Sunday , June 13, 2010
Soundtracks: Free Kitten, Inherit + Katy Perry, One of the Boys
Oh man, I can sooooooo see Laura's eyes rolling right now, but it's Kim Gordon -- what can we do? The spirit of this blog is so informed by Kim Gordon, with her nonchalant cool and unwavering commitment to lifelong art-damage, that we totally have to tell you what we think about her Free Kitten record. This is hard for me, because I'd much rather be listening to the new Lil Wayne record, which is ten times more genius and interesting and eccentric and fascinating. My advice to you is to get Tha Carter III if you're at all rap-inclined -- it will make your life ten times more enjoyable. But this record is okay, I suppose. It's total art-punk: atonal, arty, screech-y at times, full of feedback, fuzz and drone. (I feel like drone is very de rigueur if you want to be avant-anything these days.) It's like if some crazy German punk band from the 1970s got locked up in a time warp pre-school nursery with nothing but broken instruments to play and a lot of pot to smoke -- at least, those are the songs with lead vocals by Julie Cafritz, Gordon's colleague in Free Kitten and a legend in her own right as a member of Pussy Galore. Those are the best songs, especially "Roughshod," which is the aural equivalent of a monster truck rally swimming in a pink floral teacup. The songs that don't work so well are the ones where our girl Kim thinks she's some weird rock shaman. (Maybe she's channeling Jim Morrison?) Maybe those songs are awesome, but I honestly could not listen to them all the way through despite many promising beginnings -- I always ended up skipping to one of the Cafritz tracks, which are more playful and fun and just more energetic. This record's just too torpid, even for me, the queen of slow, dark and sludgy. Sorry, Kim, but we totes love you anyway, and you should check out that new Lil Wayne record if you want to go for the real effed-up shizzit sound.
On the total pop flipside, there's the new Katy Perry record, One of the Boys. I am sure you have all heard that "I Kissed A Girl" song, right? (It's the No. 2 single on iTunes, for God's sake -- get on that!) You'll feel a little embarrassed that it gets stuck in your head, but it will definitely lodge itself in those brain cells, waiting for a chance to pop up at the most inopportune moment -- and it will never go away. I'm always the first to root for a faux-punk grrrl-powered mainstream female artist; I like to think of them as gateway drugs to even more unadulterated doses of feminism and strong lady spirit. I'm a true populist at heart -- it's cool that there's something for everyone in terms of music and feminism. But for every right-on pop hit like "I Kissed A Girl" or the metrosexual kiss-off and Madonna favorite "Ur So Gay," you have to deal with some "Dawson's"-y acoustic earnest stuff, which occurs at a slightly higher ratio than I desire on One of the Boys. I know Katy's got range and a nice set of pipes, but if I don't want gentle, heartfelt tunes in my categorical guilty pop pleasures -- I want more sassy junk. Still, I like the fact that my 2-year old niece likes this record -- that's totally acceptable to me. She really hates Free Kitten, by the way, it makes her cry. But I still hold high hopes that she'll make her way to femme-centric art noise when she gets older. Baby steps, as they say -- Katy Perry, Free Kitten, it's all connected.
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