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Paris – 2006’s Most Important Album?

Posted over 3 years ago
It’s the time of the year when all good music snobs are preening over their music album collections and drawing up lists of the best this, greatest that. For the music snob, this is the annual ball. But, Paris? Really?(Continued in comment)
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Comments (36)

  1. Known Human
    Known Human says It should be known that I have a strong dislike for that certain faux-tanned socialite that somehow managed to find her way off the island of Manhattan. I personally consider her a hack at everything she has ever attempted, let alone accomplished, up to and including breathing. I have gone as far as to edit her name out of any subter article she might have found her way into, always replacing Paris Hilton with [talentless hotel heiress]. In fact from her ghostwritten book to her heavily producer-influenced “reality” television show to her sextape, there isn’t anything that Paris has done that could even be considered good. Paris Hilton has somehow managed to betray the laws of physics at every turn by always failing upwards. Or more accurately, with each endeavor, Hilton has managed to drag the world down to her level, robbing each giving medium of any culture that it had previously clung to. To put it bluntly, Paris Hilton made Fox look more trashy, and this is a network that launched with Married With Children and created Celebrity Boxing. The general population caught on to Paris’ distinct lack of talent shortly after she appeared on the pop culture scene, but this didn’t stop the powers that be from capitalizing on this hatred. Much like Andy Kaufman wrestling women, Paris became the villain du jour. Warner Brothers tried smartly to capitalize on that hatred by making it no secret that she both stripped and died on film in the weeks prior to the release of 2005’s House of Wax. Warner Brothers would simply allow people to see what they can’t seem to get in real life, the grizzly death of Paris. Of course, the ticket sales didn’t follow, but you can’t blame Hollywood for trying. After somehow dragging down the Manhattan fashion scene (no easy task, mind you), television, the internet, magazines, tabloids, porn, and the book world, Hilton only had one major medium left – music. And why shouldn’t see? In Paris’ world, she was a peer with the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff, neither of which were singers yet each of whom have platinum certified albums. And Paris had worked hard to become a brand, a one-woman empire on the level of Martha Stewart only less scary and more sleazy. What followed was perhaps one of the most expensive and public vanity projects in history. Hilton bought herself the best album that money could buy, corralling talent in the form of a dozen or so songwriters (including Barry Gibb via a sample) and seven producers. The fact that Paris Hilton couldn’t actually sing mattered little. Brittney Spears has made extensive use of voice altering software for almost every single since “Oops!... I Did It Again” and showed that her target audience cared less for music than they did for the image. Sony had made a bundle off of this demo, pitting two of their artists against each other (Spears and Aguilera) and filling the gaps with two more (Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore). These artificial feuds proved a billion dollar market – the tweens and early teens would pay to support the artists they liked regardless of the output. More recently, Universal has been playing the same game, flooding the market with three very similar artists, Gwen Stefani, the Pussy Cat Dolls, and Fergie, and creating an artificial sense of competition in a field where there actually is very little. Why should Paris be any different? After all, she was already a brand, and having a recognizable face is the largest hurdle in the marketing puzzle. Anything beyond that is just album sales. The fact that she couldn’t sing could be covered up as easily as Brittney Spears, and since Spears was off breeding, Paris might as well borrow her market share. So, Paris made an album, an album that became the most important of the year as soon as it was complete. The album was, and is, and always shall be, terrible. Despite all the money thrown at the project, despite the songwriters and producers and liberal usage of Auto-Tune, the album redefines fake, devoid of anything close to emotion. The album is as vapid and unrealistic as the name that adorns its spine. And none of this stopped Warner Music Group from snapping up the distribution rights, nor did it stop Billboard placing the album at number 6 for the week it launched. The album sold more than the original 150,000 copies pressed for the United States and broke the Top Ten in almost as many countries as it went on to sell over half a million copies in the four months since it was released. Most surprising, was how some of the reviews played ball with something that was so obviously fake. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of All Music Guide called the album “shockingly good.” Chuck Taylor of Billboard commented that it, “[s]ounds like Miss Paris could teach top 40's superstars a thing or two about melody.” Entertainment Weekly stamped the album with a B, noting that Paris was as deserving as Ashlee Simpson, Jenifer Lopez, and the Pussycat Dolls of pop star status, and while acknowledging that we might hate her, urging us not the let that “keep [us] off of the dance floor.” Even Rolling Stone showed their age. While they bashed the album as sleaze in the purest form, they still gave it three out of five stars, half a star less than they gave the new Jay-Z and half a star more than the new Tenacious D. What these questionable reviews, whether they are glowing or full of hatred, show us is just how important this album is. It is not important because it is good, rather it is important because it is so very bad. This is an album that made no attempt to hide how fake it is, how much work Scott Storch put into the production, or how far the limits of Auto-Tune were pressed. Yet, this album fit right into the bulk of today’s pop music, making cozy chums with sudden peers like lip-synching little sis Ashlee, with the burlesque-turned-modern-Monkees the Pussycat Dolls, with multi-threat starlets who aren’t content merely destroying one medium, but must instead spread to others like attention starved parasites. These truly are Paris’ people, these are her peers. But unlike every other medium that Paris touched, she didn’t drag the music industry down any further, she simply highlighted how far this once artistic medium has fallen. Paris’ album really is no worse than Fergie’s, and probably deserved the three stars that Rolling Stone gave it. 2006’s Paris showed us the tragic state of the modern mainstream not by being measurably worse than everything else, but by being just as bad. Paris showed us a music industry where the almighty dollar fills the hole left by true talent. Where sex might sell, but sleaze sells out. Where anything, even the live show, can be fixed in post. Where all it takes is a size 0 dress and Auto-Tunes to create a star. Paris marks a point in which the major labels must make a decision: either do away with pretense of talent and art, or actually start pursuing it again. I sincerely hope, for the children of course, that they opt for talent in the future.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  2. Scarlett Echo
    Scarlett Echo says Well said, Known Human, especially the last paragraph (of your longer post). My fondest dream would be to see a real coup d'etat at the head of every major label in my lifetime and see some truly music-loving guerillas take over. As things stand now, it's impossible to take the labels, the radio stations, the award shows and the music-television stations seriously at all.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  3. Takeshi Kovacs
    Takeshi Kovacs says I agree with your post in part (again - well written). I think the beginning of the current music malaise was "the kiss" between Madonna and Britney Spears. I think the Paris Hilton experiment points a strong finger to the paying audience, who, in part, should be less predictable than the moguls churning out the product . The industry will cowtow to the demand, and as long as dollars are plucked down for this dribble, it will exist (same thing has happened in the movie business).
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  4. Known Human
    Known Human says I think the Madonna/Britt/Xtina kiss was just a way for Madonna to try and show that she is still relavent. After rapping about soy lattes she had a lot of things to make up for.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  5. Takeshi Kovacs
    Takeshi Kovacs says Good point... but it did highlight the sleaze in order to establish relevance? no?
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  6. Known Human
    Known Human says I think she was going for more shock than sleaze, but that's semantics. Paris was an album that we all knew was fake before it was released, yet still measured up just as well as what was already passing as pop music, highlighting just how far the music industry really has fallen.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  7. Takeshi Kovacs
    Takeshi Kovacs says Absolutely agree.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  8. AnonymousAmy
    AnonymousAmy says Tak, I agree with you. People will only be able to sell what other people are willing to buy. Until our culture gets less sex starved, Paris and anyone like her will be able to sell albums, movies, toys or anything else they desire. Until we stop obsessing over no talent celebrities.....albums like this one will continue to come out. Parents need to teach their kids to expect more from an artist than a pretty face or the right clothes. My point is, sex sells......and Paris and Britney and Madonna and Jessica Simpson and The Pussycat Dolls all know this. They don't have to have good voices as long as they have good bodies. Our society is trendy and shallow for buying into it.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  9. Puffmagic
    Puffmagic says As brilliant and true as I expected. Sadly, it almost takes away some of the merit of my hatred towards her, since it's agreed that she's no worse than what's already the norm. Therefore I'll recycle those lost micas of loathing into my hatred cash cow: The Pop Scene in General, and The Opiated Masses. They'll appreciate the extra bolstering of their resources, I'm sure.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  10. mutterimieli
    mutterimieli says That brought a beautiful tear to my eye. Well said, and Bravo!
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  11. Dale
    Dale says Thank you, for this perfect distillation of everything that disgusts me about the Opiated Masses, to borrow a phrase. Everyone knew going in that Paris Hilton had no talent, and yet lapped up her album like dogs. The only way this can stop is by something catastrophic, similar to the Disco Sucks movement. But what? Scott Storch Sucks doesn't have that swing to it. I'll get back to you.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  12. goodmusiconly
    goodmusiconly says Brilliantly stated, KH. Indeed, the general population's willing acceptance of this kind of trash is equally as damning/disturbing as the music industry's achilles heel--the mastery of quashing talent in lieu of monetary gain. This brings to mind yet another great Nick Cave lyric: -- Back on the street I saw a great big smiling sun It was a Good day and an Evil day and all was bright and new And it seemed to me that most destruction was being done By those who could not choose between the two Amateurs, dilettantes, hacks, cowboys, clones The streets groan with little Caesars, Napoleons and c*nts With their building blocks and their tiny plastic phones Counting on their fingers, with crumbs down their fronts -- In a similar vein, recently a friend of mine states the following: "Elliott Smith gets worse with every listen." After which he immediately says he likes Pink. This also coming from a man who went to see the Blue Man Group concert and thought it was fantastic. I'm thinking to myself, are you on dope? Thank god the rest of us use our brains. I'm so happy I found MOG I think I'm going to cry.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  13. lemontwist
    lemontwist says This is why I will not listen to that album.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  14. thecandymanlives
    thecandymanlives says good job, dad. this is why i want to be just like you when i grow up.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  15. QueenofHell
    QueenofHell says Great, Bradley. It is a sad state of affairs. The way I deal with it is to avoid thinking about or hearing such music. Although, from the other room I can currently hear The Cheeky Girls' song, Cheeky Girls (Touch My Bum). At least you escaped that ridiculous X factor success story in the US.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  16. blueone51
    blueone51 says Sadly, it is not cream that floats to the top of pop culture. I think it was H.L. Mencken who said go can’t go broke underestimating the taste of the American public and that was early in the 20th century. I can only dread what is yet to come. We may look back fondly on Paris and her ilk 20 years from now.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  17. Known Human
    Known Human says Yeah, thank goodness for that ocean and America's general unwillingness to accept foreign pop culture.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  18. Known Human
    Known Human says That's what I'm really worried about Blueone. I think this album might really be a do or die point, in which we can look back and say "If only we'd made a change there." Thus, this is why Paris is my pick for most important album of the year.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  19. Anna
    Anna says Very well written (though I still can't believe you're using the words "Paris Hilton). I haven't listened to the album, but it can't be worse than her sex video; you can create unexisting vocal skills, but you can't easily do the same with unexisting blowjob skills.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  20. Known Human
    Known Human says Her sex video was so incredibly bad.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  21. Anna
    Anna says Worse head ever.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  22. Manos
    Manos says Paris Hilton is a monster of our making, as you and others have pointed out. But just as we have invited her, so too can we turn her away. I dream of the day she flashes her vagina stepping out of a limo and nobody cares.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  23. AnonymousAmy
    AnonymousAmy says amen Manos. amen.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  24. Lord Helmet
    Lord Helmet says The fact that Paris Hilton is a pop-cultural icon provides a very sad, sad, sad commentary on the current state of our society. Just another sign of the Apocalypse, me thinks.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  25. sam9muhr
    sam9muhr says Nice, KH.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  26. Dale
    Dale says Before we all pat our American backs for dodging X Factor, let's not forget where AmIdol came from. Never underestimate the laziness of television executives.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  27. sugarbaby
    sugarbaby says Manos is right. If we stop talking about her and her vagina, she will go away.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  28. River Lethe
    River Lethe says The best thing we can all do? Right now. Everyone please. Just. Stop. Talking. About. Her. Thank you and good night. (Well written though.)
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  29. max
    max says You really never fail to impress, well said, well written...thank you so much
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  30. Viva La Britt
    Viva La Britt says If I may, I just want to step in here for a second to defend the Pussycat Dolls. While they don't write or produce a majority of their own material (only the lead girl Scherzinger has any writing credits, and that's only on three tunes), those broads can actually sing (and less importantly, dance) their asses off- all of 'em- unlike some of the pop tarts aforementioned. Just sayin', don't let the "whore"drobe fool ya.
    Permalink posted 12/05/2006
  31. leftoverking
    leftoverking says interesting noting the use of antares 'auto tune'. i can hear this algorithm a mile away now. at times it is over used for obvious effect (ie:cher's 'do you believe in love', where you can hear it bending the notes) now i can hear the more subtle uses of it to fix the singing pitch for the sour note singers of top forty. well, just when the public gets hip to this deception along comes the t.c.electroncs 'helicon' with a less detectable version of auto tune. now it will be harder to catch artists who rely on these effects. this alone is why i love unpolished live recordings, and live performances (although both auto tune and the helicon can be used in live situations too). the use of these programs by the likes of the paris and britney ilk just adds a new dimention to thier level of fakeness. be they sharp or flat, cheers to all the artists who don't cover their tracks with studio trickery! lets keep it real. nice post known human.
    Permalink posted 12/06/2006
  32. Hmmm
    Hmmm says It's very rare that I stick around long enough to read a post that long, considering the fact that I have the attention span of a goldfish. Very enjoyable read!
    Permalink posted 12/06/2006
  33. ScottyB
    ScottyB says Mate - Absolutely brillant post...But I think that you're being a little harsh on "Married With Children" - I think there is very little that deserves to be lumped in with [talentless hotel heiress] - Well possibly Bud Selig, Questec, and "Slapshot II"...
    Permalink posted 12/07/2006
  34. dangercat
    dangercat says Brilliant post. While reading, a favorite line from Infinite Jest jumped to mind, you can probably make the connection yourself. If you want to lower the flag to half mast, you can pull the flag down. But another way to lower the flag is to raise the pole. Metaphorically yours, DC
    Permalink posted 12/07/2006
  35. famousamos317
    famousamos317 says I honestly believe that the only reason Paris' album sold so well is because she paid people to go out and buy it. Why else would someone listen to that crap?
    Permalink posted 12/08/2006
  36. teeter totter
    teeter totter says bravo human. im sooo glad there are more people out there who think like this. yay for intellingent life on earth... :-)
    Permalink posted 12/09/2006

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