the internet's pretty nifty, eh

[Quoted in full from a review of the Spice Girls' "Spice" on Amazon.co.uk; I've italicised some highlights, this deserves publication in a peer reviewed journal, perhaps unfortunately.]

----
***** What you really really want, 19 Sep 2005
Reviewer: "kpalowe" - See all my reviews
The whole Spice Girls concept was one of the most genius creations in pop music history, and the group's immense global success serves to confirm this. Five singing/dancing women, each with their own character, nickname, and ensuing persona, with the 'Girl Power!' slogan to appeal to young girls and a sex appeal for.... well - all men. They were heavily criticised for being emblematic of all that was wrong with pop music and their slogan was accused of being ,inauthentic due to the group's overtly sexual image (see the video to 'Say You'll Be There', for a palpable example). However, this really highlighted some critic's ignorance of post-feminist theory and literature, rather than an accurate deliberation of the group's implications.
Besides, 'Spice' is a tremendous pop album that regenerated the sense of fun that pop had lost some years previously, and this was further punctuated by the group's flamboyance. In fact, many pop albums that have been produced since seem to exemplify qualities and influences that can be identified on 'Spice'. Some people will never be convinced that any one of the individual members possessed even the slightest trace of artistic merit. However, most seem to overlook the fact that the Spice Girls only delivered the final artefact and that there was a whole team of producers and artists involved with the Spice Girls concept. Most crucial was two excellent song-writing duos: Stannard/Rowe and Watkins/Wilson (the former being arguably superior to the latter). The song-writing and the arrangements of the songs thereof was supreme, and there are a variety of pop influences that could be discussed, i.e., r 'n' b ('Say You'll Be There', 'Naked'), funk ('Something Kinda Funny'), gospel ('Mama'), even a bit of jazz ('If You Can't Dance').

The album opens with the sound of running footsteps and laughter before Mel B's attention-grabbing 'Well!!!' just before 'Wannabe' kicks in. Once the familiar (i.e., often used) I-bIII-IV-bVII riff begins Mel B and Geri exchange that famous 'I'll tell you what I want what I really really want, - so tell me what you want what you really really want', and the Spice Girl 'précis' can be identified within the first eight seconds. Certainly, there is no way you are not going to listen! The 'girl on top' hypothesis is humorously presented with lines such as 'don't go wasting my precious time', 'What d'ya think about that?', 'are you for real?', and 'If you really bug me then I'll say good bye', and the deliberately catchy chorus summarises their message lyrically. Towards the end of the song each member is pithily introduced. It is a great introduction to the album, and arguably Richard Stannard and Matt Rowe (with the Spice Girls) coined one of the greatest singles in pop history; one that was certainly much-needed at the time. The video is great too, with the girls gate-crashing an aristocratic party, and causing general (but in no way violent - the light-hearted sense of fun prevails) destruction. It does appear as if someone was attempting to convey some kind of message somewhere - for the girls pass a tramp in the street before they enter the building, and on leaving jump on a bus. However, there is no sense that they are showing any contempt for the people at the upper-class party. Perhaps the video is more of an observation on our excessively hierarchical society, rather than an definite protest. When the group jump on the bus, they beacon us to follow them...... and a large number of people did just that.

The r 'n' b enthused hit single 'Say You'll Be There' has a very strong melody and is perfectly arranged, including a wonderful harmonica solo, with some pretty fine vocal work from Mel C towards the end as well. Other hit singles '2 Become 1' (Christmas UK number 1 1996), 'Mama', and 'Who Do You Think You Are?' (Comic Relief 1997) will be familiar to most. 'Love Thing' also has a great melody, which exploits the blues influence upon pop in general, with use of flattened seventh, augmented ninths etc. A lot of the vocal arrangement is very advanced, balancing textures, the members various vocal ranges, and solos vs. harmony, vs. parallel octaves (the type of vocal arrangement that had previously been an attractive quality of such groups as TLC)to perfection, and 'Something Kinda Funny' is a case in point. Lyrically, the songs are either about typical pop song subjects (i.e., the joys, trials and tribulations of relationships), the group's 'Girl Power!' message, or a juxtaposition of the two. There are a few exceptions i.e., 'Mama' and 'Naked' (perhaps 'Mama' isn't exactly a high point on the album.... but you can't win 'em all). Following the introductory nature of 'Wannabe', 'If You Can't Dance' is something of a summary, particularly of their 'Girl Power!' statement, with the persistently repeated line 'If you can't dance to this you can't do nothing for me baby!'

Overall, 'Spice' is an impeccably well-balanced pop album with an amiable allure. Whatever one might think of the five individuals, the Spice Girl concept was a work of ingenuity. In years to come, it should become more and more patent that the repercussions of 'Spice' on popular music were far greater than was first evident, and the album holds a significant place in the history of pop music. For now, we can sneakily put the album in our personal stereos when no one is looking, keep the volume at a reasonable level, bop along, and hope that no one asks what we're listening to!

-----

From the next review (because I couldn't resist):

"Following up an album which many people consider to be not only the best musical experiment since a child called Mozart though he'd give the family piano a go, but the best album ever recorded, is not an easy task, but somehow, SOMEHOW, they topped it."

I love the internet. Amish people don't know where it's at. Technology is cool. Freakin' awesome. My tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the above review deserves publication in a peer reviewed journal is partly serious; I've seen worse (save the elementary grammar mistakes) in many an academic article. Perhaps I should start a peer reviewed journal centered on pop culture.

Never Forget:

“Do or do not... there is no try.”

“You will find only what you bring in.”

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”

"For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is."

:)

No more, please

Or, "Why I don't think I'll be joining the academy"

What if I one day wrote sentences like the following:

"The madeleine section mediates between the vertical immobility of an instantaneous revelation and the horizontal extensiveness of an incipient narration."

I don't know how I'd sleep at night. I might just as well become a drug mule for a pharmaceutical company. I'll admit, I've taken this out of context, but even within the paragraph or the chapter in which it occurs, this sentence is pretty bad. In context, what he means by vertical and horizontal is relatively clear to anyone who has read Saussure or Jakobson (and that is a fair assumption for his audience), but the rest of it verges on drivel, in my humble opinion.

Anyways, I'm done with the body of my essay (I don't call it a thesis anymore) and am still working through my intro and conclusion. I don't know if I can stand to read my chapters again. I will, but not for another few days at least.

Love Ev

morning happening

There's something wonderful about the confluence of maintream pop culture and over-edified acadmedic intellectualism that I represent right now. I'm working at the coffee shop with my laptop on the counter. Eve's "Let me blow ya mind" is playing on the stereo, I can't help but bob my head and shake my tush, even if it is stuck on a chair as I read Proust et les signes (Gilles Deleuze). I'm working on my introduction, and now I'm singing along to Phife, "You see you, your career is done like Johnny Carson's . . . "

Hope y'all are having a good day.

Morning peregrinations

"The job facing the cultural intellectual is therefore not accept the politics of identity as given, but to show how all representations are constructed, for what purpose, by whom, and with what components. . . . Every society and official tradition defends itself against interferences with its sanctioned narratives; over time, these acquire an almost theological status, with founding heroes, cherished ideas and values, national allegories having an estimable effect in cultural and political life."
—Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism

[cited by Cyraina Johson-Roullier in the epigraph to her book Reading on the Edge: Exiles, modernities, and cultural transformation in Proust, Joyce, and Baldwin]

The sun is shining

In my mind. I slept well last night and am heading into the home stretch before the playoffs. I'll be handing in a draft this upcoming Monday. After that, it's a whole lot of finessing and tweaking, but no more big chunks of writing. I've taken to listening to Daft Punk, Basement Jax and the like while editing my chapters. This may have to be changed as I get to more substantive edits, but for now it's like a party on my keyboard. I combined my chapters into one document for the first time last night: 57 pages. Actually, I spoke too soon about the no more big chunks of writing part, I still have an intro and conclusion to write which will probably bring my page total up 80 or so pages. I want every sentence to be to the point. I want a concise but elegant argument. Editing over the next month will probably (hopefully) bring me down to 65–70 pages, which would make me happy. While my project could easily be turned into a book, I don't think the issues I've managed to address warrant much more than 65 pages. In some instances I've included extra examples of identical or similar phenomena, which well good for argument's sake, create unneccesary repetition. I will probably relegate many of those to footnotes. Anyways, it goes well is the point. I also got a presentation out of the way yesterday which went very well, and got my Logic mid-term back, which I came oh so close to aceing. Hopefully that means I won't have to spend endless hours on natural deduction anymore. It seems like most of the course from here on out is an expansion of the ground we've already established. Yesterday we added the backwards "E" ("there exists") and the upside down "A" ("for every"). Such fun.

Love Ev

"Et en effet les femmes qu'on n'aime plus et qu'on rencontre après des années, n'y a-t-il pas entre elles et vous la mort, tout aussi bien que si elles n'étaient plus de ce monde, puisque le fait que notre amour n'existe plus fait de celles qu'elles étaient alors, ou de celui que nous étions, des morts?"

["And in effect the women whom we no longer love and who we encounter years later, is there not, between them and you, death, just as if they were not of this world anymore, since the fact that our love exists no more makes of those who they were, or of them who we were, dead?"]