The Complete And Total Majesty Of Tatu! (PlayLouder!)Time of publication: 04.03.2003 |
What if they dropped The Bomb and nobody noticed?
What if the Messiah returned and nobody believed Him?
What would you call a generation so soul-witheringly cynical that they can live through a pop-earthquake - and not even notice that it's happening?
You call them - Us. And, boy, do we suck.
tATu have been at No, 1 for a month now. And every Top Of The Pops that passes is more embarrassing that the last.
You can hear the desperation in the presenter's voice as - once again - the camera cuts away from that 17 second long lesbian kiss.
Will no one rid us of these turbulent Lolitas? Will no one make things nice and safe and heterosexual again?
And so the Stormtroopers of Mediocrity are sent into action.
Fat, ugly, useless Turin Brakes gruesomely Simon&garfunkeling about misery and pain. Fat, ugly, useless Supergrass re-hashing Herman's Hermits.
Coldplay pissing on Cliff Richard's grave. Oasis pastiching ELO.
And super-dumb Sum 41, coming on like cute little, de-fanged and castrated punk-wock puppy-dogs.
Welcome to retro hell. Where punk became indie and indie became alternative and nobody ever stopped to ask - hey, alternative to what? Exactly?
Alternative to the mainstream, dude. Except that the mainstream is tATu. And tATu are Punk Rock. Capital P. Capital R. Capital fuck you if you don't get it, indie-shit. You are living through a fantastic pop moment. The first of this century. The sort of thing that happens once a decade - if you're lucky.
And you are sleeping through it. Your only response is to ape the weaselly homophobia of the Sun and the Mail and Richard fucking Madely. "They're not real lesbians! They promote paedophilia! They're being exploited! People only buy the record because they want to fuck them" (Oh yeah, so how come The Cheeky Girls don't rule the fucking planet, you cretin?).
Jesus Christ! Was an entire generation born middle aged? First off, it is FANTASTIC pop song. An all time classic. Musically and lyrically. And this isn't a debating point. This isn't an opinion. This is a FACT.
Secondly - look around, you idiots! Paedophilia is the crime of the century. Catholic priest after TV celeb after popstar after popstar is outed as a kiddy-fiddling scumbag. Can you spell "witch-hunt"? Wanna nobble pop's leading critic of the soon-come war? Just confiscate his hard-drive, dude. And let rumour and hysteria do the rest.
And, hey-ho, whadya know? Despite the best efforts of a generation of do-gooder leftie teachers, the words "gay" and "batty" are No 1 and No 2 respectively in the teen's top ten ways of making another kid cry. A lass can write "university is a pile of gay" in our very own Talk room and nobody blinks an eye. But they're only words and stick and stones and all that jones. Unless, of course, you're one of the thousands of gay kids who have to put up with this kind of shit in the playground. And the class room. And the chatrooms. Hey, that's GOT to be fun.
And with all that crap as background static, what's top of the pops? Deviancy. Homosexuality. Sexual liberation. Passion. Anger. Love. Two cute as a button bisexual wet-dream chickniks singing soulfully about their confusion and pain and their out-and-out contempt of and utter hatred for of a world which attempts to strait-jacket and pigeon hole their sexuality.
A gay love song that shits and pisses with arrogant ease on every single one of the dozens of straight pop songs - manufactured and authentic - that surround it.
Could tATu be more political? Could they be more wonderful? Could they be more fuckable? Could they be more punk?
Are you brain dead? Has the music industry stolen your soul? Have you hardened your heart with so much cynicism and suspicion that when a truly sexpistolian explosion happens (right on your own fucking doorstep) all you can do is sneer, pick holes and echo the homophobia (crudely disguised as anti-paedophilia) spewed out by the Sun and the Mail and Richard fucking Madely?
Sleep on, little sheep, sleep on.
Alison Fish
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