfriend.

I like Katy Perry because she can sing about being your own strong woman while wearing a shiny tight catsuit. And pull it off. You don't have to choose between being a pin-up "teenage dream" and a feminist. Katy Perry is both without even really trying.

She may have kissed a girl just cause she loves them so much.

This Is Country Music...And We Do

I'm not a redneck by any stretch of the imagination. I wouldn't be caught dead in a cowboy hat or boots. I don't drink, smoke, or drive a pick-up truck. I don't hunt or ride horses or live in a trailer park or any other stereotypical redneck thing.

Really, there's only one country thing (except maybe Cracker Barrels) I really like: country music. My ipod contains twangy country tunes with banjos and steel guitars amongst "cooler" music ranging from 80's rock, today's pop, and singer songwriters.

I never really could explain why I like musical genre that so enthusiastically sings about many things I hate like Hicktowns and illiteracy until I attended the Country Music Association's Annual Music Festival.

The fact the festival even exists is a testament to the uniqueness of the country music community. All of the artists play for free, and it's the big multi-platinum selling ones offering their services out of sheer appreciation for the fans who bought all of those millions of albums. All of the proceeds go to a charity that puts instruments and musical programs in inner city schools. Even though I'm not a huge fan, Taylor Swift summed up the cool thing about CMA Musicfest. As she closed the show on the final day, from the stage at the center of the big football stadium, she pointed at a moderately priced seat to the right of the stage: "when I was 15, I sat right there and watched this show, and now I'm up here thanks to all of you."

No other genres come together so cohesively like country music. No matter what song any of the performers sang, every single person (80,000 or so strong) knew all the words and shouted them with complete conviction. Country music fans are simply country music fans, not just following one or two artists.

But really, the greatest thing about country music is that there are real gems hidden among all the redneck anthems. If you dig past the mudflaps and boondocks and Daisy Dukes, you find songs that speak to the collective human experience. I came to that realization while James Otto talked about his writing of "In Color," a song about reflecting on life through photographs. He explained how he reflected on his grandfather's stories as he turned the creaky pages in his black and white photo album while writing the song: "A picture's worth a thousand words but you can't see what those shades of grey keep covered; you should've seen it in color."

I couldn't help but think of the photo albums we took from her house after my grandma died. They chronicled her life, in black and white. They told stories we'd never get to hear from her now and reminded us of the ones she did share with us. We truly couldn't see what was behind that grey smile as she perched on the hood of some car one summer in her youth. James Otto and Jamey Johnson captured all those feelings deep down in me that I didn't even know I had.

Isn't that what good music is supposed to do? I've never felt that way about a Lady Gaga song, no matter how much her fans think I'm silly for watching a devastatingly unattractive (seriously, look at a picture of Jamey Johnson) man pick guitar strings and sing his life story to a very drunk crowd, but I'll defend it to the day I die.

Tim McGraw sings "Some say it's too country, some say it's too rock-n-roll, but it's just good music if you can feel it in your soul." I think a good song is one that makes the listener feel something, the emotion oozing out of every syllable, every note. A song that transmits the experience of the writers and performers straight to all the open ears taking it in. I think Johnny Cash's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" is one of the greatest songs every written because it can make a person feel so utterly lonely even when surrounded by loved ones. It's just that powerful to me.

So maybe I'm not a redneck, but country music isn't just for rednecks. It's for anyone who has found peace in their childhood homes, left home or missed their adult children, or just learned from life's mistakes or simply living.

Into the Passion Pit

I exist in a weird place between the "I love Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and Ke$ha" world of pop song, Glee-watching, mainstream teenyboppers and the "I love a bunch of bands you're not privileged enough to even listen to" band tshirt-wearing, skinny jean squeezing counter-culture teenager. I don't worship Kurt Cobain nor will I ever buy a Jonas Brothers concert ticket.

So I drift between these two worlds and never feel like I have complete credit in either of them.

Standing in the middle of a group of half-drunken, college-aged social deviants, I didn't exactly feel at home. Not being particularly into the music (while not a horrible sound, it was very...consistent to say the least and I never understood one word that was uttered), I turned my attention to the concert-goers that surrounded me.

The girls in front of me, blocking my view to the stage and bobbing up and down noncommittally the music, as if to say "I just happened to walk in here and saw a concert going on and decided to stay" even though they obviously made a concerted effort to attend, were a rather strange sight. One was dressed in a very non-hipster kid jeans and a sweatshirt, snapping a picture every three seconds and commencing to edit the quality of them in real time, very much unengaged with the performance unfolding a few feet in front of her.

What I presume was her friend stood beside her, much more into the music as evidenced by the occasional fist pumping to the beat and accidental tell-tale smile, was wearing a strange shirt-dress thing with loud and mismatched childish jewelry, including an over-sized monkey ring. In this weird demographic, it was difficult to tell the Halloween costumes from the personal "style" of the patrons.

Behind me was what can only be described as an obnoxious, oddly dressed and very drunk lesbian. She apologized to me a few times for her intoxicated dancing and bumping, but she did not apologize for her annoying habit of completely turning her back on the show and attempting to flirt with a tragically geeky-in-an-unattractive-way (Yeah, I'm confused too.) guy who was a little way too much into the band. Eventually, they both disappeared with their Coors Light aroma and impolite mosh pit etiquette.

Other notables include the threesome composed of a man and woman similarly dressed whose body language suggested a romantic couple and whose facial features suggested siblings accompanied by a girl who didn't fit at all; also present was what appeared to be a gay couple dressed as a gorilla and a banana, an obnoxious sounding kid who looked like Justin Bieber but was dressed as something I don't know about, and a super drunk guy who said hey to everyone and spit in the floor.

While I may never be part of this peer group (what a shame), it was nice to experience it for one night, a bobbing head among all the other bobbing heads in the crowd, unintelligible from an actual appreciator of electronica music.

I do enjoy passionate and eclectic people and loud music with a bass that reverberates through your very muscles and organs and contributing to the happiness of a beloved friend, so all and all, it was a night well spent.

Viva Las Vegas

Sitting in the Barter Theater last weekend, my dad and I made a starling discovery about ourselves.

We were talking to this older gentleman in front of us during the intermission of "Shake, Rattle, and Roll," an Elvis tribute show (which is the glorified and PC way of saying Elvis impersonator). As he listed off the the shows he'd been to and how they compared to the one we were currently watching, Dad got ready to announce that we'd also seen one he mentioned.

Then he realized this was making our third Elvis show this year. We were horrified.

At the three shows we've attended (one with my immediate family and two with my grandparents), we'd spent most of them making fun of the Elvis impersonator groupies that apparently form a disturbing subculture. At one, there was even a merchandise booth run by old ladies who probably saw the real Elvis when they were teenagers. The merchandise, from a safe distance, appeared to be your usual tshirts, coffee cups, buttons, and pins emblazoned with the familiar face of the King of Rock-n-roll, but as you moved closer, it became freakily apparent that it wasn't Elvis Presley's face on the cheap goods. It was the face of the impersonator.

Now going to see one perform is one thing, but having a man pretending be another man pasted across your chest is just weird. But far weirder is how these ladies acted during the impersonator's performance. They yelled "we love you Stephen!" with the same adoration and fanaticism as real 50's Elvis fangirls. They even threw their granny panties on stage. No, I'm not kidding. They did.

They also racketed off the names of all the "Elvis Tribute Artists" who participated in the annual contest in Las Vegas and where their precious Stephen ranked among them. "Oh the one in Myrtle Beach? He's so full of himself! Barter Theater? He's got nothing on Stephen! Just a hack."

So as we stood in this tiny, historic theater, surrounded by people old enough to be my great, great grandparents, we became shockingly self-aware. I looked down at the Elvis emblazoned on my chest (at least it's the real one and not Stephen or Scot or Bruce!), the light up purse on my shoulder. I thought about the Jailhouse Rock poster hanging up at home and the purple Elvis guitar cd case in the living room. I thought about the three Elvis shows we attended.

But I also thought of all the times Dad and I spent heartily singing along to our favorite Elvis songs, complete with dramatic hand gestures and lip quivers, and the time my second grade teacher marched tie-dye Elvis shirt clad eight-year-old me down the hall to show another teacher who was a huge Elvis fan. And I thought about all the times my brother and I had watched these two Elvis biography videos to kill time in the van, his four year old lips singing every word.

And maybe we aren't the fans who cry at the Presley grave site at Graceland and maybe my undergarments stay on during Elvis tribute shows, and maybe I don't know the name of every impersonator that ever breathed, but maybe, just maybe, we are one of those people.

In my heart there rings a melody...

I've always maintained the argument that music isn't any better or worse today than it was in any other decade and that the people living in those decades probably thought the same thing about their music as we think ours. Legends are only made with time.

But as I watched the American Music Awards last night, I couldn't help but think perhaps our music really is worse than that of decades past. I am ashamed to think that any artist performing at that ceremony is the legendary icon that will define this decade for generations to come. Surely Jay-Z is not the Elvis, the Beatles, or the Michael Jackson of our time.

Many of the performances were just sex on stage; Shakira's performance was little more than sex noises and synchronized pelvic thrusts set to generic music. How is this good?

I realize that statement makes me sound like a prude, and if being a prude means I only think you're allowed to have clothed stage sex if the song you're singing is actually good, prude I am.

I thought Shakira couldn't be beat, but then I saw Adam Lambert stuffing a back-up dancer's face in his crotch and just couldn't help but laugh. I thought sexual innuendos on primetime television were meant to be subtle, like you're supposed to wonder if the person sitting next to you got the same thing out of that that you did or your mind is just perverted. But there was no doubt it. When Adam pulled that one, everybody thought BAM ORAL SEX!

I really don't know why this is what is considered entertainment these days. I think good music is so much more than fiery pianos (Thanks Lady Gaga) and bad boxing outfits (looking at you J-Lo).

There's the times when I've sat, unable to sleep, in the middle of my bed. The only light comes from the glow of my ipod screen and the only thing I can hear or feel or think about is the simple melody and perfectly descriptive lyrics completely flooding my consciousness. This is good music.

I think the mark of a good musician is a musician who can take a whole song and make it project one singular feeling, startlingly and overwhelmingly present. From the meaning of the words to the arrangement of the chords to the tone in the singer's voice, it all works together to scream out that one, unifying emotion. That's a song worth listening to.

I don't want to come off as a musical elitist- I like Lady Gaga every now and then. But what lasts and should be praised is true artistry, not the music that rides on sheer sex appeal for popularity.

I look around and all I see is are superficial billboard hits. Will any worthwhile superstars emerge? I doubt it. Everybody's too busy looking at Adam Lambert's crotch.

A Weemba Whop, A Weemba Whop...

The world looks different set to music.

When I make my almost-daily pilgrimage to the bus, I always listen to music. Whatever song is playing makes everything appear differently, like background music in a movie. I just hit shuffle and the world shifts to suit whatever mood my ipod happens to be in.

Once, I was kind of stressed out and shook the ipod hastily to make it shuffle. "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" came pouring out of my headphones, instantly making everything around me look carefree and fun. The guy playing with his little dog in the parking lot, a group of kids doing something most likely borderline illegal in the back of a truck, a mother fussing at her son for being late to get picked up... and especially the barrage of students pouring out the school's doors and onto the buses. Goth kids just look hilarious against "A weemba whop a weemba whop". I bet everyone I pass thinks I'm insane though, since I'm probably smiling involuntarily.

On the actual bus, some random middle schoolers break out into a fight in the front, but all I can hear over the muffled cheers is "In the jungle, the mighty jungle..."
I have the feeling if my music was being played over an intercom like a movie, there would be more smiling and less fighting on the bus.

I don't always listen to happy songs about sleeping lions, but I think maybe I should. Life's more interesting as a montage.

Singing to Turn Back the Time

Sometimes, songs are like mini-time machines.

When I, as most people do, hear certain songs, it instantly zips me back in time. I experienced this very vividly last night.

As usual, I couldn't sleep, so I turned to my trusty ipod to entertain my restless brain until it decided to let me sleep. The first song that came pouring from the headphones to flood my weary head was "I'm Still Breathing" by Katy Perry. Instantly, it was last summer, and I was lying in approximately the same position in my bed, but my headphones were plugged up to side of my cd player.

I'd just spent the day with my dad and grandmother in her town, shopping. It had been an above-average day. It had been a long time since the three of us, a multigenerational group, had been together without the pressures of the rest of the family. These two are perhaps my two favorite people in the world, and if you add them up, you get roughly myself. We laughed and had more fun in a Sam's, a pool store, and a furniture place than anybody ever should. At the furniture store, a distant acquaintance of my grandma's attacked us, desperate for a sale. Dad and I laughed, sipping on the free Cokes in glass bottles that you get upon entering the store, as Grandma tried to keep the persistent sales lady at bay.

At Sam's, we impulsively purchased a gigantic jar of pickles that still remains in our fridge. Mom gawked at it for weeks, cursing our sillyness and love of pickles.

At Target, we inconvenienced the sales people to the point where we thought we'd have to make a great escape before they tied us up in the back with packing tape and price stickers and leave us for dead because Grandma tried on every knee brace in the store, leaving a trail of open packages and frustrated employees in her wake. She didn't even buy one. One girl ran the length of the store in pursuit of a tape measure that turned out unnecessary. We only found this abundantly funny, but she probably didn't.

After that long day of shopping and bonding, I couldn't sleep when I got home. Eager to listen to the new CD I'd gotten at Target, I popped it into my CD player since I didn't want to go through the trouble of turning on my computer to put it on my ipod. I used the headphones as not to awake the rest of the household.

Now every time I hear any Katy Perry song, I remember that day with my grandma and father. The events that took place probably seem mundane to anyone else, but to me it meant a lot. I'm glad I have this sort of mental soundtrack to take me back whenever I wish to relive it.