Critical Approaches to Gender and 21st Century Pop Music

The article highlights the current success of Bangerz, illustrating how Miley's shock and awe promotion may have caused an uproar but it certainly achieved what she wanted.

Here's a recent interview The Associated Press did with Taylor Swift that was published by The Salt Lake Tribune. Swift discusses her ideas for the new album, briefly mentions her friendship (not relationship? Hmm) with Ed Sheeran, and the CMAs (she apparently just opened the "Taylor Swift Education Center").

Kornhaber discusses how media outlets often respond to Fiona Apple by alluding to insanity: calling her outbursts crazy. However, this is a mechanism to raise sensationalism and not actually address issues (and even to dismiss them); if we look at Apple, she has very clear rational reasons for her behaviors, and her "outbursts" are often very rational, even if emotion-laden. Kornhaber then extends his critique, showing how often this sort of "reading" happens to other artists, including Kanye and Sinead O'Connor.

Found these amusing, then considered why I found them amusing; this is going to differ person-to-person.

Just a thread I came across while on reddit! Someone had posted about an interview they heard on the radio. The comments are very interesting, and I saw some stuff about gender feminism! Worth reading, I think!

An interesting music video that explores the conflicts and juxtaposition between the societal 'norms' and androgyny and complex sexualities.

In this music video Rise Against explore issue of homophobic bullying in High School and teen suicide and acceptance of sexuality

It is interesting how Emilie uses sex as a form of self embracing in her music video. Also, the very title 'Fight like a Girl' commonly used as an insult in sports, is used in a very inspiring and confident tone. 

For Rubin article

This clip is from the TV show Happy Endings.  It has six friends who hang out together, and they are all at a wedding.  Max, the guy who is singing the Madonna song, is gay, and is part of a Madonna band called "Mandonna."  I know we talked about Lady Gaga and Madonna, and I just thought this is a funny parody of Madonna.

This video is rather outlandish, the video is shows the abuse and overt sexualisation of females, but it isn't until the very end that the point of view is changed.  For Gayle Rubin class

Hannah, I think this video is great for analysis -- I'm thinking of R&W's point about how videos create authenticity, and that this video, through that shift at the end, tries to portray Prodigy as somehow clever, not misogynist. It's a "clever" move to say: "Look, we're not violent! All people, even women, are violent. We and our fans don't have to think about being implicated in a culture that's violent toward women, because everyone is violent toward everyone!" That changed point of view, in my reading, is way to build "ethos" with their fans and allow them to continue to be violent and cool.

Here's an article I found where Lady Gaga reveals an email sent to her from the people in charge of Instagram. Looks like they don't care who is a celebrity and who isn't: They're looking out for everyone.

I tried to find the uncut song with the original video but was unsuccessful. The lyrics do the video justice though, but feel free to check out the official video too if you'd like.

Katy Perry received backlash from several consumer groups for promoting Pepsi, specifically because her audience consists of younger people (Age 12 <), even though Perry and Pepsi never had an official, formal contract.

Oh, come on! This is ridiculous. I feel like these critics are just looking for something to complain about; if she was "endorsing" a healthier drink, I'm sure they wouldn't praise her for it. It's really unfortunate that people feel the need to nitpick at celebrities for small things such as this. At this rate, these critics might as well attack Bruce Willis for eating a twinkie and getting caught on camera doing so. How pathetic!

I watched a video that someone else posted of the Pepsi commercial with Beyonce, Pink, and Britney Spears, and I thought it would be fun to post an older commercial that Britney did for comparison. I remembered that she did a variety of advertisements for them, but here's one of the first ones I found on Youtube.

SNL skit that spoofs Beyonce's Single Ladies

Music video for Bank's song and an article that discusses her distinct style and conflicting messages behind her music and video.