Not herself at all.

Christina Aguilera's new single "Not Myself Tonight" is a prime example of an artist adapting to the market. Christina's been out of the music scene for a while; her last album came out in 2006. Her new album is scheduled for release this June.

I'm not really a fan of hers. I mean, girl can SING, but I don't really like her stuff. Even so, I'm a little appalled by her sudden shift in musical style. Back when she and Britney Spears were fresh out of the Mickey Mouse club, she made a move to be the grungier, wilder of the two so they wouldn't be competing for the same demographic. She kept singing stuff, though. Like actually singing stuff, not just speaking at a set pitch like Ke$ha and Britney do. Well now, I guess she's realized that little teeny boppers like the monotonous, repetitive, dance pop fluff stuff. And so she decided to cash in.

Compare "Candyman" from her album Back to Basics



with "Not Myself Tonight" from her new album Bionic

Being sucked deeper into "the system"!

So I can't find my laptop charger. I haven't had it for like two weeks now. This means I can't turn my computer on, and that means I can't charge my iPod. And that means I can't listen to my iPod when I'm in the car, and I don't have a working CD player in there, so I end up listening to the radio. I work as a delivery driver/pita roller for Pita Pit about 30 hours a week. I'd say I'm driving about half the time. So I've been listening to about 15 hours of radio a week.

I've never really been into radio music. Even when I was into the Backstreet Boys and Blink_182 (Yeah, I have diverse interests), which are both bands that got a lot of radio time, I usually chose to just buy the CDs and listen to them that way. Or on the computer through one of those post-Napster file sharing programs like Morpheus or Kazaa.

And you know, it's gets all boring driving for that long. So I need to listen to something. And so I'm limited to the radio. And I'm afraid.

I generally listen to DIVA 92.3 or B97. Eh, it wouldn't be that big of a deal if I just listened to WTUL, and I like the music on that station, but I just can't stand the DJs. They always sound so scared to speak.

So anyway, I'm afraid. Because I'm actually starting to like the ultrapop generic crap that these two stations play. Crap like Lady Antebellum and Lil Wayne. And Adam Lambert. And Taylor Swift. Like... stuff that is such awful shit that I've never been able to really sit through it patiently before. But now I sing along and jam out. WHAT HAVE I BECOME?

Here are a few songs that I'm ashamed to admit I now know all the words to:

• Need You Now - Lady Antebellum
  
  "Need You Now" By Lady Antebellum. The anthem of codependent people worldwide. Get a tissue, finish that boxed wine, and find yourself a new boo. Don't whine about it through the guise of a #1 single. (But I can't help but sing along!)
  
  
• Whataya Want From Me - Adam La...
  
  "Whataya Want from Me?" by Adam Lambert. He's soooooo famous because he's soooooo different. Congratulations. And he can sing soooooo high. The lyrics are plain. I could have written that song at age nine. Actually I think I did. (But I've been practicing, and I can hit those high notes too! Eek!)
  
  
• 
  "Bedrock" by Young Money. Oh my force, this song disgusts me. When did "artists" start being so blatant about sexual lyrics? Take a tip from John Donne! His "Flea" is perfect in its subtlety, and isn't that what makes good poetry/lyrics? Subtleey and imagery and all that stuff. Stuff like "I'm attracted to her for her attractive ass" and "I think it's time to put this pussy on your sideburns" is just disconcerting. Is that all today's pop artists are capable of coming up with? (But holy shit do I jam out to this one.)
  

Ke$ha just wants to have fun.

A recent addition to the pop music scene, Ke$ha has undergone criticism ranging from her alleged advocation of underage drinking to her also alleged "ripping off" of Lady Gaga's image and musical style. I can't say I like her music. I mean it's fun to make fun of, but that's really all. I can say that anyone who takes her lyrics seriously probably doesn't know how to have a good time.

The criticisms dealing with her advocation of underage drinking stem from one like of lyrics from her single "Tik Tok": "Before I leave, [I] my teeth with a bottle of Jack." She's since said that people have asked her if she actually partakes in this disgusting evening ritual, to which she says she replies sarcastically something to the tune of, "Oh, of course, doesn't everybody?" The lyric is clearly representative of, perhaps even a criticism itself of, the modern young person's tendency to "clean up" their lives by ignoring their issues and just having fun.

As far as I'm concerned, Ke$ha deserves as much artistic respect as does any other musician who writes his or her own music. (That's really where I draw the line; if a professional musician doesn't write his or her own music I wouldn't really give them the title "artist." So people like Kelly Clarkson and NSYNC don't make the cut.) Her music is laced with lyrics ripe enough to analyze.

Her lyrics are strongly feminist, maybe even misandrist. She portrays men as objects for her own pleasure in response to decades of pop music degrading women and respecting them in direct proportion to their beauty or chest and butt sizes. "The dudes are lining up, 'cause they hear we got swagger, but we kick 'em to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger."

Some other controversy surrounding Ke$ha:

• She's criticized artists for lip-syncing at concerts. She said she'd rather be winded and genuine that on-key and artificial.


• A recording of her singing the lyrics "In ten years, Britney Spears... Britney who?" recently leaked and sparked some heat between the two pop divas. Ke$ha has since clarified that she was fifteen years old at the time of that recording and did not write the piece she was singing. She stated that she has "mad respect" for Spears.


• She called 16-year-old heartthrob Justin Bieber a "little baby" and said something about wanting to push him around in a stroller on stage? Whatever, I don't really care if he gets mad about that. I'm pretty much agreed with her on that one.

Lady Gaga (again)

I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I read an article from Cosmopolitan. Okay, not almost; I'm incredibly embarrassed to admit that I read an article from Cosmopolitan. I couldn't help it, though! Lady Gaga was on the cover!

And isn't that pretty much how everybody reacts to the sight or mention of Gaga? Love her or hate her, she interests you. I don't even have much of an opinion of her one way or another; I could do without her music, but I don't mind singing and moving along to it when I hear it on the radio or in a club. But there's no doubt she interests me.

So I was in Barnes and Noble and my boyfriend Dennis wanted to check out the magazines. He usually reads GQ and (occasionally) Vogue. I don't read any magazines regularly, and I'm positive neither of us have ever considered opening up an issue of Cosmo, but when we saw Gaga on the cover of a magazine, it didn't matter to us which one it was; we were going to read that article.

The interview is all about getting to know her. And that must be a challenge. I feel like if I ever met Lady Gaga, I would still feel unsure that she was being genuine with me. She's just so wild and mysterious that I feel like she might not even have a personality. She's some alien robot zombie who controls every situation and has an evil diabolical plan to take over the world. And even if she did go evil and take over the world, everyone would thoroughly enjoy that because her beat-heavy ultrapopmusic would convince us that there is no better way to live than we would in Gagaworld. Right? Anyone else feel that way?

A man focus of the interview is Lady Gaga's addiction to the spotlight. “'My friends joke that I’m dead until I get onstage,' she says. 'I’m dead right now as you’re speaking to me.'" There was a quiz she filled out that came after the interview (I assume every celebrity who gets a Cosmopolitan interview takes this quiz). One of the prompts was, "When the spotlight isn't on me..." leaving her the option to finish the sentence. I'd guess most celebrities put something like "I dance in my underwear like Tom Cruise in Risky Business" or "I sleep all day." How did Lady Gaga finish the sentence? "When the spotlight isn't on me... I wish it were." From her fashion to her isolationism to her refusal to answer to her birth name, Lady Gaga is an elusive and thoroughly intriguing woman.

Here's a pretty dece* cover of Lady Gaga's recent single "Telephone (ft. Beyoncé)" just for a little bit of semi-related music video watching pleasure.



*dece (DEES) adj. - abbreviation of "decent"