Posts by Robyn Gallagher
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Hard News: Friday Music: History, motherfuckers, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
If some guy wrote something like that about my daughter, I'd want to turn up on his doorstep and politely ask him to explain himself.
But it's not just Lorde. Sweetman starts his review of the Love Club EP by accusing Lorde's parents of being party to some sort of weird Satanic wedding at Universal, with Neil Finn providing the music (?!), implying that Lorde's parents got together solely to have a baby that they could sell off to Universal. That's about as fucked as the Farmer's catalogue remark.
I know Sweetman can't comprehend that an 11-year-old girl would have music career ambition without the heavy influence of her parents, but as it happens New Zealand's other recent pop success started out just as young. Here's a video of an 11-year-old Kimbra eagerly learning about the music biz. She seemed even more driven then than Lorde is now!
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Hard News: Friday Music: History, motherfuckers, in reply to Martin Brown,
And you are absolutely entitled to express that opinion - your opinion - as is anyone else entitled to express theirs.
That's very generous of you, Martin. What else are we allowed to do?
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Hard News: Friday Music: History, motherfuckers, in reply to Danielle,
What it tells us is that he's one of those annoying dudes (for some reason they are invariably dudes) obsessed with "authenticity" and other forms of purity. That's not a New Zealand thing; it's a music nerd thing which crosses international lines.
It's a strange notion - the idea that involving anyone else in the production of art is somehow wrong. I wonder if Simon Sweetman felt like a massive sell-out by having an editor work with him on his recent book.
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Hard News: Friday Music: History, motherfuckers, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
So does that make Lorde appropriately and comfortably un-sexual, while it's OK to treat Miley Cyrus like a Whore of Babylon-bot?
Hey now, I cited Ms Cyrus and Ms Minaj as examples of popstars with strong sexual images. I don't think what they're doing is bad, nor do I think Lorde is asexual. They're just all different. I'm sure Lorde has admirers! And that mesh top she wears in the "Tennis Court" video has a perfect "yeah nah" sexiness.
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Yes, he really did just casually, crudely characterise a 16 year-old as wank-fodder. Her mother read that. Perhaps he should consider keeping his creepy projections to himself in future.
The funny thing is that while Lorde does have a significant share of older male fans, their appreciation for her isn't sexual - at least not in a Nicki Minaj's bottom kind of way.
In fact, these dudes are just acting like fanboys - exactly the same sort of fan reactions that teen girls notoriously have for Justin Bieber and One Direction - obsessing over their idol on Twitter and Facebook (and *ahem* blogs), It's a very modern kind of fan relationship, helped along with social media, where you feel like you have a cool connection with your idol without some record company PR being in the way. And it's so much fun.
But yeah, Lorde isn't being promoted as a sex symbol in traditional pop terms. In the "Tennis Court" video, she looks like a goth alien and delivers a fierce stare at the camera (cf. Miley suggestively licking a sledgehammer). And look at Lorde's wardrobe at the recent Vector gig - dressed like an eccentric elderly dame in a giant kimono. Hardly the wankfest of Sweetman's fantasy. He really needs to keep it in his pants.
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A couple of things.
1. It's not Miley vs Lorde. They are two young female pop singers but they are not the only pop singers out there. It's even possible to like both Miley and Lorde. And there's a lot of really good non-Miley and non-Lorde pop out there. Pop doesn't need saving.
2. It's ok to compare Lorde to artists who are not female or white. Her influences are obviously many and varied, but so often it's Lana Del Ray and not Nicki Minaj or Paul Westerberg.
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Hard News: Game Lorde, in reply to Russell Brown,
Also: having watched the new Miley Cyrus video, I am even more strongly of the view that if Lorde can rescue pop music from that kind of hideous formulaic bombast, humanity wins.
The song is dull, but the new Miley music video is better than either of Lorde's videos.
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Hard News: The shaky ground of…, in reply to wasabicube,
As an aside, it is interesting to observe the level of duplicity exhibited by some commenters on this subject. Clearly misrepresenting yourself to your prospective or current employer whether through a psychometric assessment, interview or otherwise is something that should be of concern.
El oh el. As it happens, after faking the test results, not only did I get the job but I did it really well, making the website I looked after one of TVNZ's most popular. And if being duplicitous got me the job, well, I'm sure also it helped me survive in the crazy-arse world of morning television.
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Hard News: The shaky ground of…, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
I've been subjected to psychometric testing only once (when I first applied for a job at TVNZ
The only one of these that I've done was when I was employed at TVNZ, applying for another job within it. Because I'm rool smart, I knew what kind of personality the job would suit and tailored my answers to match. I got the job.
And in the '80s when my dad worked for Telecom, he was given a psychometric test to do. He thought it was bunk so he got me to do it (I was about 13). The testing people could tell something was up but couldn't pick that the answers were those of a teenage girl.
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Hard News: Game Lorde, in reply to BenWilson,
I think the grown ups are stoked that we actually have a teen pop star. Who was our last one?
Lana Del Ray was the last one the dads got excited over. She's not a teen, but was playing to the same audience.
BTW, the Selena Gomez cover posted previously is really interesting. She changes the first line from "I've never seen a diamond in the flesh" to "I've never seen a diamond in the rough". This totally changes the meaning, almost completely inverting it. But then, Selena Gomez is a very successful entertainer (and she was Bieber's BB) - she's obviously seen diamonds in the flesh. But is she so isolated from the real world that she's never seen a metaphorical diamond in the rough? Or did she just forget the right lyrics?