The Banality of Fug

[purejuice]

I think Ben Ratliff, the NYT pop music critic, of all people, may have taken the Fug Girls' genius exegesis a step farther, and gotten to the bottom of the fug that is Rihanna, all KoolAid red Justin Bieber hair and third-rate Gaga outfits. This was recently brought into contrast to devastating effect when preceded by a smoking hot Kesha set.

Rihanna is affectless.

Writes Ratliff:
In her show at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, she bestrode a pink tank’s gun turret while wearing a Mouseketeer helmet; smashed the husk of an old car and entreated a young female fan to do the same; played a flying-V electric guitar — crudely, imperiously — from atop a tall platform; sang in front of trapeze artists hanging from giant rifles; and spent a lot of time in a black latex unitard with fabric at the haunchesand high boots. Love is a battlefield. Love is a circus. Love is a strip club.

None of this cut very deeply, and not just because these themes are so incredibly banal, but because Rihanna keeps her affect on lockdown. She spoke little. That vibrato shake at the end of her vocal lines is about the sum of her charm as a singer. She moved in smooth, even glides. Her low hip-grind in “Rude Boy” and her lip curl in “Rehab,” as she reclined on a hideous therapist’s couch, adorned with metal casts of human heads and limbs: these were the smash hits of her body language. (Most at the Garden could see her snarl only via overhead video screens, which also picked up clear angles of her new Francophone neck tattoo.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/arts/music/14riha.html

The best part of the Rude Boy video is the non-Rihanna parts, all clearly bites of M.I.A., with the "I ain't fakin'" at 2:34 a riposte to "Poker Face". Rihanna's swivelhips just make my eyes feel dehydrated.

One tiny Google reveals that the video director is female and has already been widely accused of ripping M.I.A. off.

You read it here first.

Me, I prefer my video vixens totally affectless, like the heroin chic one on the left here, not even pretending to work the keyboard.

Comments

[villagecharm.livejournal.com]

There's something joyless about her whole aesthetic, like it's the Will to Power in a miniskirt. The whole thing looks like she's just taken aspects of more talented performers from years ago: there's a little Grace Jones in her ferocious flying hair wedge, a little of Neneh Cherry in her stance, a little of Lady Saw in her "slack" dancehall grinding, and, inexplicably, a little Sheila E in her drumkit scenes. And, as you point out, M.I.A. hovers above the whole thing like some kind of leopard print genie. I think the kids call it "collage," but to me it seems weirdly cheerless and bland.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

sheila e!
the blandeur is what makes me feel like a 7500 year old pervert who cannot be amused.
i know we all stand on the shoulders of giants like justin bieber, and that her jay-z hip hop management is all about biting others' work, and that music videos esp. are actually kind of high art collageur work....it was the show, apparently, that was so soulless. i think the vids are too.

[the-sikh-geek.livejournal.com]

Rihanna is the "artist" who already had a signed endorsement contract with a cosmetic company before she had her first single released. I think "bland" and "joyless" are incredibly generous descriptors for her.