The Wisdom of the Illiterati


	bumbershoot 2—can the girl help it? There’s not much I could say about the Fergie show that Michaelangelo hasn’t already said (Jaq and I were there with him, so we can assure you he never once exaggerates the awesome awfulness of it), but his piece echoes something that was going through my head afterwards: the way a live show can change the way you think about an artist you’ve only heard on record. Michaelangelo hates Fergie’s records, and expected a terrible show, but he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Since I like Fergie’s singles, I was hoping for something campy and silly, something gloriously over the top. At first, that’s what we got. After being announced as the Duchess, Fergie strode in waving a scepter like a baton twirler, commanding her tweeny throng to worship before her. Though the shift into “Get Ready” did seem a little much, I admired the audacity of it, especially since audacity is one of things I like about Fergie’s records. I liked it even more on the next number, when her background singers suddenly started chanting “Can’t help it, the girl can’t help it,” as Fergie did some bizarre dance move across the stage. Exactly, I thought, she’s our era’s Jayne Mansfield, an intelligent woman who plays at being dumb as a stone—all she needs is a bigger pair of milk bottles. After that she thanked the audience for making her next song “Num-BER Onnnnnne!”, launched into “Big Girls Don’t Cry”, a song I don’t hate as much as some but that is certainly the least of her top ten records, and from there the whole show went to shit. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such an incredible mixture of bad music, incompetent staging, and pure hokum. The low point, though, wasn’t when Fergie seemed to lose her focus on her backing track, or the dance contest, or the reggae number, or even “Barracuda”. It was when she went off on one of her costume changes, and the MC introduced the members of her band, each of whom took a meaningless solo. For some reason, the MC introduced each one by mentioning all the other high-class musicians they’d played with. It was as if they were saying “Yeah, this is OK for the money, but in my spare time I play real music.” So I walked out thinking that maybe I’d been wrong about Fergie. I’ve always thought of her as an intelligent woman, in a very intelligent band, throwing pop signifiers around in a seemingly chaotic, in your face fashion—an anti-diva bent on upending everybody’s—especially the hyper-hip, super-serious everybodys’—idea of what pop could or should be. Now I begin to wonder if she isn’t just a lucky ditz. You shouldn’t judge an entire career by one bad show, but though I still like the theory of Fergie, I’m starting to have my doubts about its practical application. \| [Archives] Search entries:		top ten 1966 top ten OTHER OCCASIONAL RAMBLINGS Hail Blogoslavia! ~~100~~ 45 or so things about JSM The Saga of the Lone Biscuit OTHER BLOGS Blogroll Me

bumbershoot 2—can the girl help it?

There’s not much I could say about the Fergie show that Michaelangelo hasn’t already said (Jaq and I were there with him, so we can assure you he never once exaggerates the awesome awfulness of it), but his piece echoes something that was going through my head afterwards: the way a live show can change the way you think about an artist you’ve only heard on record.

Michaelangelo hates Fergie’s records, and expected a terrible show, but he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Since I like Fergie’s singles, I was hoping for something campy and silly, something gloriously over the top. At first, that’s what we got. After being announced as the Duchess, Fergie strode in waving a scepter like a baton twirler, commanding her tweeny throng to worship before her. Though the shift into “Get Ready” did seem a little much, I admired the audacity of it, especially since audacity is one of things I like about Fergie’s records. I liked it even more on the next number, when her background singers suddenly started chanting “Can’t help it, the girl can’t help it,” as Fergie did some bizarre dance move across the stage. Exactly, I thought, she’s our era’s Jayne Mansfield, an intelligent woman who plays at being dumb as a stone—all she needs is a bigger pair of milk bottles.

After that she thanked the audience for making her next song “Num-BER Onnnnnne!”, launched into “Big Girls Don’t Cry”, a song I don’t hate as much as some but that is certainly the least of her top ten records, and from there the whole show went to shit. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such an incredible mixture of bad music, incompetent staging, and pure hokum. The low point, though, wasn’t when Fergie seemed to lose her focus on her backing track, or the dance contest, or the reggae number, or even “Barracuda”. It was when she went off on one of her costume changes, and the MC introduced the members of her band, each of whom took a meaningless solo. For some reason, the MC introduced each one by mentioning all the other high-class musicians they’d played with. It was as if they were saying “Yeah, this is OK for the money, but in my spare time I play real music.”

So I walked out thinking that maybe I’d been wrong about Fergie. I’ve always thought of her as an intelligent woman, in a very intelligent band, throwing pop signifiers around in a seemingly chaotic, in your face fashion—an anti-diva bent on upending everybody’s—especially the hyper-hip, super-serious everybodys’—idea of what pop could or should be. Now I begin to wonder if she isn’t just a lucky ditz. You shouldn’t judge an entire career by one bad show, but though I still like the theory of Fergie, I’m starting to have my doubts about its practical application.