Pop-stars are Not Just Pretty Faces

Only a few years ago the words “female pop star” would conjure up images of scantily-clad, pouting sex kittens with a vocabulary limited to ‘ooh’, ‘baby’, and the occasional ‘oh, baby’. True to the ‘Ten Things I Hate About You’ classic deadpan, “I want you, I need you, oh, baby, oh, baby,” many of the artists on the airwaves were no more than synthesised hotties. Right now, more than ever, the music industry is making way for scantily clad and pouting female pop singers with a brain and personality behind them. Whether you like their music or not, and it’s evidenced that many do, the likes of Beth Ditto, and Lily Allen are leading a brigade of songstresses that have powerful voices and something to say with them.

I was inspired by dinner with a friend who’d recently seen Allen’s Australian tour, and raved about her political statements and straight-to-the-point lyrics. The ability to pen lyrics that have any real sentiment behind them at all – even if it is just having a whinge at sexual incompetence – is something that is severely lacking in much of our music today. I know many of these artists aren’t making the grandest, or the most life-changing of statements, but they’re making them in a way that is accessible, non-pretentious and that makes for a good sing-along.

Music has always been a catalyst for social change – think anti-war songs of the Sixties, Bob Dylan and all that jazz. There have been a few bands to really hone in on the war in Iraq, and human rights issues faced across the world today, in their lyrics, but nothing that has really incited listeners. In that regard, simple songs like Allen’s ‘Fuck You Very Much’, and Pink’s ‘Mr President’ work well, in that audiences don’t have to work too hard to digest the message contained, and to feel an affinity with the lyrics. It might not be your cup of tea, and you might not even agree with what they’re saying, but I’ll take my hat off to any singer, writer, or really anyone who says what they’re really thinking without all the bullshit. In a world as deteriorated, and yet full of so many apathetic people as ours, there’s not much room to stand back and look pretty.

– Anna Angel