Shock and Awe: How Far Is Too Far?
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PAGE 12B PRESS & DAKOTAN n FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2014 Shock And Awe: How Far Is Too Far? biggest-selling album with “The Mar- From Miley To Beyonce, Pop Stars shall Mathers LP 2,” where the clos- est thing to a sex song is “Love Are Pushing Limits Of Taste Game,” a hateful screed against an unfaithful ex. BY MIKAEL WOOD eration of kiddie-culture stars come And Lorde and Macklemore & © 2014, Los Angeles Times of age. Ryan Lewis both had huge hits with But for listeners who count on songs about economic woes. In LOS ANGELES — The record-in- artists to push limits, last year’s “Royals,” Lorde described not being dustry score-keepers at Nielsen wave of obscenity felt like a course able to relate to visions of “gold SoundScan recently confirmed correction after the conservatism teeth, Grey Goose, tripping in the something many music fans had of the early 2010s. bathroom”; the latters’ “Thrift Shop” probably already assumed: Robin Cyrus pushed plenty. In wake of is about finding a mink coat for 99 Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” — the the VMAs, she extended the cents. cheeky disco-funk jam with the naughty streak with the clip for her But perhaps that class con- controversial, nudity-enhanced chart-topping power ballad “Wreck- sciousness was part of what fueled video — was the biggest-selling sin- ing Ball” — it depicts a naked the ribaldry that otherwise flour- gle of 2013, with 6.5 million copies Cyrus astride just such an imple- ished. Even the most adventurous sold. ment of destruction — and her evening in, after all, comes cheaper The tune, nominated for record album “Bangerz,” on which the for- than a night on the town. of the year at this month’s Grammy mer Disney Channel star raps slyly “It’s just one of those songs that Awards, spent 12 straight weeks about replacing a man with a bat- loosens people up,” Pharrell told me atop Billboard’s Hot 100, longer tery pack. over the summer, referring to than any other song last year; that For Cyrus, 21, the twerking and “Blurred Lines,” which he co-wrote video, meanwhile, has racked up tongue-wagging served as a rup- and produced. “With everybody so nearly 300 million views on ture with her tween-idol past. anxious about everything going on YouTube. Ditto Justin Bieber, who spent in the world, people need something However singular its domina- much of the year sketching a map to help them be happy again.” tion, though, “Blurred Lines” was of grown-up misbehavior, with un- In an increasingly oversaturated just one of a number of hits that re- savory incidents involving a mop media environment — one in which flected the return of raunch to pop bucket, a Brazilian brothel and a Cyrus’ every move makes Google woman reported to be a porn star. News — we also need something to music after several years in which hold our attention. propriety was a more dependable Yet as unified as they seemed in That might be how we ended up pose. their determination to titillate, with “Timber,” which after four In 2012, you couldn’t turn on Miley and her peers each had their weeks at No. 2 is shaping up as one the radio without hearing Carly Rae own agendas. of 2014’s first inescapable hits. An Jepsen’s squeaky-clean “Call Me With “Blurred Lines” (and other ostensibly party-starting duet be- Maybe” or “We Are Young” by the off-color songs from Thicke’s tween Pitbull and Kesha, the song cuddly New York trio Fun. album of the same name), the 36- seems at first like a product of the Adele topped album sales that year-old’s goal was the exact oppo- OLIVIER DOULIERY/ABACA PRESS/MCT same mind-set that gave us “Blurred year and the year prior with her site of Cyrus’. He was using sex to Singer Miley Cyrus is shown performing at Hot 99.5’s Jingle Ball at the Verizon Lines” and “Wrecking Ball.” old-fashioned “21.” And let’s not age himself down and shake off the Center in Washington last month. “I have ‘em like Miley Cyrus,” Pit- forget — or maybe let’s do — the harmless adult-contemporary vibe bull brags over a kind of electro- self-consciously virtuous folk-rock he’d accrued thanks to his ultra- hoedown groove. “Clothes off, revival that made mainstream stars sensitive 2007 hit “Lost Without U.” Kelly lent his imprimatur to sev- leasing a self-titled album on iTunes twerking in their bras and thongs.” of Mumford & Sons and the Lumi- You got the same feeling from eral other stars in 2013, including with no advance warning, then by Unlike last year’s durable pop neers. Bruno Mars’ “Gorilla” and its video, Bieber (in the steamy “PYD”) and peppering the record with far more erotica, though, “Timber” wears out By comparison, 2013 came in which starred Freida Pinto as a Mars (in an even more lascivious sex talk — much of it unprintable its welcome as soon as you realize like a wrecking ball, to quote the tequila-pouring pole dancer. Here remix of “Gorilla”). The veteran R&B here — than she’d previously given that this isn’t a song about the ex- year’s most important vulgarian, was the kindly balladeer of “Just the star put out his own album too, us reason to expect. citement of being turned on — it’s Miley Cyrus, who set off a national Way You Are” in a racy rebranding “Black Panties,” which after a string The superstar’s aim seemed to about utilizing a flimsy turn-on to debate about the boundaries of effort. of decorous retro-soul discs her- be providing fans with a glimpse manufacture excitement. taste with her thrillingly lewd ap- More pointed bawdiness came alded his re-embrace of the kind of into her tightly guarded private life. Coupled with recent signs of eco- pearance alongside Thicke (and a from Kanye West, whose album outsized bedroom boast with which One highlight of her album is nomic improvement, it could be bad “Yeezus” felt at times like an explo- he’d made his name. “Drunk in Love,” a bass-heavy duet enough to send us tumbling back giant foam finger) on the MTV “Tonight,” he sang, “you’re lying with her husband, Jay Z, about the Video Music Awards. sion of psycho-sexual politics, and into wholesomeness. Lady Gaga, who for her song “Do with a sex genius.” liberating joy of married sex. ——— Pop always circles back to sex; And then, perhaps boldest of all, Counter-examples, of course, it’s low-hanging fruit ripe for the What U Want” enlisted R. Kelly for a Mikael Wood: mikael.wood@la- little bump ‘n’ grind at the intersec- there was Beyonce, who shocked pointed toward other themes. Em- times.com picking when innovation runs the world in December first by re- inem scored the year’s second- short, the economy tanks or a gen- tion of desire and celebrity. Motion Picture Academy To Movie Wasteland Of Winter Does Honor Film Lab Employees LOS ANGELES (AP) — Anderson, whose credits The motion picture academy include “Cocoon” and “The Have Some Intriguing Film Entries is honoring employees of Hunt for Red October,” will BY MICHAEL PHILLIPS Emily Browning and Carrie-Anne Moss. film laboratories with an receive the Gordon E. Sawyer • “Labor Day,” Jan. 31. Adapted © 2014, Chicago Tribune from Joyce Maynard’s novel, director • “The Wind Rises,” Feb. 21. In lim- honorary Oscar. Award for technological con- Jason Reitman’s drama stars Kate ited release and festival action last year, The move by the Acad- tributions that have brought How crowded was December at the Winslet and Josh Brolin. She’s a lonely animation genius Hayao Mayazaki’s emy of Motion Pictures Arts credit to the industry, while movies? Crowded enough to push single mom; he’s a dangerous yet excit- plaintive portrait of Jiro Horikoshi, de- and Sciences comes at a time Marburg will receive the George Clooney and “The Monuments ing escaped convict. Sparks fly; secrets signer of World War II Japanese fighter when the digital medium is John A. Bonner Medal of Men” into an early 2014 release. And are revealed; hard truths are learned by planes, landed on several end-of-year overtaking film. It marks the Commendation for outstand- that’s good! That’s good. Because a little all. We’ll see what the actors can do with “best” lists. Each new Mayazaki film is first time the organization is ing service and dedication in quality to go with our winter movie di- it. special; this one, we hear, is more special collectively recognizing a upholding the high stan- versions would be good. • “The Lego Movie,” Feb. 7. Finally, than most. group of individuals with an dards of the academy. Here are 10 coming in the next three all those stray, nubby, tiny pieces of plas- • “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” Academy Award of Merit. The academy will honor months. And here’s hoping they’re all tic get their own animated film. From the March 7. Wes Anderson’s follow-up to The motion picture acad- 19 scientific and technical equally brilliant. (Dates are tentative and folks behind “Cloudy With a Chance of “Moonrise Kingdom” is a between-the- emy said Wednesday that achievements in total at its very much subject to change.) Meatballs,” which is promising. Voice wars period piece with a mouth-watering this year’s other Scientific annual Scientific and Techni- • “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” cast includes Chris Pratt, Elizabeth cast of sly farceurs.