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I find Eminem the most interesting public figure in popular media for exactly the reason that I, and many others, find it hard to reconcile the contradiction that he seems to represent.
When interviewed by Zane on MTV last year (hey, that cat is the walking talking product of the post-modern-sentence generator in Conversation, made flesh) he outright, and apparently innocently, denied having any interest in or worthwhile knowledge of politics at large, or current affairs. To be fair, this is reflected in his music, which is largely self obsessive or a running recursive commentary on the media's reaction to him and his work.
If politicians and parent groups had shrugged and adopted a 'so what, kids will be kids' attitude to the man and his music, would he have the same bite and currency and indeed body of work? I can't paraphrase the exact lyrics, but in "The Way I Am" he has a lyric suggesting just this...that the media and outrage at his antics has provided him the firebelly to record a whole album load of platinum records.
While claiming to lead a charge against this and that, his targets are largely easy prey, and sometimes blatantly wrong...like, what the fuck has Britney, N-Sync etc. got to do with the musical output their names are put to? "Baby One More Time" was conceived and written for TLC, and Cheiron productions (Max Martin) has been behind almost all the hits of both those 'acts'. The songs are churned out by these songwriter/production teams to a marketing concept, and the muppet-of-the-moment is installed to sing and perform them...so the lyrical charge would be more accurate, genuine and revealing if lead against these teams, and the media which contrives to keep them, largely songwriters and performers of the wrong age/bodyshape/race whatever from having any chance of succeeding with the material themselves. Going after the puppet seems churlish, if more amusing and easily identified by ten year olds. And therein is one of the contradictions he represents - his core audience is surely the britney fans and n-sync fans rough and tumble brothers and sisters, perhaps slightly older, but certainly not deconstructionist critics of pop-cultural artifacts?
On the other hand, the guy's talent is utterly undeniable, and his apparent humility and thoughtfulness in interview casts his stage persona in a really interesting light/shadow whatever.
Anyway, rambling a bit, gots to go. |
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