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Anyone else here sick of T.A.T.U?

 
  

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20:56 / 06.06.03
I was never that crazy about this duo, but I think what clinched it for me was catching a bit of the MTV movie awards my family was watching last night. T.A.T.U. was on, performing, and there were all these girls wearing skirts and ties that made out at the end of the song (which was awful, btw, the song). I can only imagine the crowds reaction had it been boys doing such a thing (this brings to mind Hopper's comments on lipstick lesbians being so popular and trendy in the film "Chasing Amy" while gay male sexuality was shunned by the mass media).

I seriously doubt T.A.T.U are lesbians (and that's their masterstroke, they don't claim to be gay but they make out a lot so horny straight guys can get all hot over them... just like so-called "chick-on-chick" porn). And even if they actually are lesbians, they are lesbians in the safest way possible, not like a band like Tribe 8, which would probably scare most straight guys away. If T.A.T.U. were 2 guys or, if the band members were unattractive, no way would they be this big right now.

I could excuse all this if the music was good, but, imo, it's awful. They'd be just another pop group were it not for this exploitive lesbian shtick so lapped up by the mainstream. It's sad to think there are some guys out there (my brothers included) who purchased their CD simply because of that aspect of the music. Even my dad is smart enough to see the whole thing as a marketing ploy.

I also get annoyed when I pronounce their band name as "Tattoo" and one of my brothers says 'Actually, it's pronounced T.A.T.U." More like
F.U.C.K.U.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
23:45 / 06.06.03
You know, Tatu aren't really selling all that many records in the US. Just because something is promoted heavily, it doesn't make them popular (see: Andrew WK). The record is doing okay, but it's rather insignificant in the US pop scene compared to, say, the enormous sales of the Lizzie McGuire soundtrack.

I'm wondering what the fact that their svengali is a Russian child psychologist/ad exec does for your opinion of them, and that he apparently put the group together deliberately to make money off of the pedophiliac tendencies of the pop market. If you think of it as a complex psychological experiment/joke/scam, does it make you feel any different?

No one is so stupid that they can't tell it's fake. You're not giving people enough credit, nor are you fairly addressing the very complicated politics of marketing pop music - you may scoff at Tatu, and it may not be gay enough for you, but to have them get the sort of trivial novelty-act notoriety that they've had in the US is a pretty big deal when you consider how homophobic at least half of the country is.
 
 
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02:08 / 07.06.03
Bah, they're still shit.
 
 
suds
09:43 / 07.06.03
sypha, yeah, i am totally sick of tatu. they are disputing their place in the eurovision song contest even tho their song was rub! plus they wear the lamest clothes. the more i dislike them, the more i can't seem to avoid them: they are always on tv. it's weird because if they weren't so ubiquitous they wouldn't bother me so much.
 
 
arcboi
10:48 / 07.06.03
I think it's outrageous that you can suggest the kind and honest folks that work in the music industry can be guilty of marketing ploys. The idea that they'd exploit any sort of sexual imagery to sell records is appaling. They hate taking money off people for music. No, really.

I still like TATU. I still think they have good tunes. Their marketing is working because here's another thread discussing them. But yes, their Eurovision entry was still rubbish.
 
 
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12:01 / 07.06.03
I'm not too fazed, however, as like most novelty acts, they'll be here today, gone tommorow most likely.

As for not given enough credit to people who know it's all an act, I think you're giving too MUCH credit to a culture that, in the past, has made films like "Bruce Almighty" and (fer christ's sake) "Kangaroo Jack" number 1 box office hits.
 
 
arcboi
12:54 / 07.06.03
What's wrong with novelty acts? I love pop culture, me
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:21 / 07.06.03
What's wrong with Bruce Almighty?

I haven't seen it, but I do think that Jim Carey's a funny and talented guy, even if his material can be a little weak sometimes. He's a populist, and somebody's got to be. There's not enough comedies in the theatres these days, people who want to laugh have to take what they can get.
 
 
Aethelwine Jedi
13:40 / 07.06.03
THREADROT I am told that Bruce Almighty features a monkey comming out of a man's butt. That alone is enough to redeem the film for me. Even though I haven't seen it yet. /THREADROT
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
16:01 / 07.06.03
Musically they are of course shit. And I remember listening to it with Plums who went through practically track-by-track explaining how Trevor Horn either hated them or just wasn't making an effort and was ripping off his old tunes.

But I'm starting to wonder what's so bad about them pretending to be lesbians. We don't necessarily expect all actresses who play lesbian roles to show some 'Official Carpet-Munchers' pass to the gallery before the start of the film, people aren't really that bothered about whether the actresses playing Willow and Tara are themselves straight or not, just whether they can act and, as a corollary make a nice couple. And do we really believe that Thom Yorke once went in to the woods and has now got turned into a tree? It's just acting.
 
 
arcboi
16:52 / 07.06.03
Musically they are of course shit

I think you need to get off the fence and tell us what you really think.

Also, thanks for revealing that Thom Yorke wasn't really turned into a tree - I was going to buy the album Hail To The Leaf on Monday but there's no point now
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
18:03 / 07.06.03
I just saw the MTV Movie Awards performance, and I think it was one of the weirdest spectacles I've ever seen on television, which is enough for me.

For those who haven't seen it: Tatu are performing on stage, being their regular demure kinda-sorta-lipstick lesbian Tatu selves. The one with the shorter black hair is doing almost all of the singing, while the cuter one with no bra is just jiggling around. An enormous swarm of teenage girls in Catholic schoolgirl outfits are jumping around and dancing, somehow far more menacing than erotic. On giant screens behind them, anti-Tatu tabloid headlines are flashing, one after another. As the song picks up towards the end, the huge swarm of girls start ripping their clothes off and kissing each other.

It was crazy. It was like a teen pop awards show performance as created by a committee consisting of David LaChappelle, Jeff Koons, Matthew Barney, Spencer Tunick, and Larry Flynt.
 
 
Ethan Hawke
18:49 / 07.06.03
I saw it too, dude, and I watched with the dawning horror that I must be exactly the kind of person that this is being marketed to. After seeing it, I can't read the word T.A.T.U., without an image of the braless one being conjured up by my brain, and for that I am filled with self-loathing. Is the self-loathing part of the marketing campaing?
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
18:55 / 07.06.03
From what I've read, I think so. I can't remember where I read it, but there was some interview with the svengali talking about it, and he was saying that in some way, he was trying to show people that there is a pedophile in everyone.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
12:28 / 08.06.03
News: Tatus svengali has been convicted of owning child pornography.

Makes you see it differently doesn't it? ... sick bastard
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:31 / 08.06.03
Got a link for that, Chris?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:35 / 08.06.03
By the way, if you're sick of Tatu, why not buy a nice David Gray record? He'll never sink to snogging another man whilst wearing a kilt on telly. His music is honest craftsmanship, made out of wood and bits of string. Mmmm. David Gray.

Other options for Tatu-haters: Sting, Billy Bragg, Stereophonics, REM, three-quarters of the new Radiohead album.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:50 / 08.06.03
Third post in a row, bad form I know, but I couldn't leave this alone. I just wanted to recommend this, which is the best piece of writing I've seen on Tatu to date.

The complaint is that they are automatons, singers without hearts or eyes, mere conduits for Trevor Horn and his band of merry songwriters. What they don’t realise is that we’re all just conduits of some kind.

Second best goes to Steven Wells' piece at the end of issue 1 of Bang! magazine, which lists the common "are they really lesbians? etc" concerns and responds:

To these questions there is of course only one sensible answer: shut up, shut up, you boring, BORING bastards.

Not sure why I'm bothering here, we're in the land of the wilfully ill-informed ("they don't claim to be gay" - ah, but they do, Sypha Nation, at least some of the time, leading to yet more confusion); "lapped up by the mainstream", zzzzzzz; issues corner - Dr's notes include subject's obvious need to feel superior to brother not only in terms of music bought but reason for doing so; probably this thread cannot sustain the most interesting question which would be to investigate what we mean by a "safe" mode of sexuality by juxtaposing Tatu and Tribe 8. As for turning to Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy in order to find an insightful comment on the way in which the straight-male-dominated culture views lesbianism and male homosexuality respectively...

Prognosis: not gonna get it.
 
 
arcboi
16:09 / 08.06.03
I couldn't find a link to that news story, although there was this.

Oh and Flyboy, don't forget Steven Wells closing comment in that article which sums things up nicely:

"And that's why I don't care if the rest of the TATU album is crap (it isn't). Or if - having titilated us all to the point of indifference - they immediately disappear off the pop radar screen. Because TATU have made pop which has both changed history and seriously fucked with the heads of reactionaries everywhere. Compared to that, the sad bitching of indie miserabilists and the crazed ranting of homophobic moralists are just so much background static"
 
 
gingerbop
19:22 / 08.06.03
The whole lesbian thing doesn't bother me either way.
All I know, is that you want to avoid them when on a hangover.
 
 
No star here laces
09:28 / 09.06.03
Also, can we kill this "pedophiles buy tatu records" myth please? If pedos are into tatu (which I doubt, as they are definitely post-pubescent) I sincerely doubt they are buying their record and frantically masturbating to it. People really don't buy music as an aid to self-abuse...

(otherwise half of barbelith would be keeping their Yeah Yeah Yeahs album in the bog next to the vaseline, which I really hope ain't true...)
 
 
No star here laces
09:34 / 09.06.03
Also, that MTV appearance is UTTER class.

The whole way this is done is, I think, far more to appeal to schoolgirls' gang mentality than anything else. The lesbian thing is more like an extreme version of the vibe the spice girls tapped into on 'Wannabe' of "we don't need you, boys" than anything else...
 
 
Jackie Susann
12:28 / 09.06.03
can't wait for the mtv awards to screen here. and meanwhile, half the popstars on the planet are fake and queer, so will people stop fucking complaining about TATU?
 
 
C.Elseware
13:32 / 09.06.03
I avoid MTV, and the like, like the plauge it is. So I've only read about TATU and heard their music. What I've heard I like. It's cute, slightly squeeky pop.

The whole not-lesbians-but-forced-to-kiss-by-evil-manager is a bloody marvelous gimick.

Pop bands have this whacky policy of trying to be squeeky clean, wheras the ones that make it big are the ones which get a huge number of column inches for being naughty. The most refined yet still being the spice girls - you couldn't go a week without some scandal.

Which world do you want to grow up in? The one where the younger people grew up thinking lipstick lesbians were cool, or the one where they thought gangsta rappers were cool.
 
 
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13:37 / 09.06.03
What's wrong with you people?!?! Next thing I know you'll all be hyping up the "Jesus Christ Superstar" album.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
13:51 / 09.06.03
Sssshhhh, ssssshhh. Mummy and Daddy loved you just as much. I am stroking your hair now. Sssshhhh.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:59 / 09.06.03
I saw this with complete and total seriousness and honesty: I really adore the original cast recording of Jesus Christ Superstar. It's fucking brilliant - how can you deny "Heaven On Their Minds," "Everything's Alright," "What's The Buzz," "Simon Zealotes," "Damned For All Time," and "Hosanna"?

Get some taste, man.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:33 / 09.06.03
The Afghan Whigs covered 'The Temple'. That's good enough for me.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
14:44 / 09.06.03
Don't you just love how patronising Flyboy can get about music? We should all start talking about Jurassic 5 again, just for him...
 
 
Seth
16:28 / 09.06.03
Flux: JCS rocks. Do you like Joseph?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
20:03 / 09.06.03
I'm not sure you *get* a "next Jesus Christ Superstar* album. I mean, I guess you could get another cast recording, but you'd still sort of know what you were getting, just with different performers.

Although Laibach covered "Jesus Christ Superstar", and that's good enough for me.

Flowers: I think Fly's patronage is not entirely misplaced. Sypha has asked who doesn't like TATU, like what he doesn't. Some people have subsequently said that actually they do quite like TATU. Sypha has demanded to know what is wrong with them, and as best he can expressed his belief that they would like the most commercial commercial thing in the world ever, doing something extra commercial, because they are all commercial and wrong, unlike what he is. The fact that you cannot disagree with somebody's opinion without being pathologised, since actually to explain why they might disagree with somebody's disagreement in terms of the actual piece of art or group or film or comic being discussed would require both time and critical effort, is one of the things that makes the Spectacle so incredibly boring much of the time.

And "Joseph" rocked. Indubitably both Rice and Lloyd-Webber's finest hour.
 
 
Seth
20:22 / 09.06.03
True dat. Joseph leaves other musicals broken at the bottom of a well. My mon bats don shiv.
 
 
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22:18 / 09.06.03
Flux, you're telling me to get taste? Even my Dad's embarressed that he owned the album back in the day, and that says a lot. The only person who listens to it in my house is my younger brother, who just listens to oldies stuff mostly (not to mention all the shit here today/gone tommorow pop stars like Britney Spears and, now, T.A.T.U.) The bits I've heard are incredibly annoying, the voices especially are obnoxious and why people would want to waste their time listening to such overblown pretentious nonsense from the 70's is beyond me (then again, people ask me how I can listen to one drone for a whole hour without being bored, but that's for trance purposes, not enjoyment). Really, for people who come to Barbelith I'd think you'd have slightly more taste then that (Then again, considering a lot of people here seem to lap up shit like T.A.T.U. with claims like "oh look, it's ironic, it's all a big prank, ha ha ha" while your money lines some pedophile's pockets, I can't really claim to be surprised)! Even worse is the fact it's (JCS) basically all religious propaganda.

And Haus, I never said the next Jesus Christ Superstar album, had you read my post more carefully you would have seen that I said next thing is you people will all be hyping up the Jesus Christ Superstar album.
 
 
arcboi
22:55 / 09.06.03
You're right. I just cannot for the life of me see the appeal of these two...



I'd throw my copy of 200km/h In The Wrong Lane out, but they keep repackaging and releasing it
 
 
Spatula Clarke
23:53 / 09.06.03
Ah, taste.

Now I remember why I tend to go away from this forum hating humanity.
 
  

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