Gazing Males

Observations on women that would never be made about men, even though they appear in journalistic efforts aimed at "people."

[gazingmales]

An Assignment For Mark Guarino, Who Will Probably Be Called A "Good Dude" By A Friend But Who Comes Off As A Big Ol' Sexist In This Salon Piece About Taylor Swift

The indulgence of last decade produced enough pop trash to fill a trailer park in East Peoria: Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Ashley Simpson, Jessica Simpson, Mandy Moore, Kelly Osbourne, Avril Lavigne, Hilary Duff and even back benchers t.A.T.u, M2M, Hoku, Skye Sweetnam, Brooke Allison, Willa Ford and many others. The hubris was so high, record contracts were even slung to professional partygoers Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, who were both paid more for their brand than they were for whatever babble they purred into a microphone.

Today, most of these former lip-syncing product pushers are hovering on either side of age 30 and already long past their expiration date, leaving reality television and game shows the only shelves that will hold the weight of their baggage. Time is always a cruel leveler, but what is more telling from the last decade is the overnight rejection of so many of its key touchstones, from Britney Spears to George W. Bush, the tramp stamp to the luxury SUV, rap-rock to screamo, the Osbournes to the Palins.

(From your Salon piece.)

Mark: If I were your editor, which I clearly am not, I would have bracketed the above paragraphs and asked you the following questions:

1. Why are you only holding up female pop stars as the examples of "trash"?

2. What does "trash" mean here? It's unclear. Do you mean that the songs are enjoyable for their own sake and didn't have Deep Meaning behind them? What songs that were popular during this period weren't trash? Were any of them performed by women?

2a. You know that record labels putting out novelty albums by celebrities isn't really a new practice, right?

2b. Are you the type of guy who didn't really "get" "Since U Been Gone" until Ted Leo highlighted its similarities to "Maps"?

2c. It's "Ashlee."

3. How are the "tramp stamp" and "luxury SUV" parallel in your construction of bad '00s trends? Why, if rap-rock and screamo are just as bin-sendable as the aforementioned pop artists, did you not call out specific examples of those bands in said laundry list?

BONUS QUESTIONS BASED ON THE REST OF THE PIECE:

1. Did you notice that your group of "a-listers" who collaborated with Taylor Swift on "Red" was all dudes?

2. Do you really think that most records produced by professional musicians in professional studios and promoted with substantial amounts of money aren't somehow "calculated"? Please include the names of three indie PR companies that email you a lot in your answer.

[michelledean-deactivated2022042]

Haines, who not only attracts male journalists like free booze

Metric reveals imperial ambitions on Synthetica | Arts | National Post

And they’re all rotgut too!

(via michelledean)

[judyxberman]

[ohrohin-deactivated20120622]

via judyxberman:

VICE WRITERS Music Reviews Rating: X(((((((

Ladies, imagine being a Vice writer. Just walking around everywhere with your entitlement and ennui and midlength penis all gently bouncing in step; wearing a male tank top or a waxed mustache or some shit. Imagine having an ironic, retro-sexist dudebro-voice and getting together with a couple of other white guys and some cocaine and making your not-at-all-different voices all sync up as tautly as your nihilistic senses of humor, then snuggling all up together (no homo!) in a big Bushwick loft of partially employed trust-fund kids while something noninformative is happening on the Internet. What a life. I guess there’s the whole “everyone in the world thinks I’m an asshole” thing to deal with, too, but let’s not split hairs here: Vice writers got it pretty fucking made.

[gazingmales]

On her 22nd birthday, Kimbra sashayed onto the stage at Webster Hall, in her first bona fide concert in New York, while her band vamped on a campy movie theme. She wore a short pink party dress with poofy sleeves and her hair in bangs and a flip, a retro 1960s do. She looked doll-like, a brunette version of Alice in Wonderland from a Disney film, but showing off more leg than Alice would. And when she began her first song, “Cameo Lover,” an upbeat plea to her man for intimacy, her voice was anything but innocent.

this piece is pretty cliche-packed overall but the lede is breathtaking. for fun, try and write a similar paragraph about gotye! 

[moonweave-deleted-deactivated20]

[gazingmales]

"Cold-Rock Stuff," Spin, November 1989

[fightwithknives]

I don’t particularly care for Florence & the Machine, but there’s a whole world of music that they (she?) could be compared to that’s not Lady Gaga, who doesn’t sound remotely like Florence Welch. (And if I say the puns are bad, they are probably pretty bad, because lord knows I love puns.)

Or: “Chicks, man” is not a critical stance.

[whatevs]

Never change, Media Take Out, never change.

[fek]

Important context to consider when reading Media Take Out: It’s run by a guy with a law degree from Columbia University. 

[ohnotheywrittnt]

Author: Ric Delgado [Twitter]

Publication: Broward Palm Beach New Times

Music Editor: Liz Tracy [[email protected]]

(click the first image to read in order)

[marathonpacks-deactivated201612]

Started a new blog to point out horrifying/offensive music writing that allows us to read and yell at the author, but doesn’t send traffic to the sites that publish it.

[gazingmales]

We actually recommend not reading any of this story, but if you must, use these handy screengrabs instead of rewarding the author with web traffic.

[gazingmales]

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. If she doesn’t get your willy moving, you’re gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that!)... Come on Grace Potter, write one irresistible song! We don’t want to sleep with airheads, not more than once!

Another one from the music industry's "number one pundit." 

[gazingmales]

Feist? I wanted to love her. Up close and personal her complexion was less than perfect...

Bob Lefsetz on Coachella. Hard-hitting observations there! 

[gazingmales]

There is something different about Fiona Apple now, and it seems largely physical in nature. She is still extremely skinny, but now appears buff and wiry, suggesting that she has spent a lot of the past half decade hitting the gym and mastering yoga poses. This physical strength changes the way she moves and carries herself. When I saw her six years ago, she still came across as small and frail, as if she could just float away on a light breeze. That wispiness is gone, replaced by a commanding presence that carries over to her voice, which has become more stern and aggressive. This was most apparent in “Sleep to Dream,” which once seemed like a girl’s fantasy of wielding power over someone who has underestimated and wronged her, but now sounds like a grown woman tapping directly into a righteous fury. Her body language was taut and severe; she looked genuinely intimidating.

Matthew Perpetua

[gazingmales]

Slender and toned, she wore a green tank top; her muscles spoke loudly as her body moved in precise ways on each song. On “Paper Bag” she held her hand tight against her stomach, muscles flexing, as she swayed side to side ever so slightly. During “Sleep to Dream” she stretched up against the piano like a cat, yawning with her frame.

Jon Caramanica

[shana--e-deactivated20130513]

Oh Blogger Bros, there must be another equally reductive and dismissive adjective that you can use to express your indifference for the title of Fiona Apple’s new album other than crazy. You are writers!

[monstercatmachine-blog]

Will Self and the Dingle-Dangle Women

“that 88-pound rearview mirror dingle-dangle of a girl“—Will Self on Olga Korbut, Spy magazine, June, 1997  “a rearview-mirror dingle-dangle of a woman“—Will Self on Doris Lessing, The Independent, April 4, 1999 ”no more than a no more than a rearview-mirror dingle-dangle of a woman“—Will Self describing a character in his “live novella,” The Independent, March 3, 2012 ”a rearview-mirror dingle-dangle of a woman“—Will Self on Azealia Banks, The New York Times, March 4, 2012

[broadcasthack]

So this GIF (stupid Tumblr and its 10 MB limit) yanked from the trailer for British GQ’s “Comedy Issue” is making the rounds because, y’know, Olivia Wilde and boobs, y’all. Which I get, because that’s what dude magazines seem to revert to, even the supposedly more upscale ones like GQ, Details, and Esquire (and note that GQ has two separate covers for it, of course!) Also, I’m a heterosexual dude and I like boobs.

But it’s sad and disappointing (and probably a bit angering) to know that when the editors of an edition of a big-name magazine got right down to it, they pretty much cheekily admitted, “Yeah, we just realized it looks like we didn’t include any women on this comedy issue, but it’s too late in the publication cycle, so here, boobs!” It’s like noting you have a pipe that’s leaking all over the bathroom floor but not really doing anything to fix it.

[gazingmales]

There was no kiss, but the subject of Del Rey’s mouth is an irresistible one.