Growing up — much like, I am going to estimate, 100 percent of the population — I felt stifled by the stereotypes and expectations of my gender. Even from the privileged position of being a straight, white, cisgender woman, I still walked around in a constant panic that I was doing femininity wrong. (I tripped every time I put on heels. I played sports a little too competitively in gym class. I went through a very unfortunate brown-lipstick phase.) Coming of age in the Britney era did not exactly help my or any young woman’s feelings of feminine inadequacy; the message she telegraphed to the girl population was “You’re either born hot or you’re not. Sorry.” With Britney, femininity was something innate. So what I loved most about Lady Gaga was how unapologetically fake she was, especially when she was at her most girlie. (The wigs! The affect! The Alexander McQueen shoes!) The much-needed message that she beamed to the world was that — even if you are a straight, cisgender woman, as she turned out to be — femininity is always a drag act. And so, during her reign, pop stars’ ideas of womanhood mutated into something robotic, grotesque, and unavoidably performative. This leveled the playing field somehow. In the early days of Gaga’s rule, I thought often of a quote from the theorist Mary Russo: “To put on femininity with a vengeance suggests the power of taking it off.”
Less than a decade later, female pop stars — much like the rest of society — have come so far in scrambling gender stereotypes that it seems a little old-fashioned to have to stop and point all of this out. “Weirdness” soon became, of all things, the norm. Katy Perry, Ke$ha, and Nicki Minaj all appeared as if in a contest to out-strange one another. In a 2013 New York Times piece, Heather Havrilesky noted the way in which Minaj, then an American Idol judge whose of-the-moment values stood in stark contrast to her generational predecessor Mariah Carey, came to embody this very millennial power of brazen artificiality: “Freaky fakeness on the outside — bouffant hairdos, gigantic shoes, bizarre outfits — is now interpreted as a sign of strength and realness on the inside.”
We had Gaga to thank for this. And, also, to blame.
It is though, no era sold 37 million tracks in the US and 60 million worldwide.
I thought so, but I never really bothered to look into who else could've done it really.
That means it will one day pass 40M digital downloads in the US.
From one album.
That's just ridiculous.
Taylor stans are really the only ones who can gloat all they want with no fear because she has worked her white slave owning magic into the hearts and minds of the entire Western civilization. Nothing can stop her now.
That's not how it works Katy would not be able to justify the prices that she would need to charge in order to get a 400m grossing tour for at least a couple of decades (during which she would also need to be consistently successful). Katy has already pretty much maxed out her commercial appeal anyway. She is a hits-driven artist and she's had the biggest hits she's going to have at this point.
I said if Tity has another huge era, not when Tity has another huge era. Keep up, mate.
Okay, that's actually pretty close to mine.
Two questions though.
1. Loud rating out of ten overall?
2. How is Talk That Talk better than Loud? That's Rihanna's weakest album this decade for me. Aside from a few gems I just see a bunch of messy filler. I feel like it's rated highly among most of her fans and non-fans but I just don't get it like I said aside from the gems.
Don't jump me.
Oh I agree! TTT was absolute trash. The definition of filler.
Should have a been a rih-rihlease of Loud with WFL, Cockiness, BC, WHYB, DOL, DYT and YDO.
I said if Tity has another huge era, not when Tity has another huge era. Keep up, mate.
And if she has another huge era, it won't mean she will surpass whatever she's done before. It could be Teenage Dream-sized (a HUGE era), but that's as far as she will ever go. And she still would not gross 400m ever.
Hive have had their share of let downs via 4. They are level-headed, at least most are.
Quote:
Originally posted by 2AM
Here we go again.
All we can do is wait and see if it finally happens like ya'll been saying since like 2010.
I'm not shading you all. It's just an observation. It's sort of like a pattern, that I'm noticing in the stan world. One pop girl smashes hard and the fanbase becomes cocky, naturally, and then they reach a state of delusion where they feel like their fave cannot fail, that he/she is invincible. And then comes the rude awakening.
That has happened to almost every stanbase. Most recently, the Monsters and the Navy. I remember just last year, how Navy was saying that Rihanna was going to end careers and this and that, but the complete opposite happened.
Even I could never imagine in my wildest dreams that Rihanna was going to bomb this hard. Like, it just seemed impossible, but she did.
Not saying that Katy is going to bomb with her upcoming era, and for ya'lls sake, I hope she doesn't. But I can't help but notice the Kats getting caught up in the same trap of delusion that other stan bases have gotten caught in before. That's all.
There really is a Pre/After-Gaga on culture! Everything was so different before her debut! :$
And very little of it had to do with Gaga
I'm not here for the monsters now trying to rewrite history (since they can't look forward to anything) to make it seem like she ushered a new era of equality. And all of you are gays too, you should appreciate the contributions of your own people that led things to being how they are now. Love yourselves.
Okay, that's actually pretty close to mine.
Two questions though.
1. Loud rating out of ten overall?
2. How is Talk That Talk better than Loud? That's Rihanna's weakest album this decade for me. Aside from a few gems I just see a bunch of messy filler. I feel like it's rated highly among most of her fans and non-fans but I just don't get it like I said aside from the gems.
Don't jump me.
I'm not sure what I'd give Loud overall. Maybe 7/10.
I prefer TTT because I prefer Urban Rihanna to pop Rihanna. I also like it because she managed to do both well on TTT. You have the universally loved songs like WFL and WHYB, and you have the bops like Cockiness, BC, WNL, Red Lipstick, even YDO on a good day.
I get how you'd prefer LOUD though. It has only two real duds, while TTT has a lot of songs that are just...there.
Katy would not be able to justify the prices that she would need to charge in order to get a 400m grossing tour for at least a couple of decades (during which she would also need to be consistently successful). Katy has already pretty much maxed out her commercial appeal anyway. She is a hits-driven artist and she's had the biggest hits she's going to have at this point.
