Segarini – The Difference Between Women Artists and “Women” Artists

Today the Intertoobz are all a-flutter with praise and pronouncements concerning the performance of a Lady named Ga Ga, seen and heard during the pee break in America’s biggest Sportsball Event of the Year.

Back before decorum was even a word, this Event would not be the attraction it has become, but because of civilization’s sloooowly advancing maturity, there came a modicum of sense and reason that resulted in the feeding of the less fortunate (called “Christians” by those in the know), to lions, tigers, and bears (oh my) and the odd angry horde of hostile gibbons, becoming unacceptable, much to the chagrin of the elite classes and Ruling Kings, Emperors, and Early Republicans….

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From my Facebook Timeline….

We did not watch the Sportsball game, but the GF insisted on watching the half time diversion.
Let me save you the trouble of asking….

There was no joy in Ga Ga’s performance, just a seemingly desperate need for adoration and respect. Personally, I find her without appeal, her popularity, in part, seems  just the result of her hard work and commitment to excel…and for that I will respect her. But I cannot enjoy her any more than I could enjoy a performance by a trained slave or Court Jester, whose life depended on proving their worth. Onstage, she seems hard to the point of brittleness, expressionless, focused, and willing to do whatever it takes to win.
Her “songs” are radio format-friendly constructs. Beautifully crafted and realized by well paid artisans. They exist to engage consultants and those who enjoy familiar sounding theme-song accompaniment to their youth, or nostalgia for their youth. Like most popular celebrities on the radio…she doesn’t seem to have any actual, memorable, songs.
Much like Pink and Madonna before her, GaGa is a fine athlete and circus performer, very serious about her craft, but she appears sadly joyless, a dancing bear, a chicken on a hot plate, an organ grinder’s monkey.
I did, however, enjoy the trained drones….

What followed in the thread my opinion started, was a pretty level headed discourse from people who both loved her and disliked her, bereft of the venom and bile of similar online political discussions, it seemed to prove that if nothing else, you can have disagreements on Social Media without someone getting all open-carry on you and hurling insults and alternative facts in your direction with the force and vehemence of an angry 12 year old President.

This column isn’t about Ms. Ga, or her contemporaries who feel that singing is not enough, that one must dance and strut, and do it with the least amount of grace, a great deal of posterior presentation, and all the while dressed in what looks to be their date night underwear,

Watching a current Diva onstage singing about how wonderful they are, or how wonderful YOU are, or how awful all them other bitches is, I always get the feeling that somewhere, there’s a pole missing a stripper, or a street corner missing a ‘Ho’.

…not that there’s anything wrong with that.

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It is, of course, ridiculous to judge a book by its cover. We all know this, even those who continue to judge people on their physical appearance, and not their content. We are easily swayed by what we see, first impressions are generally formed before any information other than what we see becomes available. It is part of the human condition, and part of our collective conceit to believe we are “good judges of character”…but that is hardly the reality. In other words, just because a performer puts on the airs of an easily humped trollop just waiting for you to leap out of your seat and partake in her bounty, doesn’t mean she won’t punch you in the nuts and have your ass arrested for sexual assault of you so much as offer her a tic-tac.

…and THAT, my friends, is a verrry important thing to remember. ..and not just when applied to women onstage.

When any woman anywhere appears to be dressed to thrill, to attract you, to tease you, to engage you, that isn’t an invitation to dance.

It is merely a woman expressing herself the way she wants, the way she feels, and if embracing her own beauty, her own sexuality, is her goal of the day, respect the fact that it is for HER, not for YOU.

If a woman wants more than a passing smile, or a sincere hello, or a door held open for her, she will let you know.

Sex is a woman’s prerogative.

When a woman goes out to get laid, rest assured she will.

When a man goes out to get laid, chances are good he won’t.

It’s a woman’s world when it comes to the pleasures of the flesh, Bub, accept the fact and show some respect. If it makes you feel any better, the TV remote and the thermostat belong to MEN!

We did, however, lose control of the toilet seat almost a century ago…and I will never understand why we can’t say, “…and put the seat back up where you found it” to them when they go to the can….

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Now where were we?

Oh yeah…Ms. Ga.

Considering how many of you have proclaimed her as a genius talent, able to sing, play piano, dance, entertain, and perform Barnum and Bailey-worthy aerial manoeuvres in the dark, why does she dress onstage like the only skill she possesses is to hold up a round card while mincing across a boxing ring in a bikini and stiletto heels?

Because of at least two very important facts….

FACT THE ONE

Show Business is exactly that…the Business of Show.

Today’s audiences expect spectacle along with their music. To me, that is addlebrained, but that’s only my opinion.

I see the justification and the demand for singers who can sing their songs while they also twirl plates on poles while roller skating on a tightrope strung between two stampeding elephants about to leap through flaming hoops onto a moving flatbed truck driven by a monkey in a tutu, stemming from having to shell out triple figures for a ducat to a show that shouldn’t cost you a month’s rent but does anyway. And we pay it because where else can you see pagan pageantry-worthy settings, feel the heat of controlled explosions, be deafened by enough wattage to power a DeLorean back to the future, and a passel of scantily clad dancers all in abeyance of one central, untouchable, pedestal-perched Goddess, desired by all and unobtainable to even the most impassioned devotee. Audience demand, our obsession with youth, and the wanna do her/wanna be her double whammy for girls and boys whose hormones are kicking in like  an interior cage match, puberty comes to the fore, both above and below the belt.

FACT THE TWO

Men run the business.

Attractive young women with talent get signed.

Much money is spent on the right ‘people’.

Big money, big show, big profits.

I’m surprised Beiber and his ilk aren’t talked into performing in Speedos or jockstraps.

Maybe next year….

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A Matter of Taste….

I give a lot of credit to Katy Perry and Taylor Swift for dressing sexy but cute, and being playful, not pompous when they hit the boards, and so far they seem to be doing well without writhing around on the floor like a hooker looking for a contact lens…or a fifty dollar rock.

My personal taste leans toward women who don’t feel the need to try to be sexy…who don’t try to get my attention by offering more than a great voice, song and performance.

Sexy is pretty easy.

You either are or you aren’t.

The confidence, honesty, and healthy self-image that lets their inherent sexual and sensual power present itself just under the surface, to be glimpsed in the phrasing, movement, expression, and performance, all in the service of the song and its intent.

Attractiveness is evident in much more than physical appearances. It is best in its natural state, there for the attentive, hidden from those who seek only its outward manifestation. There is a great sensuality to those who choose to maintain as much of their innocence as possible, and that in itself, makes them far more interesting than a woman who simply presents herself as available in the hopes you will desire her, even though that availability is just part of the act.

Here are 10 of my favourite female led groups and solo artists whose music, talent, and joy of performance gets me every time.

Vive la Différence!

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Segarini’s regular column appears here because he can’t get a job

Bob “The Iceman” Segarini was in the bands The Family Tree, Roxy, The Wackers, The Dudes, and The Segarini Band and nominated for a Juno for production in 1978. He also hosted “Late Great Movies” on CITY TV, was a producer of Much Music, and an on-air personality on CHUM FM, Q107, SIRIUS Sat/Rad’s Iceberg 95, (now 85), and now publishes, edits, and writes for DBAWIS, continues to write music, make music, and record.