Pop Ramblings

I’m a bit of an obsessive-compulsive pop flip flop. One day, Cat Power rules my iPod. The next day, I only play about Britney Spears.

As record companies release their 2011 schedules, bloggers have been hyping up two pop records: Lady Gaga’s Born This Way and Britney Spear’s untitled seventh EP. Hipsters, rappers, folkies, and punks admit to loving Gaga, but Spears is this nation’s biggest guilty pleasure. Rolling Stone loves to mock her but they tend to place her on their best of lists every year. Even in 2010, when Spears became a pop hermit, the magazine named her “Telephone” demo one of the year’s best songs.

With Gaga’s new CD, I feel immense momentum. I can’t go on Twitter or facebook without seeing people quoting “Born This Way,” a single that she has yet to drop. I hear no one talking about “Hold It Against Me,” Britney’s single that Z-100 premieres in four days. Then I go on MTV.Com and find a poll asking who fans think will rule the pop charts in 2011: Gaga or Spears? I figured Gaga will win by seventy five percent, but she lost…BY NINTY FOUR PERCENT, which brings me to another question: twenty five years from now, after Gaga and Spears have battled each other for thirty years, who will have put a bigger dent in pop culture? After all, in the eighties, many people predicted Cyndi Lauper would release hit pop records for decades while Madonna would never have a hit record after “Holiday.” Only ten years ago, critics praised Christina Aguilera and called Britney Spears a future blast in the past. Did you hear Bionic, Xtina’s latest CD? Probably, not because no one bought it, but I’m sure you know “Womanizer” by heart. Everyone does!

Yesterday, I went to Best Buy to use a gift card my brother gave me for Christmas. I despise that store. They over price everything and I have yet to find a good buy there. Still, I wanted to burn the gift card in my wallet, buy something before I forgot about it. So I bought Lauryn Hill Unplugged 2.0. I loved to own my favorite artists’ discographies. Look at my iTunes and you’ll find every Hole, Smashing Pumpkins, Fiona Apple, Girls, Britney Spears, and Madonna song except a few Madonna and Britney Spears CD’s. I’m that dedicated!

I read reviews of the Unplugged disc and they ranged from celebrating Hill as the best female M.C. ever to calling her a pretentious loony-tune, who should invest in counseling. Unlike typical MTV sessions, where artists perform acoustic versions of their classics, Ms. Hill only performed original tracks. Listening to disc one on the way home, I laughed at some of her interludes. She claims no one knew her till the early 2000’s, the time she performed these original tracks. I saw her interview with NPR last year, and she sounded logical, making me wonder if the press created the image of Lauryn Hill as a reclusive nutty zealot. Then I listened to this album, and I believed every article I ever read. “Fantasy is what people want. Reality is what people need.” What is reality, Lauren? Is reality stripping the self of anything aesthetic? She claims wearing a bandana at a concert is REALITY, but its still a costume. If reality means bare, then get naked, Ms. Lauryn Hill. Take off the fucking jean jacket! A folk outfit is still and outfit. Go ask Bob Dylan.

I thought she sounded nuts, but then I agreed with her. It only takes one semester with Julie Abraham to realize that our families, neighborhoods, and experiences create both our outward and inward appearances.

“Reality is what we need…Fantasy is what we want.”

That concept of fantasy makes every Howard Ashman work. Humans love to WANT. Once we buy something, the high disappears, and we want something else. Want drives us. Hill gets this.

When I heard that Ms. Lauryn Hill showed up four hour late to her comeback show and proclaimed, “I know I’m worth the wait,” I was scarred that she was going to be a shit show like Bob Dylan at his Terminal 5 show. I wanted to punch her, but she is worth the wait. Otherwise, why would people stay for the show? Sure, Prince left, but maybe he’s the crazy one. He puts on a show. She gave up performing. Now, she only tells the truth. Maybe, Lauryn Hill is the sane one and we’re all the crazy bitches blind to the world.