About This Time 20 Years Ago…

It’s The Hits Of July-ish 2005!

The Hottest Hit On The Planet:

McBling:

It will not surprise you that, what with my being a friendly – if snarky – Pop Music Historian and all, I am a big fan of made-up historical period names.

And I applaud the fact that certain corners of the Internet are keeping themselves busy by making such names up.

The Internet being what it is, however, it doesn’t necessarily refer to historical periods as “periods”. The Internet refers to them as “aesthetics.” And the historical period – sorry, “aesthetic” – we are investigating today is the McBling Era (2002-2007).

McBling emerged out of the ashes of Y2K Futurism.

Don’t confuse the two, many people do, much to the consternation of McBling enthusiasts – that period of R&B videos in spaceships, probably the last time the world seemed even cautiously optimistic about the future,

McBling was a response to such uncertain times, that response being to completely ignore it, and to focus instead on attempting to look glamorous on a budget. An attempt that inevitably led to spending a fortune to look trashy. Such were the inherent contradictions of McBling.

You could perhaps argue that this democratization of luxury was a sign of the vitality of consumer spending prior to the subprime mortgage crisis and the expansion of credit card debt that funded it… if you wanted to overintellectualize it. But overintellectualizing McBling kind of feels like antithesis to the whole aesthetic.

All of which you could probably have guessed from the name, anyway.

It seems kind of compulsory in any discussion of McBling to include this photo of rapper Cam’Ron which captured the aesthetic better than I ever could.

Also capturing the McBling aesthetic better than I ever could were The Pussycat Dolls:

The heroines of our story, and their hit single: “Don’t Cha.” It may just be the very epitome of McBling!

The Pussycat Dolls hadn’t always been a pop group; one made up of six girls with a dream, that when they grew up they wanna be famous, wanna be a star, wanna be in movies, wanna see the world, drive nice cars, wanna have groupies, all of which they eventually accomplished (“When I Grow Up” is a 6.)

Once upon a time, The Pussycat Dolls had merely been the most popular burlesque group in Hollywood.

Once upon an even earlier time they had been a bunch of girls who had been in a bunch of music videos who had been invited around to Christina Applegate’s house in 1993. Christina’s housemate at the time was a choreographer by the name of Robin Anton. Robin taught the girls burlesque, and before you know it, they were performing at Johnny Depp’s Viper Room.

…and a whole bunch of proper pop stars – and other random famous people – would be begging to perform with them.

Including such McBling icons as Gwen Stefani, Christina Aguilera, Brittany Murphy and, of course, Paris Hilton.

Given such exposure, it was practically inevitable that the next step would be to turn the Hottest Burlesque Troupe in Hollywood into the Hottest Girl Group In The World.

For some reason – probably the fact that they were dancers, not singers – only one of the existing Pussycat Dolls was tapped for this new pop star venture. That was Carmit Bachar, who would also be the first to leave when the rest of the Pussycat Dolls got sick of Nicole Scherzinger hogging the spotlight all the time.

Nicole hadn’t been part of the pre-pop group Pussycat Dolls, but she had been a member of Eden’s Crush, the winner of the first season of the American Popstars franchise…

Now that’s Y2K Futurism! And, in terms of the dance moves, it was good practice for being a Pussycat Doll.

Now that they had a pop group, The Pussycat Dolls needed a pop song. And that’s where CeeLo Green came in.

This was post-(Outkast affiliated) Goodie Mobb but pre-Gnarls Barkley CeeLo Green – and definitely pre-“F*ck/Forget You” CeeLo Green – at about which time he was releasing albums with titles like “Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections” and“CeeLo Green… Is The Soul Machine:” 

It says a lot about how much – how surprisingly much – CeeLo has achieved in his career, that “Don’t Cha” isn’t even mentioned on his Wikipedia page. Nobody even mentions it in the “Talk” tab. .

In case CeeLo wasn’t busy enough with all of that, he was also helping out with the career of Outkast backing singer, Tori Alamaze, for whom he wrote “Don’t Cha.”

That something basically being the key line, the eternal question: “don’t cha wish ya girlfriend was hot like me?” a line that CeeLo swiped from an old pre-“Baby Got Back” Sir Mix-A-Lot track called “Swass,” which may or may not mean “Some Wild Ass Silly Shit”. Seems appropriate.

Tori’s version did not blow up – at least partially because she wasn’t having a good experience with Universal Records and was trying to get out of her contract at the time – and so, not wanting to waste such a good catchphrase, CeeLo put the song back on the market, offering it to both Paris Hilton and the Sugababes – both of whom passed – and the Pussycat Dolls, who snatched it up.

So:

• The Pussycat Dolls had a group.
• They had a song.

The final thing they needed: A rapper.

Like every other year of that decade, 2005 was a big year for guest rappers on pop tracks.

But the Pussycat Dolls needed that guest rapper more than most.

“Hey Big Spender.”
“Fever”.
“It’s Oh So Quiet.”

That sort of stuff. To compete on the ’00s pop charts, they needed to distance themselves from that sort of thing; to present themselves as a McBling pop group. And for that, they needed their very own guest rapper.

They got Busta.

At about the same time as CeeLo was emerging from Atlanta’s Dungeon Family scene:

Appearing in the posse cut “Scenario” (the video for which, in 1991, must’ve felt like looking into the future!) before spending the rest of the 90s competing with Mystikal and Ol’ Dirty Bastard for the title of Raspiest Rapper Alive.

Finally, all the pieces had come together.

Finally, “Don’t Cha” became an era-defining hit, and “don’t cha wish ya girlfriend was hot like me?” an era-defining pick up line.

Also:

• “raw like me,”
• “a freak like me,” and,
• “fun like me.”  

Hit single in the bag, there was just one more thing to do to achieve total Doll Domination.

Hasbro genuinely seemed to believe that The Pussycat Dolls dolls would be a market share grabbing winner in the McBling-era dolls market:

Given that Bratz were outselling Barbie, it was a marketing opportunity – and potential cash cow – too good to ignore.

Still, it probably shouldn’t have been a surprise when the Pussycat Dolls dolls found themselves being campaigned against – by organizations ranging from Dads And Daughters to the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood – and the Pussycat Dolls dolls never actually made it onto the shelves.

Typical of such campaigns was the one by a mom in Brooklyn who argued that “Don’t Cha” was about group sex, most likely misunderstanding the line about “but I know she aint gon’ wanna share.” Maybe the Pussycat Dolls should have countered that they were teaching children about sharing.

Instead The Pussycat Dolls countered these campaigns with media quotes claiming that their fans were:

“little girls between the ages of, like, 3, 4 to 15… when you can be a role model for little girls, you know you are doing something right”

Also:

“It’s never anything raunchy, or anything that’s not kid-friendly. We wouldn’t portray ourselves any other way but classy.”

“Classy and sassy” was the Dolls’ official motto. One of their other mottos? “Inside every woman is a Pussycat Doll.”

“the line in “Don’t Cha” – “don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me” – is meant to be empowering. The Pussycat Dolls are not about just being hot but also about saying something with real feeling.”

Do you think they even believe the things they say?

Clearly Hasbro had believed it, feigning surprise when they learnt that the target market for the Pussycat Dolls may not have been little girls after all:

“Interscope’s current creative direction and images for the recording group are focused on a much older target than we had anticipated at the time of our original discussions”

Um… yeah. Had they not seen and heard their collaboration with Will.I.Am (they were supporting the Black Eyed Peas on tour at the time) on the ELO sampling “Beep”? A song in which the female body parts – and certain verbs – had to be beep-ed out, so that the little girls couldn’t guess what the song was about? (“Beep” is a 5)

Still, it could have been worse.

Will.I.Am. had originally written “My Humps” for the Dolls. Then again, “Beep” is practically the same song, isn’t it?

“Don’t Cha” is a 7.

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Meanwhile, in New Rave Land:

CSS.

It stands for Cansei de Ser Sexy.

Which is Portuguese for ‘Tired Of Being Sexy.’ It was something that Beyonce once said.

CSS had a Portuguese name because they were from Brazil. Sao Paulo to be precise (the largest urban area outside of Asia, apparently!)

Being from Brazil meant that CSS were automatically far more exotic than your regular pasty indie rockers.* Who even knew that Brazil had hipsters? Or pop music at all? Wasn’t it all jungle and soccer players and burger-farms? Since the golden era of samba and bossa nova, there had been precisely one successful musical export from Brazil:

And then suddenly there these guys! Who were mostly girls.

CSS were made up of one dude, Adriano Cintra, who wrote the songs and rocked a porn-star moustache, and four girls, all of whom were rather younger than him.

Sometimes he looked less like one of the bands, and more like a chaperone. But they let him hang out because he was the one who wrote the music. You can go a long way just being tired of being sexy, but you still need songs.

Adriano may have been the one who wrote the music, but he wasn’t Lovefoxxx.

Presumedly the three x’s are there to symbolize just how sexy she was, and thus, how tired. Except that CSS were clearly not tired because they made some of the most hyperactive party music on the planet. And they clearly weren’t tired of being sexy because that seemed to be all they sang about.

Also, she said things like this in interviews:

“I wanted to travel, I wanted to sleep with people, I wanted to have attention on me so that I would be beautiful somehow; I just wanted to live this life and that was my motivation. I wanted to f*ck and travel, and then God made me an indie pop star!

And thank God he did.

I was going through a phase at the time where if a band couldn’t be assed dancing on stage, then I couldn’t be assed watching them. Somersaults were the gold standard. Bands who just stood there, playing their instruments… I had no time for them.

Lovefoxxx may not have been able to sing, or rap properly, ,or even dance in time with the music, but you can’t tell me that watching her wasn’t fun.

She was the perfect front-foxxx for the perfect indie-party band of the 00s. One that didn’t seem to care, or even be aware, that underground punk and overground pop culture were not one and the same thing, as evidenced by their mash up of Sleater-Kinney’s “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone” and “Jenny From The Block”, inevitably titled “I Wanna Be Your J-Lo.” They’d released a whole E.P. of this sort of stuff.

This was, after all, an indie band who sang a song about meeting Paris Hilton titled “Meeting Paris Hilton” (sample lyric: “the bitch said, “Yeah”, the bitch said, “Yeah”, the bitch said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”) and before you ask, they never did. Paris did invite them to a Coachella afterparty in 2007 but they didn’t show… CSS were too cool for Paris Hilton.

When not singing about meeting Paris Hilton, and to show their allegiance to the other extreme of the underground-overground spectrum, CSS sang songs about making love whilst listening to Death From Above.

But which Death From Above were they making love whilst listening to?

That “Death From Above” reference could have been referring to one of two things in 2005:

James Murphy (from LCD Soundsystem)’s record label:

They also shared much the same indie-dance influences, and, consequently, fan base.

But it’s generally accepted that CSS were in fact referencing the Canadian dance-punk duo, Death From Above 1979:

This then is the music that CSS suggest you listen to whilst making love.

CSS and the rest of the New Rave bands – that’s the genre name they got lumped with, The Klaxons had made it up as a joke, but no-one else could come up with anything better so it stuck – basically came out of the Indie Sleaze aesthetic, once they had gotten tired, not only of being sexy, but of the same old guitar sounds.

Also of the same old tight black denim jeans uniform. Disco was back! Bright clothes were back! Being a trash-bag was back… it was almost as Indie Sleaze had hooked up with McBling in the bathroom… we’re talking New Young Pony Club, Hot Chip, The Gossip, Cut Copy… some of which I’ll probably write columns about.

“Let’s Make Love (And Listen To Death From Above)” is a 10.

*What’s more, Lovefoxxx was Japanese Brazilian. Which is totally a thing. There are apparently 2 million Brazilians of Japanese descent. There are more Japanese in Brazil than in any other country other than Japan. Brazil is for the Japanese what Melbourne is for Greeks.

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Meanwhile, in Emo Land:

It’s okay everybody. I’m not going to insult Death Cab.*

Well, maybe just a little.

The last time we went emo, back with Bright Eyes’ “First Day Of My Life,” we dealt with the inherent poetry of long song titles. Today we deal with Ben Gibbard, the emo poet laureate, the poet who liked to overdo it, the poet who begged such questions as:

• Is this good poetry?
• Is this bad poetry?
• Is this so-bad-it’s-good poetry?

Ben Gibbard’s lyrics were of the kind that may make you go all gooey inside, but just as likely, they’d make you scoff.

Pushing a metaphor way, way further than it was designed to go.

Ben was, after all, the guy who wrote the most roundabout – and some might say cloying – way of telling someone you love them in all of 00s pop.

“I am thinking it’s a sign
That the freckles in our eyes
Are mirror images
And when we kiss they’re perfectly aligned”

(“Such Great Heights” is obviously a 10: it feels like being in love, those bleeps and bloops sound like butterflies dancing in my stomach… what do you think? Could that be a Ben Gibbard lyric? Or is it more Owl City? That’s the problem with this stuff; there’s a fine line between genius and garbage…)

Many have also scoffed at the strange formality of “Title and Registration:”

A song about looking for some legal documents and finding photos instead, thereby falling into a deep depressive spiral, but starting, quite reasonably with: “The glove compartment is inaccurately named/ and everybody knows it/ so I’m proposing a swift orderly change.”

This is exactly the sort of hopeful faith in the political process that you would expect from a guy who once titled an album:

Ben’s lyrics seem to be based on a child’s understanding of – and bewilderment with – how adult life is supposed to work.

That’s at least when he wasn’t writing the musical equivalent of a coming-of-age novel. Maybe that’s why emo was so popular amongst 00s teens; it was coming-of-age indie. Music that made every insignificant teenage experience feel like an epoch-defining event.

After writing the biggest songs about the smallest things, it naturally made sense that Death Cab’s biggest hit would be the smallest sounding song about the biggest thing: death, and what happens after.

Or, as lead Death Cab, Ben Gibbard puts it, a song with an “I’m-in-love-with-you-but-you’re-gonna-die-someday-and-that’s-a-real-bummer inability-to live-in-the-moment kind of feel.”

So Ben wrote a death song.

A death song scenario where both Heaven and Hell are full and have illuminated to “No”s on their vacancy signs.

Purgatory is hell. It’s like you die and there’s still this bureaucratic nightmare you have to deal with.

If taken literally, “I Will Follow You Into The Dark” is about committing suicide after your partner dies,  but somehow it feels more like dying peacefully in your sleep.

But mostly it’s because it just sounds so darn pretty.

“I Will Follow You Into The Dark” is one guitar and a whole lot of mewling and it’s a 7.

*”The OC” was at least adjacent to McBling (Paris Hilton did have a cameo in it after all, inventing the selfie as she did so, and YES!! I managed to include a reference to Paris Hilton in all three of my song reviews… that is soooo McBling!!!!)

“Don’t Take It Personal (One Of Dem Days)” is an 8.

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