The Problem With Calling One Direction Gay

One Direction: More successful than you. But not gay, yet.

For more One Direction and pop cultural musings, you can follow this author on Twitter: Henry Ellenthorpe

Last week, I was trawling my Facebook homepage to see what I was missing out on and apparently my life lacks casual homophobia, sexism and partying. Hot damn, my life pales in comparison. Anyway, one girl had posted a parody of One Direction’s What Makes You Beautiful (she’s a fan) on a friend’s wall, proclaiming its greatness. And look, when I watched it for the first time I laughed. But then I realised at what I was laughing and realised it was actually pretty shady. And not the kind of shady that can be fixed by an nonchalant ‘it’s only a joke,’ in the same way that calling someone a racial slur can’t be ameliorated by a ‘only joking, bro.’ It highlighted a casual homophobia that is so intermixed with reaction to popular culture and music that it’s become au fait. Read on after the jump. Or don’t. Whatevs, UR so gay:

1 Thing I Love About Pop

This is a rather sad column today. Firstly, I have flu so looking at this laptop screen is about the 177th I would like to be doing right now. Secondly, the great blues singer Etta James passed away yesterday. She died from complications from leukemia at the age of 73. There aren’t many ways to say ‘I’m really upset about this,’ and sometimes simplicity is key. Thus: I’m really upset about this. James was a singer whose voice was at once instantly recognisable and identifiable as well as completely unique. It’s funny (if I can use that word) that two major pop songs right now (Avicii’s Levels and Flo Rida’s Good Feeling) both sample James’s ‘Something’s Got a Hold on Me’. If that introduces a whole new generation to James’ magic, then the world’s all the best for it. More gushing after the jump:

10(0) Things I Love About Pop

This is my 100th post! I can’t quite believe it – time sure flies when you’re analysing Rihanna lyrics. In honour of this anniversary, I was going to make this a 100 point post. Then I realised I go to school and you know, sleep. Anyway, we’re got another present coming your way pretty soon and patience is a virtue. So I’m actually doing you a favour. Thank me later. For the moment, here’s some popular things in popular music this week. I live so vicariously.

10 Things I Love About Pop

KP, LMFAO and RiRi: 2011, it’s like we never left ‘ye.

Welcome to 10 Things I Love About Pop: 2012! Or, 10 Things I Loved About Pop In The Year The World Was Supposed To End. Whatever works for you. Let’s have some good news anyway, shall we? Michael and Jonah have both returned to the blog: Good for fans of Drake and indie bands respectively (more news from them later) and great news for Henry’s energy levels. There’s only so many unreleased Katy Perry demos one can write about. So let’s head into another year of pop music, head’s high and smiling. It’s as glossy and slightly disconcerting as ever and we’re going to have a lot of fun analyzing it. Enjoy:

The Year In: Popstar Parties

Happy New Year! It’s that time of the year when everyone freaks out about where and exactly with whom they’re going to spend an underwhelming, bitterly cold, vomit-concentrated evening. I can practically feel the dread of underage partiers raising their fake IDs to a bartender. It’s glorious, and so is partying: Cool kids do it with other cool kids. And they have good lives. There were plenty of parties in popular music this year, so let’s take a look at some of the best. Just a quick update: KP and Russell are divorcing; which is a huge loss for someone who thought that they sort of just made sense as a couple. Anyway, if The One That Got Away goes to number 1 (it’s at number 3) breaking MJ’s record, that will be incredibly bittersweet.

The Year In: Collaborations

Collabs (abbreviations are the only way that this post is going to be written with a trace of coherency before I collapse into my bed surrounded my holiday prep and Hardy) came into their own this year. We’ve had some inspired pairings and some purely marketed for number 1 status (I’m looking at 2/3 of yours, KP.) Let’s take a gander at some of the best:

 

The Year In: Underdog Anthems

Losers Like Them: GaGa, P!nk, Taylor and Glee.

If there were ever a year to be an outcast, 2011 was that year. I’m not being cynical about it because society can be pretty isolating and if people can find support through music, so be it. Of the year’s biggest themes in popular music (dubstep and underdogs), the anthems that heralded the misfits and anyone that the majority deems different were surprisingly heartening. There are far worse trends (homophobia, misogyny) that artists have exploited in the past. At least this one spreads a freakin’ good message. So we’ve rounded up the top 5 most notable examples of artists singing, ‘hey, just because you think stamp-collecting while drinking hedgehog blood is the bee’s knees doesn’t mean you’re weird. In fact, you’re all the better for it.’ Unsurprisingly, every single choice on this list has been featured on Glee (Edit: Taylor’s Mean totally hasn’t). That may make people roll their eyes, but it makes me want to give the show a massive hug and make it cookies. There is however, a problem with these anthems as they tend to convey a broadbrush message completely devoid of subtlety. But that’s another post entirely. Please also note that I am currently tired from an excess of eating, unwrapping and sellotape-induced injuries. I have already misspelt ‘underdog’ as ‘undergod’ twice which would give this article a much different, more worrying undercurrent. Bear with me:

The Can You Hear This Countdown: Artist of the Year

Is this the most important qualification in end-of lists? I’d say so. Let me tell you why you should, too. Years aren’t defined by singles (not in the long term anyway), artists are. You might say that Summer 2007 was the year of Umbrella but you’re far more likely to say that Umbrella is Rihanna’s signature song. Likewise, years aren’t defined by albums. Albums define artist’s careers. No-one’s going to say, ‘Hey, 2011 was when The Suburbs was released, right?’ They’re going to be saying, ‘The Suburbs was when Arcade Fire got good again, right?’ Years are, however defined by the artists that dominate them. In a few years time, we’ll be talking about how 2011 was the year everyone found about The Weeknd (as much as we could anyway) or it was when that band Yuck broke through Nirvana-like into the mainstream. It was when Adele had her heart broken and went on to break America. It was when a girl drove to Cali and scored five number 1s from her Teenage Dream. It was a year when break-out British acts restored faith in our country’s potential for ground-breaking (or at least 2007 levels of) music. Here were our highlights:

The Can You Hear This Countdown: Album of the Year

Picture Perfect: 2011’s best (according to Henry, Michael, Jonah and Bal) albums

Ho, ho, ho. Welcome to the second installment of the Can You Hear This Countdown (we’re going to work on a better name for next year but as I am editing this at 2:00 am that’s what you’re getting- Merry Christmas.) We’re moving on from single of the year to album of the year now. Since I started writing for Can You Hear This, I’ve noticed how much more I listen to albums as a whole. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with just listening to singles (hell, most of my favourite artists are probably classified as singles artists) but when you hear 10 or so tracks back to back, it can lend individual songs more coherency. Of course, it can also make something seem even more incongruous but I crave context. And in 2011, albums like 4 and Take Care only really come into their own when heard as a whole. So there you go, my new years resolution: Listen to more albums. I’m a man of ambition, you can see. Final installment’s on Friday (Friday, Friday.)

The Can You Hear This Countdown: Single of the Year

At Christmas we get two of the greatest things in life: End-of-year lists and snowglobes. Now, we wanted to focus on one of these things and thought it would probably be easiest to feature the former. Behold, the first of the Can You Hear This Countdown (catchy, I know). We’ve compiled a list of our favourite singles, albums and artists of the year for our readers’ pleasure. First up, which singles we loved this year. Check back this week for the next two additions. Disclaimer: no end-of-year list is definitive. That is to say, none of us at Can You Hear This has listened to every single second of music that has been released via a record label, YouTube or Myspace. These are our personal choices, chosen from what we actually have listened to, that we feel will define 2011 for us. And even then, I use ‘define’ briefly. No three minutes of music is going to describe an entire year in anyone’s life. So there you go. I’m setting out with the knowledge that this project is going to fail but that doesn’t really matter, embrace the uncertainty. Someone’s been reading their Beckett.