of the two Wikipedia excerpts listed below, which celebrity description sounds to you more like the work of someone who has contributed something positive and meaningful to our society? which of these women would you rather your daughter look up to as a role model? which of these women’s music has your daughter probably never heard, or even heard of before, and Which of these women, if either, are in her music collection?
Labelle, Patti
In 1974, however, learning of a cult following, the women changed their looks again now adorning space-like, rockish and uniforms, they began to sing about sex, space, politics, and things that many funk and rock bands were singing about at the time — but with an exception; no female groups had dared up until now to broach this type of controversial material. Their following had grown so much that in October of that year, they were the first African-American contemporary act to perform at the Metropolitan Opera House. That December, they released their greatest record, Nightbirds, featuring their breakout hit, “Lady Marmalade”, which hit #1 on the Hot 100 in 1975, helping Nightbirds to go platinum. It was as far as they got as success couldn’t ring twice, although their subsequent albums, Phoenix and Chameleon were hailed by music critics as experimental and groundbreaking.
Patti LaBelle. (2006, July 15). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 01:05, July 19, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Patti_LaBelle&oldid=63882158.
Aguilera, Christina
Later in 2000 Aguilera first emphasized her Latino heritage, following the Latin pop trend of the time, by releasing her first Spanish album, Mi Reflejo. This album contained Spanish versions of songs from her English debut as well as new Spanish tracks. It reached the top thirty on the Billboard 200 and number one on the Latin album charts, and in 2001 it won Aguilera a Latin Grammy Award for “Best Female Pop Vocal Album”.
The majority of Stripped was co-written by Aguilera (who had recently signed a global music publishing deal with BMG Music Publishing), and was influenced by many different subjects and music styles, including rhythm and blues, gospel, soul, ballads, pop rock, hip-hop and jazz. The album was not received as well as her debut by most critics, and Aguilera’s vocals were overlooked as she began to cultivate a more sexually provocative image. After the release of the album, she took part in photoshoots for magazines such as Maxim, Rolling Stone and CosmoGirl!. Many of these photographs featured her nude or semi-nude. She denied that this change was a matter of publicity, claiming that the image better reflected her true personality than did the image she cultivated back in 1999. It was during this time Aguilera referred to herself as “XTina”, stating that it was a “reflection of her darker self”.
Initially, the raunchy image had a negative effect on Aguilera in the U.S. While the video for “Dirrty” became a huge hit on MTV, it disappointed on the U.S. singles chart. However, the single was a huge hit worldwide, reaching number one in several countries.
Christina Aguilera. (2006, July 19). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 01:08, July 19, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christina_Aguilera&oldid=64571482.
Shoveling Sterilization (or Shoveling sH!t?). What do i mean by that? It’s a rather complex concept i’ve developed based on my perception of media influence on popular culture and, therefore, popular culture’s influence on the population, and therefore, the population’s influence on the Future of Mankind. I want to make sure that my reader is at least somewhat in tune with my idea, so in order to pull your thinking into the realm of my idea, I’ll provide for you my own definitions of Sterilization and Evolution, realizing of course that my concept will rest greatly on my own definition of these terms
Sterilization, i believe, is the less abstract of the two terms, and therefore more likely to be understood by a greater number of people. What is Sterilization? My thoughts are that it is the absolute cleansing. Something which is sterile is devoid of all influence of matter or mind. Obviously, to be completely and utterly without influence of matter is a question of physics, an uncertainty which should not influence our perception of the meaning of it. For all intents and purposes, in essense, it has been cleaned.
What about evolution? Again, for the intent of this study, when I think of evolution in this circumstance, i am not thinking of the question of the origin of human beings as living, breathing vertibrates– if we were put here by some inexplicable higher power, or if instead we started out as frogs and somehow, throughout many years of frogs with wings, and birds with hands have turned out to participate in such activities, quite un-frog-like, as broadcasting radio waves into the sky in hopes that someone “out there” might hear our call. That is not quite the Evolution, all encompasing as it may seem, that enters my mind when i’m thinking of my concept, but more precisely Evolution as a moment or epoch of time– meaning, for example, as one might accurately report that the personal desktop computer experienced a major “evolution” throughout the latter half of the 1980’s, and on into the early 1990’s– its evolutionary period. I’d rather take it one more step toward the abstract, and try to imagine it as a current state of change, as something in a current state of being, for example, the ways in which we use the Internet are evolving– right now, at this second, but neither i nor you could put your finger on just what part of it is evolving– it’s an intangible, simply by the vey nature of time itself. That is my “evolution” herein– the prerequisite, of course, to any other form of evolution. In truth, it is probably irrelevant to the theory of my proposed concept which of my previous, stammeringly poor descriptions of Evolution you choose to regard.
([ ::sigh:: my god– do i ramble too much!!])
Okay, what does it mean to shovel sterilization? well, to be honest, i just thought it was a catchy title, but it actually works very well to aid in my explanation. What i mean is, i don’t go around saying “darn it– there they go with that sterilization shoveling again!”. But, again, we know what it means, right? The idea, as i see it, is that someone, somewhere, is heaping sterilization upon me, or you, and / or all of us! Does anybody remember Hitler?
I wouldn’t be so crass to say that there is a Hitler behind some grand plan, as was the case in History, and i realize this is kind of Cynical, but i believe that, in general, the things that we think about– which are put there by the media (oh, you don’t think about media stuff? then, let me see you go one full day without thinking a thought which was placed in your mind by the media. you’ll never do it!) – those thoughts are being sterilized. how? through some kind of slow process of making us believe what is true, what is real, what is now, and what we should strive to be in the future, and most terrifyingly, what we should encourage our children to be– your child’s child, and so on.
now you want me to prove it, right? you want me to back that up with something, dont you? Okay, i’ll do that. I’ll provide some images to help to support some of my concept. As you’re viewing them, i’d like for you to think about such things as With the purchasing power (i.e. the impressionable teenaged, and pre-teen boys and girls– who are probably white) for music CD’s in mind, what do you think is catching the interest of this market? How can they be most easily “sold”?. You’re thinking i’m going out on a limb, right? Just stick with me for a second…
Consider this. If after 100 years of being force-fed the artwork (audio CD’s being a certain, albeit heavily produced, artwork) of artists who aren’t really artists, what kind of culture will the society at large depend upon? what will happen to the true artists? the songwriters? the live music performers– the bob dylans, or even the — hmph, even now i can’t think of any non-perfect-looking popular artists. can you?
Please take a look at the photos below. I hope that you can give me the benefit of the doubt here– i realize that this probably looks a lot like many other comparisons you’ve seen drawn before, but i feel that my point– about the sterilization and evolution– and the future, may be a bit different– maybe not. I also realize that this idea isn’t very well hashed-out yet. it just popped into my head today as i was watching Ray Barone dancing to the song “Lady Marmalaude“– the Patti Labelle version, as i’d prefer it– without all of the gratuitous, superfluous melodic embellishment that our modern “R&B” singers are so hung up on. I thought to myself– now that’s cool! that was a great song, and it represents a time and a place very well, not to mention what it represents for black women in music, and in America in general– there’s a ton of references goign on in that song! and, to think that it is all taken away had you never known, or heard of Patti Labelle , or known anything about disco, or the 1970’s– if it had all been sufficiently steralized out of the system, so we can think only about warm and fuzzy thoughts, and pretty young white girls, and nothing risque, or encouraging, or fascinating, or at all potentially harmful, etc., etc., …
Thank you for stopping by! I invite you to contact me in regard to this article if you’d like. just use the Yahoo ID. i will read it, and probably respond.
— “…ha ha. yeah. and i just sit in the tourbus and write songs all day, and i think about the problems of the world. i think about the poverty of many of my latin brothers and sisters– the sickness, the hunger… i think about war in the middle east, and then i cry. it’s at these moments when i wrote many of my top ten singles…”
– this is the part where we learn about love, kindness, caring, relationships, acting on impulse, vanity, shock value of vulgarity, lust, … oh wait!, are we talking about musicians, or actresses, or… models, ??!!?
– a guy could learn a lot from a girl like this. hell, a girl could probably learn a lot from a girl like that!… ahem… what was the point? … oh, yes… valid art being sterilized
— “…if i ever catch that punk-ass little white girl who’s singin my song all dressed up like a ho, i’m gonna smack her upside the head so damn hard for puttin her theivin’ fingers on my music, she’ll be stingin so bad that her whole damn songwriting team going to feel it!..”
