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PopGaf OT-X | Confirmed: Mariah Carey is the Queen of PopGAF

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C

cory64

Member
It's everything but I'm not gonna put up with Chris Brown to get more than 80 seconds of it
unlike Nobody's Business which Bruises does 90% of the work
 
V

Vazduh

Member
Nobody's Bidness is a jam.

Every touch becomes infectious
Let's make out in this Lexus
There's no other love just like this

F1gKVMB.gif
 
R

rude

Banned
Nobody's Bidneh does slay. Best song on that alberm is Pour It Up tho

Get it Over With and Mother Mary are SO underrated btw
 
V

Vazduh

Member
The music video made that song for me, for some reason. I know it's trashy and all, but that's kind of part of its appeal.

361d81bm
 
V

Vazduh

Member
That one has yet to grow on me, but I have to giv it to Rih, she really worked that runway.

Btw, Mau is going to cum from happiness when he sees these last few posts.
 
R

rude

Banned
Fresh out the Runway's lyrics are a bit too nonsensical for me to like idk. And it goes on for too long. It should be like a 2 minute song at most.
 
M

Matt_

World's #1 One Direction Fan: Everyone else in the room can see it, everyone else but you~~~
that cover looks cheap and nasty
jFx0YskoAW37p.png
 
N

Never Forever

Member
BBCR1: We are very sorry to announce that @LanaDelRey has had to cancel her Live Lounge appearance tomorrow due to illness…
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Lmao, she previously cancelled back on Ultraviolence release week. She's probably not even ill. The self-sabotaging nature of Interscope artists is real.

This current vote is a pair of flops in contest to see who can destroy their career fastest.
 
N

Never Forever

Member
This article is amazing. Its focus is decrying alternative R&B, but it also delves into the double standard that has been applied to Beyonce's displays of sexuality and how black female artists tend to get boxed and treated as lesser by critical commentators.

Choice quotes:

This is an outlook that’s been especially frustrating in the wake of Beyoncé's world-slaying VMAs performance, as the same old “Is Beyoncé Really a Feminist?” slander has been doing the rounds. Even at the peak of her (and everyone’s) game, Beyoncé unbelievably still catches critique for standing in front of a huge neon sign that declares her a “FEMINIST” when many of her contemporaries are uncomfortable about even saying the word . To my ears, this is proof that even when she’s one of the richest and most successful performers in the world, Beyoncé's genre is one that is inherently seen as being of less worth to cultural commentators. Her feminist message has been deemed disingenuous because she looks hot while preaching it: last week Milo Yiannopoulos wrote a blog post for UK newspaper The Independent that claimed, “sexual titillation for men and ego boosts for the sisterhood are perhaps the least effective route to female empowerment imaginable. In Beyoncé, it is the male idea of female beauty that finds its highest and most perfect expression. She is what men demand of her, less than the sum of her body parts.”

This kind of outlook is a trumped-up version of a base form of misogyny—the kind that assumes that if a woman looks good, she can’t be smart too. A misogynist watches Beyoncé holding an incredibly difficult pose on a chaise lounge for “Partition,” or Beyoncé wearing her trademark stage costume that shows her flexing quads as she beasts her way through her dance routines, or Beyoncé surrounding herself by athletic backing dancers who part their legs agonizingly slowly in a feat of grace, and thinks: if a woman does this, then she can’t also be a feminist. Surely, if a woman does something that’s sexually attractive, so thinks a misogynist, she must be doing it for me(n).

The best rebuttal of this kind of Bey-bashing came from writer Tamara Winfrey Harris in Bitch magazine last year: “Through a career that has included crotch-grabbing, nudity, BDSM, Marilyn Monroe fetishizing, and a 1992 book devoted to sex, Madonna has been viewed as a feminist provocateur, pushing the boundaries of acceptable femininity. But Beyoncé's use of her body is criticized as thoughtless and without value beyond male titillation, providing a modern example of the age-old racist juxtaposition of animalistic black sexuality vs. controlled, intentional, and civilized white sexuality.” You don’t even have to look so far back in pop history to find equivalent white popstars who get away with as much: how many times does Gaga have to get nude before anyone accuses her of hindering the feminist cause?
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While crowds of eyes are out to objectify them, both albums stare fiercely outwards with strong individuality; gratification is theirs for the taking. Both women have taken their visual identities by the horns, too, with Twigs having built her name on the arresting, surreal videos that accompanied her every track, and Beyoncé creating her “visual album.” For Twigs’ “Kicks,” where she sings frankly about masturbation, you’ve got Beyoncé's “Blow,” a song all about oral sex. For Beyonce’s brazen slogan of sexual confidence—Yoncé all on his mouth like liquor—you’ve got Twigs’ I can fuck you better than her.
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In the forlorn final lines of Twigs’ “Video Girl,” a song about the disjuncture between the understanding you have of yourself and the understanding other people think they have of you by merely looking at you, she whispers, I can’t recognize me. In “Pretty Hurts,” a song about the disjuncture between the pressure on women to look a certain way and the effect it has on their internal happiness and well-being, Beyoncé belts, Are you happy with yourself? These two lines form the clearest parallel I can draw between these albums: it’s not about sex, though that’s obviously a large part of it. It’s about self-reflection and self-idealization and the building of an identity, particularly as an oppressed or marginalized person in a world that’s trying its damnedest to objectify you. It’s about doing what makes you happy above and beyond what society says you should be doing. That’s a message I want to hear blasted on BBC Radio 1 playlists and to see illuminated in neon lights on the MTV VMAs stage. Whether they call themselves R&B, pop or nothing at all, FKA Twigs and Beyoncé are the most powerful, innovative and feminist voices we have in music—fuck an “alternative.”
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A

AyaisMUsikWhore

Member
Great post Never Forever. Beautiful argument that expresses my opinions on the matter of Feminism. It's not secret that racial definitions of feminist are different between black and whites but I've noticed it's become a huge conversation on whether it's acceptable to call Beyonce a feminist because of these racial differences. I almost hate it because it's really misogynist to talk about how women should have freedom and equality but at the same time tell another how they should act.
 
R

rude

Banned
The entire feminism debate over pop-stars is really tired anyway. Not tryna listen to Florida Kilos to get some social commentary etc
 
T

twobear

sputum-flecked apoplexy
rude said:
The entire feminism debate over pop-stars is really tired anyway. Not tryna listen to Florida Kilos to get some social commentary etc
Click to expand...

but the fact remains that popstars are among the most famous and recognisable people in the world, and regardless of whether they specifically espouse feminist ideals in their music (and I don't think it's that much of a deal if they choose not to), the fact that many of them have a totally wrongheaded idea about what feminism is, and they repeat their iffy views in interviews and influence millions of people around the world with that misunderstanding is a problem imo

and in that sense i think it's important to care whether popstars say that they're feminist and proud or that they aren't a feminist because they don't hate men
 
D

Dr. Malik

FlatAss_
rude said:
The entire feminism debate over pop-stars is really tired anyway. Not tryna listen to Florida Kilos to get some social commentary etc
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Tbh you cannot even put out a masterpiece like All About The Bass without being shit on by bloggers, luckily the gp doesn't care

And Beyonce is just pandering since its her image to be a strong woman or some shit like that
 
M

Matt_

World's #1 One Direction Fan: Everyone else in the room can see it, everyone else but you~~~
Dr. Malik said:
Tbh you cannot even put out a masterpiece like All About The Bass without being shit on by bloggers, luckily the gp doesn't care

And Beyonce is just pandering since its her image to be a strong woman or some shit like that
Click to expand...

smh

edit; oh miley
that man in the second picture is having none of it
 
S

Soulscribe

Member
The best part of this page so far is Vazduh casually calling Madonna a "shitbag." Ahhh. Feels good to laugh.

Also, I can announce that we've beaten the voting record from battle 1, so we have the most cumulative votes so far with Battle 3! Thanks so so much for voting and keeping the fun and shade alive, it makes me feel mushy and happy inside.

Battle 3 is still too close to call, so if you haven't PM'd me just yet, make sure to do so before tomorrow at 8pm EST. :)
 
3

3phemeral

Member
Soulscribe said:
The best part of this page so far is Vazduh casually calling Madonna a "shitbag." Ahhh. Feels good to laugh.

Also, I can announce that we've beaten the voting record from battle 1, so we have the most cumulative votes so far with Battle 3! Thanks so so much for voting and keeping the fun and shade alive, it makes me feel mushy and happy inside.

Battle 3 is still too close to call, so if you haven't PM'd me just yet, make sure to do so before tomorrow at 8pm EST. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for handling the voting. :)

uGmwncp.gif
 
M

Mumei

Member
The Nation That Janet Jackson Built

The most culturally significant female artist of the 1980s? Janet Jackson.

I realize that’s a big claim for a decade that included such talents as Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Annie Lennox, Cyndi Lauper, and Madonna. It may seem even more dubious given the fact that Janet really only emerged as a major figure in 1986 with the release of Control—and only released two substantial albums over the course of the decade. Janet didn’t have the vocal prowess of Whitney Houston, or the poetic subtlety of Kate Bush; she didn’t have Annie Lennox’s penchant for the avant-garde or Madonna’s predilection for shock.

But none of these artists achieved the cross-racial impact (particularly on youth culture) of Janet. And none of them had an album like Rhythm Nation 1814.

In his Rolling Stone cover story, journalist David Ritz compared Rhythm Nation 1814, released 25 years ago today, to Marvin Gaye’s landmark 1971 album What’s Going On—a pairing that might seem strange, if not sacrilege. But think about it, and the comparison makes a lot of sense. Both albums are hard-won attempts by black musicians to be taken seriously as songwriters and artists—to communicate something meaningful in the face of great pressure to conform to corporate formulas. Both are concept albums with socially conscious themes addressing poverty, injustice, drug abuse, racism and war. Both blended the sounds, struggles, and voices of the street with cutting-edge studio production. Both fused the personal and the political. And both connected in profound ways with their respective cultural zeitgeists.

[...]

But its impact was far more than commercial. Rhythm Nation was a transformative work that arrived at a transformative moment. Released in 1989—the year of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, protests at Tiananmen Square, and the fall of the Berlin Wall—its sounds, its visuals, its messaging spoke to a generation in transition, at once empowered and restless. The Reagan Era was over. The cultural anxiety about what was next, however, was palpable.

The 1980s were a paradoxical decade, particularly for African-Americans. It was an era of both increased possibility and poverty, visibility and invisibility. The revolution of the pop-cultural landscape was undeniable. “Crossover” icons like Janet, Michael, Prince, and Whitney shattered racialized narrowcasting on radio, television and film, while hip hop emerged as the most important musical movement since rock and roll. The Cosby Show changed the color of television, as Spike Lee and the New Black Cinema infiltrated Hollywood. Oprah Winfrey began her reign on daytime television, while Arsenio Hall’s hip late-night talk show drew some of the biggest names in America. By 1989, from Michael Jordan to Eddie Murphy to Tracy Chapman, black popular culture had never been more prominent in the American mainstream. Over the course of the decade, the black middle and upper class more than doubled and integrated into all facets of American life, from college campuses to the media to politics.

But there was a flip side to this narrative—the decay and abandonment of inner cities, the crack epidemic, the AIDS crisis, the huge spike in arrests and incarceration (particularly of young black men), and the widening gap between the haves and have-nots, including within the black community. By the end of the 1980s, nearly 50 percent of black children were living below the poverty line This was the reality early hip hop often spoke to and for. Chuck D. famously described rap as “CNN for black people.”

It was these voices, these struggles, these ongoing divides and injustices that Janet Jackson wanted to represent in Rhythm Nation 1814. “We have so little time to solve these problems,” she told journalist Ritz in a 1990 interview. “I want people to realize the urgency. I want to grab their attention. Music is my way of doing that.” Pop stars, she recognized, had unprecedented multimedia platforms—and she was determined to use hers to do more than simply entertain. “I wanted to reflect, not just react,” she said. “I re-listened to those artists who moved me most when I was younger ... Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Marvin Gaye. These were people who woke me up to the responsibility of music. They were beautiful singers and writers who felt for others. They understood suffering.”

[...]

Long before Beyoncé, Janet carved out a space for the openly feminist, multidimensional pop star. She created a blueprint that hundreds of thousands of artists have followed, from Britney Spears to Ciara to Lady Gaga. Rhythm Nation 1814 was the album that revolutionized her career and the pop landscape. It demonstrated that black women needn’t be second to anyone. But it wasn’t individualistic. Its rallying call was about the collective we. We could be a part of the creative utopia—the rhythm nation—regardless of race, gender, class, sexuality or difference. It made you want to dance and change the world at the same time. Unrealistic, perhaps. But 25 years later, it’s still hard to listen and not want to join the movement.
Click to expand...

More at the link~
 
C

cory64

Member
Mumei said:
The Nation That Janet Jackson Built



More at the link~
Click to expand...

Truly the Queen, saving society with her masterful music.


THIS TEA

“Pop creations” like Janet and Madonna were viewed with suspicion, if not outright contempt. The fact that they didn’t conform to traditional singer-songwriter expectations proved they lacked talent. The fact that they had talented collaborators and producers proved they lacked credibility. The fact that dance and image were important parts of their artistic presentation proved they lacked authenticity.
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and that notion still persists on gaf to this very day, asco
 
3

3phemeral

Member
Janet is so underrated for her contributions. I remember having to read about people arguing her relevance was only attributed to her being the sister of Michael. Can anyone realistic say she rode his coattails when she was an obvious, undeniable force on stage?

I mean:

Required Janet performance homework.
 
M

Matt_

World's #1 One Direction Fan: Everyone else in the room can see it, everyone else but you~~~
All this talk about Rih coming back, but the real question is WHERE IS KESHA
Warrior is nearly two years old and we're obviously not getting any of the good albums tracks as new singles, so where is ha new music!?
 
N

Never Forever

Member
and yet Janet isn't in this contest when she has more of a claim to a spot than all but five of the entrants, sigh. I like culturally conscious albums.

how interesting that the article addresses it

Yet in spite of their similar commercial achievements and cultural impact, Janet Jackson remains, by comparison, grossly undervalued by critics and historians and PopGAF. Try to find a book on her career, cultural significance, or creative work, and with the exception of her 2011 autobiography, True You: A Journey To Finding and Loving Yourself, which focuses on her struggles with body image and self-esteem, or an Icicle essay, you will come up empty-handed. Do the same with Madonna, and you will find at least 20 books by major publishers, and a ton of shitposts by idiots you don't care about.

The disparities are not simply in the amount of coverage, but in how each artist is interpreted and understood. In print coverage, both in the 1980s and today, Madonna is made the default representative of feminism and of the era (in a 1990 editorial for the New York Times, cultural critic Camille Paglia famously declared her “the future of feminism”). Madonna was perceived as somehow more important and interesting, more clever and cerebral. Her sense of irony and play with sexuality made her more appealing to postmodernists than Janet’s socially conscious sincerity. In 1989, Madonna was named “Artist of the Decade” by Billboard and MTV. Since that time, the appreciation gap has only widened.

In 2008, Madonna was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In spite of her trailblazing career, Janet has yet to receive the same honor. She has been eligible for six years. Many believe she is still being punished for the 2004 Super Bowl controversy often referred to as “Nipplegate,” the response to which has been described as "one of the worst cases of mass hysteria in America since the Salem witch trials."​ It is hard to believe, given the controversies surrounding just about every artist inducted into the Hall of Fame, that this would be used as a legitimate rationale for her exclusion. But then again, it’s hard to imagine how an artist of Janet’s stature has yet to be nominated.
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she really does seem to have vanished from the landscape, all because of a nipple? americans really do get hysterical over the dumbest things, and it was all Justink's fault anyway

although, in all fairness, maybe the hysteria went worldwide, I definitely don't remember hearing her at all whilst I was growing up, and I only really started casually listening recently so I didn't vote for her. Rhythm Nation, Nasty and Control are such bops.

people would've forgiven madonna over it too, the white woman's ~classier~ sexuality and ~provocative statements~
 
S

Soulscribe

Member
The nipple-gate thing is riddled with hypocrisies, starting with Justin Timberlake getting a free fucking pass despite essentially "being the one" exposing her nip in the performance.

Janet Jackson will always be one of the greatest performers of all time and it's too bad that performance and a few tepid albums slowed her momentum to a halt. I do think her style was trumped by Britney Spears who was making more ubiquitous hits and presumably was more accepted by the public due to her complete lack of edge. A blonde simple bombshell will always be better received than an intelligent black woman with sharper edges. Sad but true.

Janet was up there with Madonna as far as pushing the envelope was concerned, and in many cases went even further.

Honestly the feminism argument is only tired because I'm reminded of how contradictory every arguement seems to be when it comes to minority movements. It's the same way everyone wants to dictate how the gay community should present itself to the public. People expect every gay celebrity to be a spokesperson but once they call themselves a spokesperson people revert to "who are you to call yourself that?" Feminists shouldn't have to dictate what makes another person a feminist or not because not all women express themselves the same way, and not all women approach power and individuality the same way, and not all women fall under the same matrix of feminine expression. It's the reason why butchier women look down on more femme women for being less authentic feminists, as if that held any kind fo precedence. People are different, just love yourself and your kin and you've got the feminist message nailed down pat.
 
W

WhereAreMahDragonz

Banned
Matt_ said:
All this talk about Rih coming back, but the real question is WHERE IS KESHA
Warrior is nearly two years old and we're obviously not getting any of the good albums tracks as new singles, so where is ha new music!?
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She only got out of rehab in March and then was doing that Rising Star gig. So probably not until next year?

I am going to be so broke with all these 2015 releases.
 
S

Souldriver

Member
Matt_ said:
All this talk about Rih coming back, but the real question is WHERE IS KESHA
Warrior is nearly two years old and we're obviously not getting any of the good albums tracks as new singles, so where is ha new music!?
Click to expand...

:'(

I'm waiting anxiously. Animal, Cannibal and especially Warrior all had good stuff on them.
 
S

Soulscribe

Member
With so many votes already in, it's still a dead heat between Gaga and Lana. We'll need as many new votes as possible to break the tie, so keep 'em coming. :)

#voteforGaga
 
M

Matt_

World's #1 One Direction Fan: Everyone else in the room can see it, everyone else but you~~~
Souldriver said:
:'(

I'm waiting anxiously. Animal, Cannibal and especially Warrior all had good stuff on them.
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mhmm
not to mention her lead singles absolutely punch
I just hope she's better and that she channels that good energy into her craft
 
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