Thoughts From The Peacock Angel

I’m gonna marry the night and shoot some boars… what?

Then I switched to Klaus Nomi

metalmanatee replied to your post: I Like Pop Music And Glam Metal Better Than Harder Stuff Like Death and Black Metal

Could you please elaborate on what you mean by, “the demonization of pop music” and why said demonization is misogynist?

Pop music is routinely trivialized, and treated as culturally irrelevant fluff “for girls”  (in comparison to harder music of similar popularity and lyrical tone, etc which is marketted more towards and bought more by men) and admittedly, the audience that purchases and demographically seems to enjoy pop music is young women.  I find it deeply suspect that things that young women love passionately and in large numbers, are nearly always treated as artistically empty, creatively insipid, treated as without meaning or importance.

A big name rock n’ roll act is likely to be on a par with a big name pop artist in terms of depth and meaning, and yet critics take one seriously, and treat the other as less intelligent  less as an artist, and less as a person of any merit.

This is what I mean.  Bands like The Foo Fighters (a band made up of men, with a sound traditionally associated with music made by men) are taken seriously, ditto for Interpol, ditto for a lot of people.

However, lady musicians who fit basically into the pop category, but are on a similar intellectual level (say Adele and the now deceased Amy Winehouse) are treated with a dismissiveness that upsets me.

Greenday is approximately as interesting and serious as Katy Perry (neither are particularly serious, but I don’t begrudge people catchy fluff, there’s nothing wrong with catchy fluff).

And frankly Conner Oberst and Taylor Swift are about equivalent in terms of depth (not very, and again, that’s ok),.  Also Lady Gaga (problematic as she often is) is clearly an intelligent woman, she’s misguided (as privileged people often are in these situations) but it’s fairly clear that she’s smart, and that her music is interestingly written and her lyrical content interesting as well, and yet people who share my love of glam rock often loathe her, not for problematic comments or actions, which is reasonable, but because to them she represents the “trivializing” and “poppifying” of glam.  They let Bowie get away with similar shit without comment, but a lady, who’s fans are primarily ladies?  She’s trivial, she’s crap, she’s RUINING GLAM FOR EVERYONE. 

Also women who enjoy stereotypically “girly” pop music are treated as less serious about music, less hip, and as having worse taste etc by the larger culture.  It’s also interesting that female artists are more likely to come in for feminist critique than male ones.. no matter how poorly the male ones behave.  Basically pop = femininity = not serious/stupid/for pussies in terms of cultural perception.

Not liking pop is completely cool, you , but the whole “it’s stupid shit for stupid pussies” is misogynist and douchey and gross. 

Again, I repeat, if you personally are not into pop music that’s fine… but the cultural attitude towards it (dismissiveness) is misogynist.

Dressing Skwisgaar Skwigelf up as various popstars in my head is my favorite hobby.

So far we have:

• Ke$ha
• Madonna
• Lady Gaga
• Sophie Ellis Bextor
• Gwen Stefani
• Britney Spears

Me

Look, it’s Skwisgaga!  He wants you to stops callings his telesphones, he’s ams dancings.