Rogueish
How Pop Is Provoking The Censors Again→
02/11/11
- This is an especial thing with BDSM because a) in my experience some of the people who are into it are massive snobs about it, there’s definitely a Campaign For Real Bondage mentality around and b) if you’re not into it, and to an extent even if you are, the apparatus around S & M is funny. Not funny as in British sniggering-about-sex oh-look-a-condom funny, but as in slapstick funny, physical comedy funny, clown funny. Which the Rihanna video totally gets, and exploits very well.
I would have thought this theatrical, dressing-up quality was a big part of the appeal of S&M and I like that the Rihanna video represents that, rather than a more clichéd representation of the “edginess” of S&M. This also makes the censorship of the song even more bizarre, though. Some time in the mid 90s Jonathon King had a show on Radio 1 where he would play various records that had originally been banned by the station. I remember when he played Madonna’s “Erotica” I was completely bemused that, only a few years earlier, it had been considered sufficiently shocking to ban; but I don’t see how “S&M” is any more shocking than “Erotica.” Disappointing that Radio 1 is as conservative now as it was twenty years ago (more conservative, maybe; even Westwood now seems to have been forced to play radio edits, which on a hip-hop show at 10pm is just a bit ridiculous).
Janelle Monáe walks the Tightrope between conceptual art weirdness and robo-pop stardom | Music | The Guardian→
07/10/10
Slightly odd that Hattie Collins chooses Lady Gaga and Rihanna to contrast Monáe with. Rihanna is probably the most interesting person in mainstream R&B right now, and Gaga is, like Monáe, straddling the line between popularity and artistic extravagance, and also like Monáe (and like Nicki Minaj, too), a lot queerer than most female pop stars.
