“This is a song about faking orgasms!”
The title of this post comes from the introduction to the Au Pairs song “Come Again”.
So, I’ve been thinking recently about Gaga’s relationship to post-punk — With all her homage to “The New York Scene,” the connection isn’t too hard to make. Musically she’s much more Eurodance than strictly post-punk (not to say that Eurodance is unrelated to post-punk: Factory Records and acid house, anyone?), but her fashion sense is totally “no-wave” – it’s all beauty = ugly = grotesque. MAC’s “Viva la Glam” paired Gaga w/Cindy Lauper for a reason.
Gaga is all about the awkward, the monstrous, the uncomfortable — which are all post-punk sentiments. It’s about dancing in full recognition of your own discomfort with your own body, and your anxiety over your own discomfort with your own body. It’s about being funky AND awkward. (There’s something to be said about whiteness/white identity here, but I’ll leave that for later.) It’s not about romance, but BAD romances, aka “love like anthrax”. Contort yourself!
That said, it’s interesting to think about Gaga’s “Poker Face” alongside the Au Pairs’ “Come Again” — they’re both songs about women faking orgasms.
Au Pairs:
Gaga:
Other than the subject matter, I haven’t really thought through relevant similarities or differences between the tracks. So, if you have any thoughts on this, I’d love to hear them.
Also, anyone know of other songs about women faking orgasms?
K. Michelle Ft. Missy Elliot—title of song is Fakin’ It
I don’t think this is the official video but it has an interesting dynamic sense it is just scenes of her in the studio.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wgjs72slw7E&feature=related
cool, thx!
YES! ‘Funky and awkward’; I would view my own musicality, and indeed way of being, as being so. Precisely that. I used to call it ‘prime number rhythm’ in my head – in reference to the strangely propulsive funkiness of the fives and sevens in Bartok and Stravinsky, and, later, Radiohead, and others. Gaga gets at the same thing. I think perhaps the weird geometries of Missy Elliot and Timbaland broach something akin, though obviously from a distinct racial perspective.
Oh, also, I once read a paper (by my PhD supervisor, Keith Potter) arguing that the repeated female vocalisations in Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians signify a (multiple) multiple orgasm (sadly in my experience a female only phenomenon). Not quite a fake orgasm, then, but a simulacrum at least!