a primer to music pop culture from the eighties to the noughties

Category: Girl Power Tuesday

Not Fscking Around

We’ve already featured a country song that wasn’t exactly typical of the genre. Today’s exhibit might share that trait, but it’s certainly way better – not only as far as the quality of the music is concerned, but also the video, which was done in the way of the Porter Wagoner show, a popular television programme featuring country music in the US of the sixties and seventies. It’s worth watching for what must be the most bored drummer ever (beating even Palmer) alone.

Lily Allen wrote “Not Fair” about a lazy lover who appears to be the perfect boyfriend in every other way, but leaves her sexually frustrated on a regular basis. The guy in question must have been pretty oblivious, as she stated that “the person in question is far too arrogant to even consider that it might be about him”. Unfortunately for her the song sort of backfired, as after its release some potential lovers supposedly were too intimidated by the prospect of having a song written about their sexual prowess to tag along.

I can’t help thinking the fate of her brother Alfie’s character Theon Greyjoy must somehow be related to this song.

Straight Up The Charts

We already came across several pieces where the artist overruled their label when it came to song selection, video choices or track length, only to be proven absolutely right by commercial success. Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up” – which she only was allowed to record under the premise that she would also do two other songs she did not like chosen by the studio – fits right into the category.

Written by Elliot Wolff, a friend of her mother’s, the quality of the demo version was so bad that it went straight into the trash. But Abdul, who was primarily working as a choreographer at the time, fished it back out and recorded it in her bathroom (including, on the master tape, a performance of her neighbours who must have misheard the lyrics – they went for “Shut Up!” instead of “Straight Up”).

When the song went through the roof – to the label’s surprise – Abdul’s choreographer talent paid off, as the video had to be hastily put together – only to win a whopping four MTV Music Awards that year.

My personal favourite bit about the song is when my significant other performs her karaoke version of it. She’s been practising it ever since childhood and it never fails to turn my knees to jello.

Hit Me, Britney

I remember a day in what must have been about 2000 or 2001 in a gloomy Bonnie Prince Pub, when my fellow drinking mates and I – all students at ETH proud of their good taste in music – finally admitted (after sampling copious amounts of the liquid on tap) that despite their catering to the masses, secretly we did like the Spice Girls. We did not change the station when Christina Aguilera came on. We adored Britney Spears.

When she’s making headlines these days, it sadly tends to be because of her long and difficult struggle with conservatorship, and not for being “The Princess of Pop”. Having started her career in early childhood – winning gymnastic competitions and talent shows alike – her first breakthrough happened in 1992 when she was cast as a member of the rekindled “Mickey Mouse Club” alongside Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, and Ryan Gosling. After the show was canceled it took a few years before she returned to the big stage, but boy, did she have an impact, when she finally did so with “…Baby One More Time” in 1998, still at the tender age of sixteen.

The song was named by Rolling Stone Magazine as “the greatest debut single of all time” as recently as 2020. The video has been voted the best of the entire 1990s and one of the most influential in the history of pop music. And a whole generation of young men had their hormones thoroughly shaken up. But unlike other videos where young women cater to the sexist ideals of men the video was Britney’s own product from A to Z. The dancing? Her idea. The wardrobe? Her choice. The knotted T-Shirt? Her final touch. The music… well, that’s another topic (the song had been offered to both “The Backstreet Boys” and “TLC” before, but they were not interested).

And the “love interest”? Was her cousin Chad.

Her career had only just started. She would produce a row of other really big hits over the years, but they would become less and less successful in time. It’s hard to have an even bigger hit when you start at that level.

Boy Bands? Girl Power!

While one might argue that the original concept of “Boy Bands” probably dates as far back as the 19th century Barbershop Quartets, in the 1960s the concept took on a new facet, when “The Monkees” were drafted – as opposed to bands who formed themselves. This turned out to be quite a lucrative formula and so over time other bands were created with the specific goal of luring in the cash of teenage girls, most famously The New Kids on The Block, Take That, Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync, or in newer times, One Direction. However, when two English blokes tried to apply the concept to a female band back in 1994 everything turned out a bit different.

They found their five members easily enough, having received hundreds of applications and only one of them was replaced by the time the group was ready to start recording. But… being the ambitious talents they were, the girls soon became frustrated with their management’s unwillingness to take on their ideas and parted ways, in order to full-fill their own artistic visions.

The principle would be applied more than once over the span of their career, not least when it came to the video of “Wannabe”, their first single. While considered flawed in several ways (“lighting!”, “old guys!”, “nipples!?!”) by Virgin, their new marketing channel, the Spice Girls insisted they did not want to do a re-shoot, and the commercial success would most definitely prove them right.

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