RIFF MARKET

Riff Market Make It Stop Series Pt 1

In all likelihood I'll flipflop a bit on Lily Allen, the latest fun fresh new breezy mishmasher digital photos in bathroom myspace young person to, as they might put it, get blogfucked in the internet hole for her take on the popular music. Make no mistake though. The flipflop will be between disgust at her music's no bones about it malevolent spirit, and my mere apathy for yet another "I like Mobb Deep and T.Rex" rich dad lookyloo with an ear for sonics and a dainty singsong but not the heart to make good on either. Total clown.

The inevitability factor I could care less about. She could be big, could be, but three minutes tops. Best chances are she'll sign to Vice, do a few mismanaged dates in New York to tepid response except from the sorry dudes who think they might have a chance bedding her if their pics have enough megapixels, get a sweet Phones remix, and then we won't care about her until the May 2006 episode of I Love the Naughts, hosted by Coolfer. I'm bothered slightly by a very smart, very good friend throwing up his hands all "she's gonna be a big star, this review is of no use, no sir can't stop Hurricane Blogtrina" as if he's not in the only spot to keep this bitch in her place, but I trust he actually likes LA and thinks her irresistability is her fault not ours.

oh man he said bitch!

There's a critical case to be made surely, triphop ska as a Osama bin Protest music or odes to high London rent prices or whatever. But 98% of critical cases made are merely defenses of personal taste, worthless logic and historical context to justify that you really really like how artist X's pants ride up his butt or artist Y has three songs about snakes. You like the person, then you go to bat. Pop <--- Populus <--- People <--- It's all personal.

I'm sure the real Lily Allen is a blast around town, says actually funny things and kills two bottles on dinner dates and three with friends. But the Lily Allen on all these MP3s is a heartless, spineless, too cool manipulative bitch who expects you to hold the door but only so she can tell her friends that she owns you, who sings how she dated a guy for a year and a half and was miserable the whole time and it's his fault for ruining her "mental state" and now she's going to ruin his and Lily why the fuck did you stay in the relationship if you were miserable the whole time? ("Big Day", which includes the terribly ironic line "You left me in such a state/ You've only got yourself to blame"), who wakes up next to the person she loves on Sunday morning (cf. "Sunday Morning") but refuses to say "I Love You" because she'll lose the almighty upper hand. Instead he gets "you killed it with 'I love you'"--like, "you did a good job saying 'I love you', I know how much it takes to say that." But she doesn't.

"LDN" is such the perfect single for Allen since it's all small talk. She's good for seeing people picnicking and saying "al fresco," for watching someone get mugged and making a joke about it instead of calling the police. She can walk around town and say stuff about people, and surely that will make her "Joyceian" according to all the people who haven't actually read Ulysses but, you know, get the gist. "Smile" is the same beat with trite lyrics made triter given how hard she's trying to be herself, find her heart. You dumped her, she got by with "the help of her friends," and she also "found a light at the tunnel at the end," and now she loves to smile when you cry. Hey, simple enough, black and white and immature like you like them. Now put her in a threesome with Gnarls Barkley, get MSTRKRFT to remix the footage, put it on youtube and call it a day already.

"When you look with your eyes/ everything seems nice/ But if you look twice/ you can see it's all lies." She said it not me.