Valley of the Trolley Dollies

Review of the new Paris Hilton album (due to hit the bargain bins in Woolies next week) 

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1841197,00.html

Things we learned at last nights hot and sticky Madonna Show:

Madonna smells of cheap Peach-scented Deodorant. Or at least the woman stood next to me did.

Gurlfriend needs her roots doing.

The voice that was once described as sounding like Minnie Mouse on Helium now sounds a bit more like Stevie Nicks on Peruvian.

It’s possible to sing large parts of La Ciccone’s back catalogue over the backing tracks to many of her more recent works. Which lends serious credence to the fact that, left to it’s own devices, Pop will eat itself. You want proof? ‘Lucky Star’ (or, even, ‘Holiday’) over the Track to ‘Get Together’, ‘Frozen’ over ‘Isaac’.

Mrs Richie is mellowing: She interacted more with the audience than I’ve ever seen before; and not just ‘Are you ready to Rock (check piece of paper taped to riser) London?’ Proper ten second conversations, which included the grabbing and wearing of stetsons from the great unwashed two hunderd-quid paying members of the audience. I, of course, could only think ‘Bring on the Nit Nurse!’

Madge still has a knack for some fabulous setpieces. And a penchant for generating some great publicity. The controversial crucifixion section has been all over the papers. I was waiting to be bored and blase, but it was actually extremely well done. The Madge on a Cross image has actually detracted from the point of the whole section, which is to expose the divisions and hypocrisy generated by almost every religion on the face of the planet. The crucifix isn’t the only religious image used, but it sells papers (and, one supposes, concert tix. And, it seems, from the number of people wearing them afterwards, t-shirts with the ‘offending’ image on them). The piece starts with different first person testaments - about child abuse, gang warfare, hopelessness, addiction, loss, loneliness, and includes a great line spoken by a kid whose dad used to hit him so hard he’d fly across the room:

‘Falling is easy. And sometimes, it seems so nice to just stay where you land, close your eyes, and let it all be over. But it’s how you stand back up that matters…’

The section ends with a quotation from Matthew 25:40: “Whatsoever you did unto the least of my bretheren, you did it unto me.”

… but at these prices, a roadie and a bottle of Windex are - what? - out of the question? I hate to see a smeary mirror. And that setpiece had more smeary mirrors than a hotel room after Girls Aloud, Daniella Westbrook, Ms Nicks, Mrs Houston-Brown and Kate Moss have checked out.

***

Madonna Veronica Louise is slowly morphing into Cherilynn. In fact, the perfect movie project for the girls might be a remake of ‘Death Becomes her’. Or, possibly, “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane”:

“You wouldn’t treat me this way if’n I wasn’t in a wheelchair, whooooah!”

“But ya are, Cher! Ya are!” Thwack! with a riding crop across the crip’s legs, and exit Ms. M.

***

The Italian Hellion needs to put the guitar down. Listen, m’dear: You know I love you as much as any glittery pink-feathery old poof possibly can. I buy the albums. The remixes. The re-remixes. The dvds. The concert tix (well, I didn’t buy these ones. Or the last lot; but you get the point). But the fact remains: You made your name by mincing around the stage in fab drag miming to pop songs. You have now progressed to a point where your reputation is enhanced by the fact that you mince around the stage in very expensively designed and tailored couture drag actually, really, singing large parts of the same pop songs; The project to turn yourself into the drag Janis Ian has got to stop. Guitars in the last three tours. We get it. You’re an artist. You write the songs yourself. Using a guitar. Authors don’t insist on turning up to their book launches with laptops, cigarettes, binbags full of empty wine bottles, diaries filled with vitriol and hatred and a photo album filled with snaps of all the people they’ve avoided, ignored, or used in their works, just to a prove point. Neither should you. Capice? Ta.

La Ritchie’s lyrics are largely rather vague and bland. This makes them, for the purposes of a show such as this, the musical equivalent of a Marc Rothko painting: Lovely to behold, but abstract enough to allow you to, effectively add on the meaning as you see fit by placing them into a context that you choose. (Who knew, for example, that ‘Live to tell’ was about Child abuse, hopelessness, and the relative failure of religion and popular belief systems to provide meaning to the lives of the people of the world? I din’t, that’s fer sure). The resultant setpiece is either a total, like, work of performance art; or the triumph of the visual and conceptual over any attempt at traditional verbal narrative. Now go look all that up in your dictionary of deconstructivism.

The Material Girl does not come down in a glitter ball; the Ball is empty when it lands on stage, and she in fact climbs into it via a trap located right under it. This is indicative of something; probably the fact that we’ve seen too many shows and gotten drunk with too many theatricals to ever take ‘the magic’ ™ at face value.

Her Royal Blonde Ambtioness had better (and fitter) boy dancers than last time. But the choreography to ‘Jump’ was a freakin’ disgrace. Where, I demand to know, were the Trampolines? It’s ‘Jump’. Not ‘Swing from the parrallel bars and propel yourselves around like a bunch of Hyperactive 6 year olds on a Ribena Jag!’

The High Priestess of Pop ™ is (surprise!) a bit Cheeky: The latest album (original title: ‘Christ!The last one flopped, let’s bring the gays and the housewives back on board!’) consists of a nice bunch of decent pop tunes layered over what appear to be a tonne of samples from perennially popular dance tracks. Tracks such as Giorgio Moroder’s work on ‘I feel love’, Stardusts “The Music Sounds Better with You”, The Jacksons “Can You feel it?” And ABBA’s “Gimme gimme gimme”. Yet, if you peruse said recent album’s writing credits, the only track that’s noted as a direct lift is the sample from ‘Gimme’, which makes me wonder how she can get away with crooning ‘I feel love’ in the middle of her own ‘Future lovers’ over the identical backing track that both tunes share. Cheeky!

The other thing we learned: Madge is Fab! The concert was great! Even if it felt a bit Maddonna-by-numbers:

‘Glitter Ball?’ -Check.

‘Religious Imagery?’ -Check.

‘Controversialism?’ - Check.

‘Half Dressed Muscle Mary’s Dancing in degrading costumes?’ - Check.

‘What about the ones on the stage?’ - What? Oh, yes, check!

It was still a world away from the usual dreck we get to endure enjoy.

Anyways, that’s it. Up North tomorrow. Next week, an essay on relative morality and issues of gender bias and identity in the works of Mc Fly. Be sure to tune in…

Yes, I know: I’ve been back to reality for over a week now.

And in all that time, whilst promising that the photos/memory archive/ music notes / free sample of CKone would be online just as soon as possible, not once have I expressed our sincerest thanks to Uncle Bob for his superlative Blogging efforts in our absence.

He was smart, funny, got the pictures to actually display on his postings, and didn’t use the more sordid gossip that our friends kindly mailed him in his postings.

And for the last part, if for nothing else, we say Thank You Bob.