Critical Approaches to Gender and 21st Century Pop Music

This video is in response to Emily's post regarding Katy Perry and the back lash she faces after agreeing to do a pepsi commercial. I absolutly loved this commerical with Beyonce, Pink and Britney but hate pepsi therefore I was in no way encouraged to buy. The point I am trying to make is that the consumer groups in Emilys article seem to disrigard the fact that some people enjoy seeing there favourite artist anywhere and when an awesome video (in my opinon) like this is made I would not want to see it cancelled purely beacuse some people think Pepsi is bad for you. Surely having fun watching you three favourite singers is good for you?

This commercial is very intriguing because it reminds me of the old Pepsi commercials Britney Spears did back in the early 2000s. I wasn't as sucked into this one as I used to be by the old ones; it could be because I LOVED Britney Spears growing up, but I like Beyonce and still preferred the old commercials over this one. I'll post an old Pepsi commercial with just Britney Spears in it. Interesting find! :)

The music video for Amanda Palmer's 'Ampersand', and I thought of it as a comparison to Miley Cyrus's 'Wrecking Ball' - in both, the singers strip down to show vulnerability.  The difference is that Cyrus's is overly sexual, and Palmer's has a distinct lack of sexuality to her nakedness.

Britney Spears says that her latest song - "Work Bitch" - is a play on Karl Marx's ideologies.  A short blurb.

I thought this was interesting because Fall Out Boy is creating music videos for all of the songs on their new cd and they are all supposed to be connected as one story. At the moment 6 of the 11 have been made. This is the first.

Wow, that's really neat that they're making videos for all of the songs. I don't know of other bands that have done that before... but maybe I'm just out of the loop, haha. Anyway, I also like how the videos are all connected; that's something I'd like to see other bands and/or artists do!

I love that FOB is making a mini movie out of this album. I would say one of the most successful comebacks in awhile!

So someone decided to get an operation to look like the Biebs. It is interesting to see how far this person went to look like a celebrity. 

This makes me really sad. I'm not a fan of plastic surgery at all, and I just can't imagine what that boy is going to think 10 years from now. If it was me, I know I would regret a surgery like that (especially since there's no guarantee he'll still be that obsessed with Justin Bieber in a few years). That's crazy.

Since we touched up on it a little in class, I wanted to share with you all this article about the Bratz dolls and how some parents think they're too sexy for their children. There is an argument from the company saying that it's only the adults that see "sex" but the children do not, what do you guys think?

I used to have loads of Bratz dolls when I was younger and I loved playing with them and dressing them up. I totally aggree with the statement in the article that 'Adults see sex in everything, but kids don't' as someone who had these dolls as a child it never crossed my mind these were oversexulaized, I wouldn't have even known what that meant!. I would make the comparisson to Barbies and comment that the parents who critize these dolls may have had Barbies when they were children.

This is the BBC news article from 2009 which goes into more detail about how Rage against the machine beat Xfactor for the UK christmas number one spot, in case anyone was interested in knowing more about it.

In December 2009 a Facebook campaign was set up in the attempt to put Rage Against the Machines song 'Killing In the name of' as christmas number 1 in the UK. This was attempted as many had become disallusioned with the idea of the Xfactor winner dominating the charts for the previous four years; many felt X factor was runing the christmas chart and was purely linning Simon Cowell's pocket! I can recall when the video came on christmas day and my mum said 'why is it that song that is christmas number one' to which my brother made the interesting point that ' its not about the song the point is it had to be anything but an Xfactor song'. I think this is an interesting show of the consumer taking back control.

I love this song, this is when I feel Lilly Allen was at her prom dress and nike airmax wearing best. Lilly Allen used to sing about her real personal experiences such as 'my little brothers in his bedroom smokin weed!'. I feel she was always a very authentic artists however I feel in recent years she has lost some of that authenticity my distancing herself from that side of her past and singing about more mainstream things such as love which she does when featuring in Pinks recent song 'True Love'.

There's a new rumor spreading around about Miley Cyrus: Apparently, Cyrus has been dating Theo Wenner (an ex-boyfriend of Liv Tyler) since summertime. While this article doesn't necessarily deny nor confirm the rumor, the author does make a point of acknowledging a friendship between the two. I don't know about you guys, but personally, I'd be impressed if they really have been dating and getting away with it staying under wraps for so long; ergo, I doubt the rumor is true. Still, it's possible!

I feel like Miley Cyrus would let people belive anything if it maintained her publicity. I think she would do little to confirm or deny rumours such as these as they allow her to remain in the spot light. I think it is a shame that she is becoming more artifical everyday and making music is no longer her number one prority; being in the spotlight for any reason now appears to be her claim to fame.

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!

Here is an article that includes a recording of a new song by Taylor Swift: "Sweeter Than Fiction." According to the author, the song will be included in an upcoming British movie called "One Chance," (which I found comical, since it's like One Direction and, well, you know) and was released on iTunes at midnight. Obviously, it was made for the film; it doesn't sound like a typical Swift song (although the lyrics contradict this claim, I'm focusing on the overall sound). Take a listen!

Here is a youtube clip talking about a scientific study on how similar pop songs are to other pop songs. They talk about the similar beats and chord progressions and songs these days are all from the same cookie cutter outline. They are saying that essentially this is proof that pop music sucks and it lacks authenticity. Let me know what you think!

After watching the video I was very interested in the lyrics of the song! 

Perez Hilton and gossip websites/columns/shows/etc. are my weakness, as I admitted the first day of class... This article explains the current and on-going feud between Lorde and Selena Gomez regarding feminism in music. Even Cher Lloyd is making herself apart of this. Valid points either way, I believe.

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.

A 10-minute video that explores the history of music and dance and how it creates "cool" in film

Lady Gaga's single cover photo.

This is the video I chose for my response to Gayle Rubin's article, I find this video interesting because two girls kiss and are clearly still being judged by society.

This music video of Katy Perry with Elmo relates to the Gayle Rubin reading because the reaction to it is a clear example of the fear associated with showing children "too sexual" images. Because the video received so much backlash from adults and parents calling Katy Perry's outfit too revealing for children, Sesame Street opted not to air it.

I found this video kind of creepy actually, and it's not because I'm concerned that Katy Perry is "too sexual," but rather because with her chasing Elmo around, combined with the lyrics, it seems kind of predatory. But this is an excellent example of the cultural drive to keep sexuality away from kids.