Like many pop stars who weren’t yet pop stars in the early 2000s, Britney Spears was both an inspiration and a cautionary tale to someone like MARINA. Her influence undeniable on every millennial from Taylor Swift to Charli XCX. In 2021, MARINA paid homage to that influence in a “justice for Britney” sort of way with the “Purge the Poison” lyrics, “2007/When Size 0 was … Continue reading Not A Girl, Finally A Woman: MARINA’s Eat the World
Among the many glowing reviews that Taylor Swift’s eleventh album, The Tortured Poets Department, has received, a line from one in particular sought to further position the work as genuine poetry—high-brow prose. To be more specific, The Times’ review deemed the songs on the album to be “as rich and concise as a short story collection.” Even if no truly rich and concise short story … Continue reading Faux Erudition and The Taylor Swift TTPD Bump When It Comes to an Interest in Literature
On what marks the sixtieth anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death (a suicide, an accident or a murder, depending on who you ask), there seems to be more interest than ever in the icon that captivated the world and incited a sexual awakening within a repressed American culture. From Kim Kardashian effectively dancing on Marilyn’s corpse by forcing her ass to squeeze into the Jean Louis … Continue reading Why Marilyn Monroe and Sylvia Plath Go Hand in Hand
Elizabeth Wurtzel was all too aware of the scandal and outrage she was about to wreak with the release of the then most “self-indulgent” (read: privileged white girl) novel–nay, memoir–of all-time (put out on the heels of other “whiny” Gen Xer fare, including Douglas Coupland’s 1991 book, Generation X, and Susanna Kaysen’s [though not a Gen Xer herself] 1993 Girl, Interrupted). And even if she … Continue reading Now That She’s Dead, The Thank Yous Come In For Elizabeth Wurtzel Paving a Certain Long and Whining Road for Many Subsequent Female Writers
While, sure, the singer-songwriter a.k.a. celebrity “literary” game has never been lacking (and was arguably started when Jewel put out her own immortal poetry collection in 1998, the robust–for a poetry book–160-page opus that was A Knight Without Armour), it seems as though Lana Del Rey has taken to a new level the annoyance of it to those who spend their entire lives trying to … Continue reading “Self-Publishing” and Celebrity
An alarming quote from Lana Del Rey in an interview for The Guardian back in June of 2014 found her asserting, “I wish I was dead already.” Alluding to her idols, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse, Del Rey’s wistfulness over the freedom one can achieve through death poses the question: Does an artist need to be tragic to succeed? Seeming to intuit that, yes, an … Continue reading Does An Artist Need to Be Tragic to Succeed?
