Song, by Toad is a Bigot
And not particularly ashamed either, so fuck off. No, not the poor people with coloured skin, nor the ‘alternatively abled’ spast… whoops, sorry, or even the gays, lesbians, trannies, hermaphrodites and other Belgians. No, it’s the beautiful people. Really, they just make me suspicious.
I got a CD in the post this morning from a promotional company and on the front was the picture of a pretty blonde girl. Hmm, thought I. Dubious. I opened the CD to find a half-dozen more pictures of this same fetching blonde lass looking alternately sultry, or ‘natural’, or god knows what else. In her ‘normal’ shots she was wearing jeans (very normal) with stilettos (still sexy, oh yesh). To be fair to her, she looked very appealing, but this is a music CD and anytime I see cover art that makes much play of the firm breasts or, alternatively, rugged jawline of the musician in question my marketing department radar goes right off.
Tarting up your musician implies that their music won’t do the trick by itself – or at least that you think it won’t. It shows a lack of confidence. One look at this album cover and all my prejudices kicked in and I was certain it was going to be shit. Hollywood Strings three-quarters of the way through the song? Check. Gratingly soulful X-Factor vocals? Check.  ‘Real’ singer-songwriter marketing? Check again. And was it dreadful? Yes it fucking was. Of course it was.
Fuck. Right. Off.
Suede – Beautiful Ones
Neko Case – Pretty Girls
Elvis Costello & the Attractions – All This Useless Beauty
O you can’t leave it like that.
Who was the jelly mould?
Brian Blessed
Oh shit, you’re going to hate me for this, but I genuinely don’t know. I passed it on to a colleague who reckoned his sister would like it and he’s gone. I’ll find out though, I promise.
Last Fm to the rescue. It was Laura Critchley. Avoid.
Doesn’t this go back to your beauty post of not-so-long-ago. It is not Beauty that bothers you, it is the knowledge that relying on it is enough to get you by. If you need to show your tits on an album cover all you are doing is saying ‘please don’t listen to the music’. If you are perfect looking in a club you are saying that you spend more effort keeping yourself pretty than enjoying yourself. It’s just the difference between a musician and a pop star.
Whores, the lot of ‘em.
It reminds me of the Freakonomics book and the statistic about the ridiculously high percentage of US CEOs who were six foot white men.
Man, I just googled her, and while she may be attractive, I applaud you for even putting that shit in your CD player. I’ve tossed discs for less.
I though it was only fair to give it a chance.
Then I burst out laughing and threw it far, far away. Mrs. Toad was there when I opened it actually. I asked if she ever got the impression publicity companies just couldn’t be arsed doing their research properly and she said ‘They sent that to you?‘
the only time I think it’s been acceptable to put women on the fornt of them to sell records is Roxy Music (1972-1975, obviously). I still fancy Madonna and Debbie Harry, but I think it’s fair to say they were in control of their own image and if anyone was going to do any exploiting it would be themselves.
Fucking hell. I took a looksee at her website & Jesus H. have they spent an awful lot of wasted £££ + effort on her & her ‘talent’. I wouldn’t even say she’s that attractive to be pushed into the realm of masturbatory fantasy.
I am quite sick of the whole “tits for tat” PR approach; even when employed for a genuinely talented artiste it grinds. I immediately think of Liz Phair, who may or may not be considered talented round these here parts, but I can’t fault her first three records, really. I know she developed the slut look approach herself – possibly attempting to grasp & manipulate “iron e” in that way some American quarters do – but it nigh on killed her sincerity in the open market. Not to mention any respect she’d built amongst her peers.
Do we, the general public, really shop with our eyes & dicks/slits that much that it is automatically unquestioned now? In 2007?! Or is it simply sheer desperation to claw back some of the seeminkgly substantial financial investment in something the CEO of this sub-standard record company threw money at because he achieved a full verticle on smelling the perfume of her wares at the first meet & greet?
I listened to some of her ‘art’, too. You did well to get as far as you did before letting gut instinct take charge. That sort of junk isn’t even fit for charity shops. It’ll take a lot of defragging to rid my hard drive of that cock-faced data stream.
DC
Ah, Ed, you mistake me for a hairy-legged feminist. No, many a time the women or men themselves are responsible for this sort of thing themselves. And they are whores.
Liz Phair is a very interesting one, eh DC. It looks for all the world like she suddenly thought: ‘Fuck it, I’m attractive and no need to act like I’m ashamed of that any bloody more’ and went for it as a full-on indie babe. As you say though, people react badly to that sort of thing in the indie world she moved in, and she never had the sort of music that was going to make the jump to the babe world either, so she ended up finding herself rather marooned.
aye. i was actually shocked to see her nipple on the cover of “Exile in Guyville” – i thought this doesn’t match up… even with her obviously filthy lyrics & bitterness towards her own body’s quite basic hard shag needs from those bastard men she railed against. & then, overnight, she’s all topless under sheer vest photo shoots & hot-pants cameltoe & nothing musically to justify it. Brrrrrrrr. Gives me shivers, so it does.
Exile in Guyville was a great record though, and whipsmart was great. Just got them both off the vinyl shelf-I had forgotten about that nipple…
as for the comment about whores and madonna, i think I sense a rather obvious gag…
Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.
Wendy, behave.
Hey – its always interesting to see things form a different perspective – even if its not what you want to hear… being the bloke thats behind Laura… in a business way that is..!!
Anyhow – quite obviously the PR team didnt send the disc to the right person for reviewing.. so thanks for evening listening to it – I know that people cant be all things to all people…
That said – I thought you might be interested to hear that all the photos you are talking about were done off the cuff – no stylist – no makeup/hair person – photographer was a mate… total budget £0. It was just what we captured on that day – and the reaction was positive which is why we ran with it.
Ho hum… I realise the music is very MOR/Mainstream – but at least she has cowritten all the tracks – and her voice is more than passable… she has worked bloody hard, and is vocally good live as she is on the record.
Anyhow – why am I warbling when the battle here is already lost…!!
MAinly cos I just wanted to put some kind of perspective to this thread… She does deserve some kind of chance in the industry – theres ALOT of other less talented people who have had success… Shes not manufactured… she’s made alot of decisions herself.
Anyhow – time will tell…
(oh – and actually I wanted to sign at least one of her tracks, and had put things into place – before Id even met her, so – no full verticle movement on a meet and greet…!!)
Andrew
[...] known better than to even bring it up in the first place really. Remember a few weeks back we all had a good laugh at the poor publicity chap who sent the Laura Critchley album to me, of all people, to try? Well I tried to keep it anonymous because, as amusing as the [...]