The Miley Movement

So it turns out Kanye West’s proclamation that Beyonce had “the best video of all time” was as premature as the time he blew his beans up Kim Kardashian.

For my money (-£739 to be exact) there’s only one person in pop worth writing about and it would appear EVERYBODY wants to write about her, pops perky twerky princess Miley. 

It must be a butt fucker for the wealthy art school girls of America’s cosmopolitan cities that some rich red neck chick has muscled in on their NYC art house cinema screenings, completely grabbed pop-culture by the wrecking balls and drained it of all its shallow spunk. Gaga overestimates and overrates pop culture, Cyrus gets that it’s simple. Gaga wears meat, Miley makes people beat theirs. She’s hot, and she wants to get naked. You don’t ask Terry Richardson to direct your video and expect to keep your clothes on. I’m pretty sure he could take your primary school yearbook photo and you’d leave with just your tie on.

But apart from creating the two best pop singles of the year so far, what I really like about Miley 2.0 is that she literally does not give two fucks. Nerds smarter than me have attempted to classify her creation as racist and anti-feminist but what most seem to fall short on is that it’s awesome. Breakdown queen Sinead O’Connor has had a pop, Miley responded by mocking her mental health problems. No fucks. She’s wearing 12 hole Dr. Martin’s in her video and she’s backing it up with 12 round comebacks to people who literally couldn’t be further from relevance from right now. What makes Miley different from Sinead, Britney, Li-Lo and co. is that she’s doing drugs the right way. Whilst the PR machine is carefully hiding such mischief, there’s no doubt that at some hipster LA party Cyrus is sniffing harder than the builders brought in to take away THAT wrecking ball. The party will undoubtedly stop, but not for a while yet. And if it does she’s got Billy Ray’s money to fall back on, as well as country music’s ever welcoming embrace. There’s no chance of a Cyrus breakdown, unless it’s a carefully thought out re-birth a couple of albums down the line.

 

Any arguments that it’s the countless agents, management and PR guru’s that are running the Miley Movement are probably rooted in fact, but Cyrus is using them like she’s using us, sticking a foam middle finger right up our arses. Even on MTV’s attempt at getting a slice of the pro-Cyrus propaganda pie “The Miley Movement” she managed to distort and fuck it up by coming across as a bit of a bratty twat. Perfect. That’s how we want our rock-stars, moaning about the tiniest thing going wrong backstage and then stepping out into the camera’s glare all teeth, tits and tongue. I haven’t gotten round to buying Bangerz yet, but I sure as hell will and so will you, probably. One of my best friends did his dissertation on Miley Cyrus two years ago. He was well ahead of the game and the fact that he could get 10,000 words plus out of the old Cyrus gives the clearest indication yet that there’s serious depth to this pop-parade that delves deeper than just soft-core porn. She looks like a little boy made to do PE in his pants in the “Wrecking Ball” video; she gets kicked in the head in the “We Can’t Stop” video and she continually keeps getting bollucked by her parents. This is angst, this is youth, and this is quite frankly the best thing to happen to pop-culture in forever. I also can't thank her enough personally for choosing to jump onto rap culture and, unlike those stoopid models, stay the fuck away from punk.

No we don’t want our daughters or sisters copying her, but what we do want is a sledgehammer sucking, tantrum chucking, finger fucking superstar. Here she is:

A Democratic, Pussy-footing Around How Festivals Are Now Shit and Full of Twats.

Basically I hate this post, but it didn't get picked up by the monetary outlets I'd hoped it would so it's a shame to waste 500 words...A subtle moan about the scrots that go to, and get booked on festivals nowadays. It's kinda boring, but then so are Mumford & Sons and people consume that shit like lollipop dicks shooting coca-cola. 

With the festival season now over and that final layer of grime just about washed off your skin it seems a pretty good time to consider another fun filled festival summer.

One trend that seems pretty prominent in the UK festival scene right now is the frequent additions of more mainstream pop and r’n’b artists sharing the stages and tents with the more traditional alternative bands. On the flip side of this many of the remaining big niche genre festivals appear to be struggling to stay afloat and avoid a chart takeover.  
This year’s Glastonbury followed on from Beyonce’s headline performance with mainstage sets from the likes of Dizzee Rascal, Rita Ora and Professor Green, whilst the traditionally rock festival at Reading and Leeds introduced a new stage featuring grime, garage and hip-hop artists such as Wiley, Angel Haze and Waka Flocka Flame. Meanwhile V Festival has seemingly decided to focus almost entirely on MTV, top 40 acts with Emeli Sande, Ellie Goulding and Kendrick Lamar all enjoying prominent slots.

Whilst some festival purists may well resent moves to appeal to a wider audience, doing so may well be crucial to ensuring long-term survival of these live music institutions. Although the metal based Download Festival appears to be thriving, many alternative events in the UK have been forced to downsize or dissolve altogether. Sonisphere’s Knebworth event was cancelled in 2012, citing the economy and low ticket sales as the main reasons, despite boasting Kiss and Queen (with Adam Lambert) as headliners. This year’s Hevy Fest featured Black Flag and Killswitch Engage and yet despite trying to reschedule as an indoor show was also eventually forced to cancel. Alternative festivals may well find resisting excessive commercialisation difficult, both in attracting fans and finance. One worry for the old school is that mainstream artists across all festivals will lead to events losing their identities and differences. With so much of TV and Radio mainly focusing on the music in the charts festivals are often rare chances for fans to get all of their favourite music together in one place, a chance to escape the commercialised wave that is smothered across the media.  Celebrities, “IT” girls and reality stars have all gate crashed the festival scene, potentially threatening to steal it away from the real music fans, leaving a worse taste in your mouth than the burger van on the final day (although festival cuisine now seems more of a draw than the music for some, Ostrich burgers at Glasto anyone?).

However, is the argument of a mainstream invasion really such a worrying issue, or is it just a bad rumour like the “girl who fell in” one of THOSE port-a-loos? Reading and Leeds still boasted a strong alternative presence on the Main Stage, whilst Eminem as a headliner is certainly nothing new, having also topped the bill back in 2001. Another major plus point for wider ranging festivals is the variety of styles that is provided by broader artists. Genre fusion has always been a key part of alternative music and allowing different artists to interact and share a stage will surely lead to innovations in sound and staging that can only serve to see festivals evolve and not stagnate. In addition to this pop music appears to have realised the importance of live shows and touring in recent years, leading to a major improvement in the quality of performance. The massive recent tours by the likes of Rihanna and Taylor Swift emphasise that pop acts certainly do have a place in the live music calendar, whilst the entertainment and production values they utilise make for an enjoyable set regardless of whether or not you enjoy the music. Much of the fun of going to festivals is discovering new things, especially new music and the opportunity to be introduced to a new genre or band certainly can’t be considered a negative.

Whatever your opinion regarding increasingly mainstream acts on festival bills it seems like for the larger events in particular, they’re here to stay. Fans usually vote with their feet, so the fact that these festivals continue to thrive and the acts continue to avoid being bottled off stage suggests that fans have either accepted the change, or, heaven forbid, actually enjoy the sets. Thankfully however, there are still plenty of smaller niche festivals in the UK, Dead Punk festival in Bristol this year was one of the best all day shows I’ve ever attended and emphasised that despite a number of high profile festival cancellations in recent years, there is still places for alternative music fans to escape the charts. Meanwhile, the big festivals all still provide enough variety to find or discover something you like. And hey, if you don’t like the music stay in your tent and don’t spoil it for those that do!