Is Gen Y Sleazy

Or just free from constraints?

Annie Goodstein complains that a young Joni Mitchell would not be pretty enough to be a pop star today. She points us, by comparison, to Avril Lavigne, almost topless and talking dirty in Blender.

Avril is looking good these days but she was just a skinny little kid when she made it big. So, I don't think Goodstein's right.

However, Annie might have a point. The sixties had the sexual revolution, mini-skirts and go-go dancers in cages but I don't think pop music and porn started to merge until the late 70s (eg Lee Aaron).

Now rap and girl group videos are far sexier than any strippers I've ever seen. And rap music is more foul-mouthed and meaner than any music I've ever heard.

So what does that say about Gen Y? Has the relaxation of censorship merely freed them to say and do what earlier generations merely felt. Or are they different?

Comments

[Ryan Paugh]

Joni Mitchell wouldn't want to be a pop star today.

Poor Avril, she had potential. I wonder when she starts rehab?

[Colin Kingsbury]

CS Lewis (I think, or maybe it's Chsterton) has an interesting line about not confusing manners with morals.

I was going to say that Avril's seemed a little nasty for a Canadian lately, but then I remembered that Alanis Morrisette was Canadian too, and she seemed pretty angry, so I guess you guys get all your anger out by channeling it into music and stand-up comedy.

In any case, the old Avril was kind of unusual in that her previous album(s) had crossover appeal to people old enough to be her parents, and not just in a creepy way. I'll confess to being shocked and horrified when I found that I kind of liked some of it--it just didn't seem right. Her latest stuff is more like those mosquito ringtones only teenagers can hear and seems scientifically designed to repel anyone over 23. Which if you think about it seems more age-appropriate. At least when I was a kid, half the point of music was that it drove your parents crazy. If my dad had borrowed my Guns and Roses CDs it would have kind of freaked me out.

[Recruiting Animal]

Hey, Collie, call me what you will but I saw a bit of Avril in concert on CBC (The Canadian Broadcasting Network) last week and I thought she was pretty good in a happy cheerleader kind of way.

I'd seen one of her videos before which featured her alone in an old hotel room in boxer shorts smashing a mirror with her fist. I think I saw that scene in a lot of girl singer videos around that time and found it nonsensical. (No cuts, no blood, she was one tough teeny-bopper).

They showed clips of an interview between sets on CBC and it was all banal stuff, nothing like what the magazine has pasted over her picture. So my guess is that she talks more like a little girl than a tough broad. But who knows.

[Julianna]

I've liked Avril Lavigne's past albums (Let Go, Under My Skin and Complicated). Her most recent one, The Best Damn Thing, strikes me as more parodical of the sex-obsessed pop music than a descent thereto.

Take the first song off the album, "Girlfriend."
(http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/avrillavigne/girlfriend.html)
It's essentially a checklist.
1. I'm the best around.
2. I'm hot.
3. Implies sex
4. Everyone agrees with the aforementioned points

It's not that much of a leap to think the singer of "Complicated" and "Sk8er boi" would parody a song like Pussycat Doll's "Doncha (wish your girlfriend was hot like me?)"