-
sponsorship
Two weeks ago in The New Yorker, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a profile of the rapper MF Doom that doubles as a eulogy for hip-hop's so-called "Golden Era"—Coates celebrates Doom as an eccentric holdover from a time when hip-hop actually brooked eccentricity. Around 1998, he argues, the genre took a nose dive into rank commercialism, and ever since, "the ethos consecrated by Sean (Diddy) Combs—that what sells is what's classic—has essentially carried the day." Put another way: Biggie died, sampling waned, lyrics got dumber, charisma trumped talent, the clock struck Y2K, the pumpkin turned into an Escalade.
Coates, whose writing I've often admired since he was at the Village Voice, identifies his view as "fundamentalist"—but he has no interest in disavowing or complicating it. His piece begins as a personal narrative about falling in and out of love with hip-hop and ends up as a damning dismissal of the genre as it has existed for a decade. Among the other failings of hip-hop in the aughts, Coates declares, is that "all the moments of tenderness ... idleness ... and black comedy ... have been drained away."
Even for a self-proclaimed fundamentalist, this is a particularly (and preposterously) hard-line stance. There are many hip-hop fans, after all, who abhor the insistently inane chants of Soulja Boy or the cartoonish brutality of 50 Cent but still find room in their value system for Timbaland, Lil Wayne, Ludacris, Swizz Beatz, OutKast, T.I., and other canonized talents (some of them canonized geniuses) who have debuted or done their greatest work since 1998. Perhaps Coates enjoys and appreciates some of these artists, too, but they just didn't fit tidily enough into the storyline he built around Doom.
As it happens, Coates' ‘90s-rap requiem arrives during a bumper season for "Golden Era" diehards. Jay-Z (the subject of a more charitable look at hip-hop's corporate era, written by Kelefa Sanneh in The New Yorker in 2001) has penned "Death of Auto-Tune," a purist's manifesto of sorts, and he has company in the hip-hop airspace from two other venerated ‘90s souls: Raekwon and Ghostface Killah, members of the Wu-Tang Clan, have each released new albums. (Ghostface, incidentally, has collaborated several times with Doom.) The buzziest young MC around is Drake, who splits the difference between a smug, preening pop act and a fierce, wordplay-obsessed mixtape rapper. (Soulja Boy seems more and more each day like a distant punchline.)
The Raekwon and Ghostface albums approach hip-hop from very different directions. The former, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Pt. II, is a sequel to Raekwon's fantastic 1995 solo debut, and like the music of MF Doom it offers a portal to an unsullied time—the production is heavy on dusty soul and blaring funk, the rhymes are dense and tangled, and the settings are rarely loftier than a street corner.
Ghostface's album is Ghostdini: The Wizard of Poetry, which he has described as an R & B album. He doesn't sing, although guests like John Legend and Raheem DeVaughan do—for him, R & B is a state of mind. These songs invariably end up in the bedroom, but they also concern broader matters of the heart: Ghostface describes his crushes' charms in lively detail, anticipates an unborn child happily, and weaves several tales about being cheated on and being hurt by it. (He's done this since his first solo album, expressing a vulnerability most would-be gangstas don't.) The album is uneven, but like any Ghostface release, it's full of pleasant surprises.
On "Guest House" he discovers that his lady is cheating on him with the cable-installation guy, played by Fabolous. Ghostface's epiphany is priceless: "You put my cable in, right? The FiOS nigga! And you fucking my wife?!" We can read an allegorical dimension into the song: Hip-hop isn't Ghostface's house any more, and a younger generation of radio smoothies has snuck in and made it their own. But that doesn't mean we can't appreciate what they've done with the place.
Click here to comment on this post.
-
sponsorship
In last week's inaugural How I Met Your Mother Shame Index, I tried to capture the powerful feeling of disappointment the sitcom can inspire in even its most committed fans. More often than not, the show is great fun, but when it misses the mark, it can miss widely, inspiring feelings of embarrassment: I made an appointment for this television? Last night's episode was full of such misses.
Shameful:
—The central conceit: That in 2009, Ted is unwittingly repeating a blind date he went on in 2002. A healthy willingness to suspend disbelief is required to appreciate HIMYM, but this strained credulity too far. At first, Ted and Jen don't remember each other at all. But once they realize they've been on this date before, a series of very specific details come right back to them. Plus, we know of several women that Ted has dated for long stretches between '02 and '09—Robin, Stella, Victoria. How many one-and-done dates has he really been on during that time frame? Barney would have forgotten this woman during his cab ride home, but not Ted.
—The cheap moral of the repeat blind date: Ted realizes he wants to hold out for a woman who does find his shellfish joke funny. Making us all a little less interested in finding out who the mother is.
—Ted and Jane watching two rotund people have sex from Ted's rooftop—a blatant rip-off of the old Ugly Naked Guy routine from Friends.
—The strip club that Barney takes Marshall to. This is CBS, not HBO, but even by network standards this joint was unconvincing. It was lit like a dentist's office.
—The gang's doppelgänger. Close call: This had the feel of a great HIMYM bit, but it didn't quite deliver. Making Robin butch wasn't a wild enough leap—she's already got a butch, hockey-loving side. Stripper Lily could have been amusing, but wasn't: The closing bit, in which Alyson Hannigan tries out an Eastern European accent, was embarrassing for everyone. Mustache Marshall—aka Senor Justicia—was admittedly kind of great.
Awesome:
—2002 Ted's goatee. HIMYM has always done an impressive job of using hair and/or facial hair to mock its characters' former selves. Though this is also a gag that was perfected by Friends.
—Barney's use of the (annual) "Origins of Chewbacca" exhibit to lure Marshall—and previously Ted—on adventures.
—Marshall's inability to fantasize about women other than Lily unless he first imagines that she has succumbed to a chronic disease. This was the rare instance when dragging the joke out made it more funny, not less. When Lily referred to "that busty delivery girl from that one time" it was amusing; when the priest at her funeral repeated it, it was hilarious.
Is it too early to worry that the Barney and Robin relationship is going to do harm to HIMYM? There was a conspicuous drop in awesome Barney moments this episode. Let's hope it was a fluke.
Click here to comment on this post.
-
sponsorship
A Hollywood challenge! The contestants were asked to create a look inspired by a movie genre—action/adventure, film noir, period piece, Western, or science fiction.
In Nicolas' elaborate back story, his ice queen failed to gain control of the universe, but the white lace ensemble he designed for her managed to win over the judges. Ra'mon made a dress for Lola who "left her home planet, where all of her people are reptiles, and has come to Earth to ... quench her insatiable desire for men." The concept was sexier than the dress, and he was sent home.
Stats
Number of times Tim Gunn said, "Make it work!": Zero. Has he finally shed his tired old catchphrase?
Number of crying contestants: One. Louise seemed sadder to survive elimination than Ra'mon was to say goodbye.
Did Logan keep his shirt on? Yes, but that didn't stop Carol Hannah from mooning after him. The man has the power to bewitch models, judges, and fellow contestants.
The Contestants
Unsolved mystery of the week: Who is the bobbin thief?
Least convincing concept: Gordana claimed that her flapper dress was intended for a woman who "discovers oil, and this is the first time she's coming out in society." I think I saw that movie: There Will Be Fringe.
The Judges
Keeping track of this season's judging is like monitoring a kidnapping. It has been five weeks since the last Michael Kors sighting and three weeks without Nina Garcia. Their seats were warmed by designer John Varvatos and Marie Claire editor Zoe Glassner, who has worn out her welcome; the guest judge was costume designer Arianne Phillips. The critiques are a lot less fun without Kors and Garcia, but with such a conceptual assignment, consistency was less important this week.
The Results
Garment of the week: How to compare a slutty saloon girl to a pleather-clad action heroine? This challenge brought out the ugly.
Should Nicolas have won? Just as a stopped clock is right twice a day, a cheap-looking lace garment will eventually win a challenge. Nicolas deserves credit for creating a fully fleshed-out mythology.
Should Ra'mon have been eliminated? Yes. He pulled off an amazing last-minute save in Week 3, but his lizard-people creation was beyond redemption.
Bold prediction for who'll be auf'd next: Gordana. The judges have pigeonholed her as a dressmaker rather than a designer.
Previous Project Runway Recaps: Week 1, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5
Click here to comment on our Project Runway recaps.
-
sponsorship
How I Met Your Mother, which entered its fifth season last night on CBS, resembles Friends in its outlines. Both sitcoms follow a group of young men and women coming of age in New York City. But there's also something similar in the experience of being a fan of the two shows—namely, a suspicion that it might be cooler not to be a fan. There's no shame in admitting that you spent a night watching Seinfeld reruns—Ooh, which ones? goes the response. With Friends, a certain sheepishness attaches. What did you do last night? Um, caught this great episode of Friends on TBS, where Ross and Rachel ... Never mind.
Being a fan of HIMYM is a bit like that, and not without reason. While the show boasts one of the best characters on any current sitcom—Neil Patrick Harris' rightly celebrated Barney Stinson—it also features one of the most frustrating: Josh Radnor's Ted Mosby, whose painfully earnest pursuit of true love can bog down an otherwise rip-roaring episode full of ribald wordplay and hysterical gags. At its best, the show is funny and heartwarming; at its worst, plain sappy. To help fans decide whether to don their MacLaren's T-shirts or keep their love undercover like Barney and Robin, Brow Beat is inaugurating a new feature, The HIMYM Shame Index. Each week, we'll enumerate the latest episode's great moments and its embarrassing ones and decide whether Mother has made us proud.
Shameful:
—Robin's use of the tired phrase "slow your roll."
—The endless talk about "the talk."
—The episode's persistent use of Vampire Weekend's "Oxford Comma"; HIMYM's creators seem to have a soft spot for indie rock, and while in the past they've been known to underscore a broken heart (Ted's, natch) with an apt Pavement track, this felt like a reach for hipness.
—Ted's lame dream sequence. Really, the forgot-to-wear-pants thing? You're better than that, HIMYM.
Awesome:
—Marshall chiding Lily for not using her "indoor ‘woo!' " Adorable.
—Barney and Robin's use of flugelhorn as a code word for when things have gone too far in bed or, later, in their fledgling relationship.
—Barney's disdain for brunch.
—"T-Dog, you're in the wrong room bro." And just about the whole scene in the economics classroom—HIMYM is at its best when it's playing Ted's earnestness for laughs. His uncertainty about how to spell professor was particularly amusing.
—Marshall's unilateral declaration of Tuxedo Night. "Didn't we meet on a yacht?"
All in all, more to be proud about than ashamed of in this episode, plus some very good signs for the rest of the season: The Robin and Barney plotline shows promise, and Cobie Smulders and Alyson Hannigan are no longer hiding obvious pregnancies behind flouncy tops and preposterously large handbags.
Click here to comment on this post.
-
sponsorship
Praise Prada, finally a slightly unconventional challenge. The contestants schlepped out to a Los Angeles Times printing facility so they could gather materials to "create a design using newspapers as fabric." (Doesn't the LAT deliver anymore?) Unfortunately, as has so often been the case this season, the assignment was maddeningly vague.
Irina won for a stunning trench coat with a faux fur collar and sleeves made from crumpled newsprint. Johnny was eliminated for a lazy, last-ditch effort that looked like a less-chic version of Lisa Simpson's shift dress.
Stats
Number of times Tim Gunn said, "Make it work!": One.
Number of crying contestants: One. Johnny bawled through his valedictory video.
Was Logan shown sans shirt? We barely glimpsed Logan, much less his bare chest.
This Week's Drama
During Tim's visit to the workroom, the magnificent mentor told Johnny (accurately) that his dress looked "like a craft project gone awry. It looks like a bunch of kindergartners did it." Johnny immediately consigned the dress to the recycling bin but later told his model that his first attempt had been ruined in a freak ironing accident, a lie he repeated several times, including on the runway, where another flight of fancy led him to describe his original creation as Dior-like. An eye roll from Nicolas led to an excruciating confrontation on the runway. When Tim bade Johnny a chilly farewell, he was clearly infuriated, telling the other designers, "I'm incredulous at that utterly preposterous spewing of fiction."
The Judges
Put out an orange alert: Where is Michael Kors? The top American designer was AWOL for the fourth consecutive week, and Nina Garcia sent in a sub for the second time in a row. It's hard to know whether these key judges' absence was caused by distance (their working lives are in New York, 3,000 miles from the runway) or contractual issues (Lifetime and Bravo were locked in a legal battle while this series was being filmed), but it's a problem. The rotating cast of judges has robbed the show of consistency. This week's panel consisted of designer Tommy Hilfiger, Marie Claire senior editor Zoe Glasser, and guest judge Eva Longoria Parker, who was classy and constructive. The rotating cast of characters must make it difficult for the designers to get a sense of what the judges are looking for.
Judging is always subjective, but some of this week's rankings seemed downright random. Gordana had a fully fleshed-out design concept: to use "unconventional fabric to make a conventional look." Instead of rewarding her vision, the judges dinged her for making a wearable dress that Heidi claimed to find boring. The fact that the garment was flawlessly constructed, had an interesting color story, and had no muslin infrastructure counted for naught, and Gordana ended up in the bottom three. Meanwhile, Althea's dress, which used a repeated image to create an architectural feel, was wildly overpraised. It had an appealing silhouette, but it was poorly fitted in the bodice, and muslin peeked out from under the hem. Despite her creativity and superior sewing skills, 45-year-old Gordana has twice been up for elimination. Is it crazy to blame ageism for her low scores?
The Results
Garment of the week: Christopher's full, feathered skirt flowed beautifully--and offered a dramatic contrast to the stiff, armorlike bodice. While most of the models minced rather than strutted down the runway to protect the fragile fabric, his strode confidently.
Should Irina have won? I was hoping for a tie with Christopher, but Irina deserved her victory. The coat had that certain je ne sais quoi. As Tommy Hilfiger gushed, it was "Coco Chanel meets St. Laurent meets Givenchy in the '60s and '70s."
Should Johnny have been eliminated? Without a doubt. Still, it's fun to wonder if Tim would have intervened if Nicolas had instead received Heidi's Kuss of death.
Bold prediction for who'll be auf'd next: Nicolas. The longer he stays, the more imminent his departure becomes.
Previous Project Runway Recaps: Week 1, Week 3, Week 4
Click here to comment on our Project Runway recaps.
-
sponsorship
In the wake of Patrick Swayze’s death of pancreatic cancer at age 57, there'll be a lot of talk about the romantic leading men he played in his two biggest hits, Dirty Dancing and Ghost: rescuing Baby from that ignominious corner or spooning Demi Moore at the pottery wheel.
But I'll remember Road House (1989) and Point Break (1991), two proudly terrible B-movies that showcased Swayze’s unique combination of masculine swagger and gracile elegance. “I thought you’d be bigger,” everyone keeps telling Swayze’s character in Roadhouse, and the running joke is on the audience as well—for a man that good at breaking heads and hearts, Swayze’s build was surprisingly slender and delicate. (Before becoming an actor, he was headed for a career as a ballet dancer.)
In Road House, Swayze plays Dalton, a philosophy-grad-turned-nightclub bouncer (or "cooler") who defends a bar in small-town Missouri from a band of local gangsters led by Ben Gazzara. In one scene, Dalton introduces himself to the bar’s rowdy security staff with preternatural calm and Zen restraint, invoking the three precepts of nightclub security: “Never underestimate your opponent, take it outside, and be nice until it’s time not to be nice.” Dalton’s martial-arts influenced fighting style and serenely mystical mien are what set him apart from the sweaty, hulking rubes of Roadhouse—men who, in Dalton’s memorable words, are “too stupid to have a good time.” For all its monster trucks and bar brawls, Roadhouse functions surprisingly well as a critique of knuckledragging masculinity. By the standards of the Double Deuce roadhouse (and of most action-movie audiences in 1989), Dalton is a sexually ambiguous figure, an effete import from the city whose philosophy degree only makes him stronger: a death-dealing sissy. He’s nice until it’s time not to be nice. His archenemy Jimmy (Marshall R. Teague) grabs him in a headlock, sneering, “I used to fuck guys like you in prison.” But it’s Dalton, the implied bottom, who will come out on top in the climactic fight.
In Point Break, Swayze’s character, a surfing bankrobber who's a guru to Keanu Reeves’ FBI agent Johnny Utah, is named Bodhi (short for Bodhisattva). As was the case with Dalton, Bodhi’s existence on a higher spiritual plane cohabits unproblematically with his ability to kick ass and take names. “In six seconds we’re going to be meat waffles,” Bodhi announces cheerily to Johnny as they prepare to jump out of a plane. “Adios, amigo!” And in the final scene, as Bodhi, cornered at last by the FBI, chooses to sacrifice himself to the ultimate, unsurfable wave rather than submit to the law, Swayze’s purity of purpose has a deranged grandeur. Swayze was a student of Buddhism in real life, and his flair for playing this kind of camp action hero (the surfing criminal mastermind, the bouncer with a Ph.D.) has something Buddhist about it. Far from slumming, he seemed to throw himself into his most absurd roles with a surplus measure of joy. Swayze’s character in Road House surprised everyone with his slight stature. They thought he’d be bigger. But Patrick Swayze was just the opposite: He was bigger than we thought.
-
sponsorship
Dan Brown's publishers are guarding the plot to his new novel, The Lost Symbol, as the Priory of Sion guards the truth about Jesus' love life. Rumor has it that the Freemasons play an important role, but Brown's editor will reveal only that the story takes place over the course of 12 hours. Nevertheless, I have a prediction to make: Whatever else happens, the good guys will be really, really awesome.
Brown's penchant for lazy clichés is well-known. If a character is tired, we're told his legs "feel like stone"; if he's shocked, it's as if he's "been hit by a truck." Brown also can't help but make his protagonists cartoonishly gifted. Take David Becker, the male lead of Digital Fortress:
The youngest full professor at Georgetown University and a brilliant foreign-language specialist, he was practically a celebrity in the world of academia. Born with an eidetic memory and a love of languages, he'd mastered six Asian dialects as well as Spanish, French, and Italian. His university lectures on etymology and linguistics were standing-room-only, and he invariably stayed late to answer a barrage of questions. He spoke with authority and enthusiasm, apparently oblivious to the adoring gazes of his star-struck coeds.
Becker was dark—a rugged, youthful thirty-five with sharp green eyes and a wit to match. ... Over six feet tall, Becker moved across a squash court faster than any of his colleagues could comprehend. After soundly beating his opponent, he would cool off by dousing his head in a drinking fountain and soaking his tuft of thick, black hair. Then, still dripping, he'd treat his opponent to a fruit shake and a bagel.
Six languages, six feet tall, modest, and a gentleman who takes the sting out of his inevitable squash triumphs by treating you to a smoothie! He's peerless. Or he would be if Brown hadn't dreamt up an equally superlative female companion: Susan Fletcher, head of cryptography at the NSA, owner of a 170 IQ and a set of eyes like something out of an ad for a name-brand cosmetics line:
[David had] never been so attracted to a woman in his life. Her delicate European features and soft brown eyes reminded him of an ad for Estée Lauder. If Susan's body had been lanky and awkward as a teenager, it sure wasn't now. Somewhere along the way, she had developed a willowy grace—slender and tall with full, firm breasts and a perfect abdomen. David often joked that she was the first swimsuit model he'd ever met with a doctorate in applied mathematics and number theory.
You don't need a doctorate in number theory to know that the chances of a woman possessing such a vibrant mind and a perfect abdomen are highly unlikely.
In his next book, Angels & Demons, Brown actually shows a little restraint when first describing Robert Langdon, conceding that he's "not overly handsome in a classical sense." But soon enough he reverts back to hyperbolic form:
[T]he forty-year-old Langdon had what his female colleagues referred to as an "erudite" appeal—wisps of gray in his thick brown hair, probing blue eyes, an arresting deep voice, and the strong, carefree smile of a collegiate athlete. A varsity diver in prep school and college, Langdon still had the body of a swimmer, a stoned, six-foot physique that he vigilantly maintained with fifty laps a day in the university pool.
... Although a tough teacher and a strict disciplinarian, Langdon was the first to embrace what he hailed as the "lost art of good clean fun." He relished recreation with an infectious fanaticism that had earned him a fraternal acceptance among his students. His campus nickname—"The Dolphin"—was a reference both to his affable nature and his legendary ability to dive into a pool and outmaneuver the entire opposing squad in a water polo match.
When we next meet "The Dolphin" in The Da Vinci Code, he's still got it. Here's how Brown has Boston Magazine, which picks Langdon as one of the city's "top ten most intriguing people," describe the erudite, blue-eyed, affable, chlorine-soaked symbologist:
Although Professor Langdon might not be considered hunk-handsome like some of our younger awardees, this forty-something academic has more than his share of scholarly allure. His captivating presence is punctuated by an unusually low, baritone speaking voice, which his female students describe as "chocolate for the ears."
Slate readers, as you make your way through The Lost Symbol—you know you're going to—keep an eye out for Brown's heroic hyperbole and send along your favorite examples to SlateBrowBeat@gmail.com. Becker was a champ at squash and Langdon at water polo. In the new novel, will we meet a tall, dark, and ruggedly handsome Phi Beta Kappa member who's earned the respect of his colleagues and students for his prowess on the lacrosse field?
-
sponsorship
Fans of ESPN.com's Bill Simmons have come to expect references to the Sports Guy's favorite movies, TV shows, and products: The Hangover, Friday Night Lights, Dunkin' Donuts, the Madden video game franchise. Simmons' first NFL picks column of the season, published on Thursday, has a different kind of endorsement. Just before he starts doling out gambling advice, Simmons explains that he's trying out some "new wrinkles this season." One of those wrinkles: "The Miller Lite Great Call of the Week."
Sports radio and TV broadcasts have long been larded with commercial tie-ins—the AFLAC trivia question, the Subway postgame show, and SportsCenter's own Coors Light Cold Hard Facts. It's hard to think of a precedent, though, for a sports column (or any other kind of column) with an in-article advertisement. Rob King, the editor-in-chief of ESPN.com, explains that the site's editorial team and sales staff have long been searching for an appropriate branding opportunity for the enormously popular Sports Guy. In trying to "grow this business," King says, "Bill Simmons is the shiniest object we can offer in terms of association."
The decision to find an advertiser for the NFL picks column was a collective one, King explains. Miller Lite wanted a tie-in with someone who (according to King) gets 600,000 to 800,000 pageviews every time he writes. As for Simmons, King says the columnist was pleased that sponsors were clamoring to be associated with his work.
The Miller Lite promo, which will appear in all of Simmons' NFL prediction pieces, includes a box labeled "Great Call of the Week" and a rectangular ad ("Triple Hops Brewed. Great Pilsner Taste.") that chases down the page as you scroll. (Simmons' allusion in Thursday's column to the "We Couldn't Get This Sponsored Underdog Lock of the Week" was just a joke—"we weren't trying to sell every piece of what he's writing," King says.) This week's Great Call: Michael Crabtree's decision to hold out because the San Francisco 49ers won't pay him what he's worth. "Crabtree might be ruining his career and setting hundreds of thousands of dollars on fire," Simmons writes, "but at least he earned my Miller Lite Great Call of the Week."
King notes that sponsored features aren't anything new on ESPN.com. Simmons' podcast is sponsored by Subway, and ESPN's Major League Baseball power rankings are presented by the U.S. Army. King says that having spent 20 years working for newspapers, his standards almost certainly wouldn't allow him to endorse placing an advertisement in the midst of a news or enterprise story.
While it's hard to see how the Bill Simmons-Miller Lite partnership harms anyone, ESPN could be more explicit and careful about it in weeks to come. The "Great Call of the Week" box isn't labeled as sponsored content and is formatted like a typical Simmonsian sidebar. More important than that styling issue is the question of what this ad deal augurs. You can argue, as King does, that the placement of a sponsored box alongside an NFL picks column doesn't constitute a breach of the editorial-advertiser firewall. On the other hand, it's no minor thing when the most-popular writer for the Web's most-visible sports site starts incorporating sponsored messages into his copy. Every media organization is desperate to turn a profit. If ESPN pulls this off, the Great Call of the Week could prove irresistible to newspapers. Tom Friedman's KFC Fiery Buffalo Wings Middle East Hot Spot of the Week, anyone?
-
sponsorship
In a season of insipid challenges, this was the dullest yet: Create an "eye-catching look" for the models to wear at "an industry event." Lifetime's investment in Models of the Runway and the rule change that guarantees a lot more model-swapping this season scuppered the challenge from the start. Since the models now needed all the designers to like them, they weren't going to bellyache about the design process, which is traditionally the most excruciating—and fun—part of the "crazy client" challenge.
Althea won for a cheap-looking black suit over an ill-fitting gray top. Qristyl was sent home for a tasteful but boring black jersey dress.
Stats
Number of times Tim Gunn said, "Make it work!": One. (Is it just me, or does Tim seem so over that catchphrase?)
Number of crying contestants: One. Epperson made like the ecological Indian after a phone call to his family.
Was Logan shown sans shirt? You know it.
Why Contestants Should Leave Judging to the Pros
Nicolas on Epperson's third-place garment: "[He's] going to be at the bottom. That just looks like a rag."
Irina on Althea's winning outfit: "Althea's looked like crap. ... It would've looked nicer if she had stapled it together."
The Judges
Where in the world is Michael Kors? He was absent for the third week running and sorely missed (most worryingly, Heidi has dropped the "sitting in for Michael Kors" locution); designer Marc Bouwer, the love child of David Sylvian and Iggy Pop, took his place. Nina Garcia was also AWOL, so Marie Claire editor Zoe Glasser subbed. The guest judge, "costume designer and top celebrity stylist" Jennifer Rade, distinguished herself by sexually harassing one of the contestants, telling Logan, "You're really cute, and I like your pants and your sneakers." In a season when some of the judges' decisions have been wackadoodle, it was downright stupid of her to suggest that she was taking his looks into consideration.
Tim Gunn's cattiest caution: "It's just looking like she's been rolling around in bed."
How Heidi likes to see breasts: "For me they have to be perky, and they have to be in the right spot."
Klum line most likely to become a ring tone: "I'm obsessed with boobs. That's just my thing."
The Results
Garment of the week: Louise's beautifully constructed black silk dress.
Should Althea have won? No! Three garments, three eye-sores.
Should Qristyl have been eliminated? Yes, it was the merciful thing to do. The dress was chic, but Heidi was right: It wasn't youthful. No model wants to look like the oldest woman at an industry event.
Bold prediction for who'll be auf'd next: Nicolas. The judges have clearly noticed his tendency toward the trashy.
Previous Project Runway Recaps: Week 1, Week 3
Share your comments, questions, and predictions in this week’s Project Runway Recap Fray.
-
sponsorship
Jay-Z releases his 11th studio album, The Blueprint 3, on Friday—a day that marks the eighth anniversary of both 9/11 and, as he's intent on reminding us, The Blueprint, a 2001 album regarded as one of his finest, which hit record stores that same fateful Tuesday. Invoking the World Trade Center attacks as part of a marketing strategy is, at best, strange and, at worst, crassly self-aggrandizing. But what else is new? It's by now a commonplace that in rap, self-aggrandizement is an art form unto itself, and few practice it as capably, convincingly, and entertainingly as the MC who nicknamed himself Jay-Hova.
Last night, though, Jay-Z descended from the heavens for a semi-secret concert at the Blender Theater at Gramercy, a 600-capacity concert hall. (Thanks to a naming-rights deal that, apparently, has yet to expire, the venue is named for a music magazine that no longer exists.) This is a fairly small room by indie-rock standards. For an artist of Jay-Z's stature, it was practically a concert in someone's basement, and the evening crackled with the excitement of seeing a star typically framed by Jumbotrons standing so close.
On Jay-Z's recent single, "D.O.A. (Death of Autotune)," he draws a line in the sand between his mainstream audience and his "street" audience, pledging to honor the gritty and uncompromised values of the latter. Last night, he continued in this vein with a boisterous set that leaned harder toward the brash and blaring than the silken. He performed, as he has been doing for several years now, with a live backing band whose task was to play along with or simulate altogether music originally produced by synthesizers and computers—sometimes the band offered the music a newfound jolt; sometimes it clobbered it. (One of the appeals of Timbaland's beat for "Jigga What Jigga Who" is its sleek digital skitter, but the band approached it with a hard-hitting, almost rap-rock-ish brutality.)
After an hour, I saw something you don't often see at Jay-Z concerts: a snafu. Fire alarms interrupted a track (for a moment it sounded as though the DJ had dropped a particularly mean remix), techies rushed onto the stage to check wiring, and Jay-Z disappeared without a word—presumably to a gold-plated helicopter idling out back. Firemen were called, the crowd milled, and in about 15 minutes, Jay-Z returned and launched back into his set without explanation. Two firemen stood wide-eyed at the back of the room, stunned to realize who was onstage. There was a thick smoke in the air, but not the kind you're surprised to smell at a concert.
-
sponsorship
Farhad Manjoo reports from San Francisco:
Steve Jobs walked slowly on to the stage this morning at Apple's iPod press event, his first public appearance since undergoing a liver transplant earlier this year. Jobs looked thin, but was otherwise full of energy, and seemed—from afar, at least—in much better health than he did last year at this time. "I'm very happy to be here with you all," he said. "I now have the liver of a mid-20s person who died in a car crash. I wouldn't be here without such generosity."
There'd been much speculation about whether he'd show up today. Even before Jobs' medical leave, Apple had been moving away from having Jobs headline all its events. This seemed wise—Steve Jobs isn't going to be Apple's CEO forever, and it only made sense to groom other executives to take on Jobs' main public role: launching new products. On the other hand, Jobs still commands a room like no other corporate titan, and Apple sees enormous rewards—in press coverage and in fan obsession—from his public appearances. Today's press event suggests that Jobs isn't going anywhere soon; he'll continue to share the stage with other Apple executives, but there's no doubt about who is still in charge at Apple. "I'm vertical, back at Apple, and loving it," he said.
As for today's product reveal, there were no major surprises. Apple added a video camera and FM radio to the iPod Nano, updated iTunes, and added a few new features to the iPhone and iPod Touch—pretty much everything that Apple-watchers had expected. Also, Norah Jones appeared to perform a couple songs. Apple's most anticipated product—the rumored tablet computer—didn't show. Maybe the next time we see Steve.
-
sponsorship
The people of America have spoken. I asked for the Most Conservative Product in the U S of A and you responded with enough guns to outfit an Idaho militia and enough Depends undergarment jokes to make a grown man sigh into his keyboard. Let's put on our Rodney Atkins CD, brew up some Folger's coffee, call in the dogs, turn up the gas fire, and start the countdown to No. 1.
Fifth Place
Precious Moments Figurines. I had no idea what these were, but they were nominated too many times to be denied. They are "very white" dolls with big eyes, often shown in pairs hugging or helping one another. When you see "Held by the Hands of Faith" on the mantle, it's a safe bet that you can drop a reference to Ephesians without anyone getting confused.
Fourth Place
Guns were by far the top vote-getter, and I was especially pleased to learn about the Smith & Wesson S&W 500, "the biggest handgun ever made, and the only one to require a shoulder strap." The Colt .45 was also a good choice, as was the M-16, but I'm going to reward fourth place to ammo. Even a few liberals may have a .22 around to keep groundhogs out of the arugula, but nothing says "conservative firearm enthusiast" like having a few cases of bullets stacked up in the den.
Third Place
Kellogg's Corn Flakes. Allow me to quote from the entry: "Not that they're radical, just unchanged. Since 1906. A good kind of conservatism."
Second Place
Hummers, Ford F-150s (in white), and other large automobiles came up a lot. Special props to the GMC dealer who vouched for the Yukon XL Denali as the most conservative ride in America. Yet, there was one automotive product that outpaced the field. That would be TruckNutz. I must confess that I have never seen a pair of plastic testacles dangling from the back of pick-up truck. I've also never seen them glow in the dark. Nor I have I seen them accessorized with a yellow-flag pin. Time to get out of Brooklyn and visit the real America.
Honorable Mentions: Gold, oil, roses, Bible carriers, snuff, Costco sausage patties, Cabela's ("Yes, the entire store"), winter camo, and buffets. Mountain Dew also had several strong proponents who maintained that it was the conservative soft drink of choice in the Mountain West and the South.
First Place
Land. The nomination, which has a certain Joycean momentum, requires posting in full: "Land of your own to hunt deer, shoot coyotes, string barbed wire, and have lawn mower races. Enough elbow room to scream at your nine kids, build your apocalypse bunker, and put serious mileage on your off-road equipped SUV just driving to church and back. You are rather proud of your three-story radio antenna, the one required to successfully tune into your favorite talk radio stations. Secretly, you fantasize about an oil field being discovered on your land, Clampett-style, but those curious chemical odors on the breeze turn out to be just your neighbor's meth lab. Maybe you'll take the four-wheeler over and witness to him about the power of Jesus' blood, properly side-armed just in case, of course. All made possible by your 64 acres of American soil."
So there you have it. God bless America, where liberals and conservatives alike can make slapshot generalizations about each other on the Internet.
-
sponsorship
Kristen Wiig, who has been the undisputed star of the past few seasons of Saturday Night Live, induces some chuckles in her supporting role in Mike Judge's delightful new comedy, Extract. But she isn't really given much to do. Which raises a question: What sort of career lies ahead for the comedian?
With her sharp timing and quirky line readings, Wiig could continue to play wacky bit parts like the ones she hit out of the park in Knocked Up and Ghost Town. Or she could take on more substantial wife/girlfriend roles, serving as a backboard for the over-the-top antics of various male stars. Jenna Fischer—best known as Pam in The Office—has lately filled this niche in Blades of Glory and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (in which Wiig plays Dewey's first wife and Fischer plays his second). But the talented Wiig seems cut out for a little bit more than this, no?
On SNL, Wiig has excelled at creating and inhabiting inane, nutso characters. She's a gifted physical comedian whose secret weapon is dynamic vocal control—playing with subtle shifts in volume and register to surprise us into a laugh. At this point, I suspect we may have seen her whole bag of tricks. But I would have said the same about Will Ferrell when he left SNL seven years and several hundred million box-office dollars ago.
It's Ferrell's career path that seems like the natural route for Wiig. She should be the central focus of ridiculous blockbuster comedies in which her only mission is to make a fool of herself. Ferrell does it, Jim Carrey does it, Steve Carell does it. Yet with occasional exceptions that haven't set the filmgoing world on fire (Molly Shannon in Superstar, Anna Faris in The House Bunny), we don't seem willing to let female comedians play this game.
We're more comfortable when goofy women get smoothed out into rom-com leads, like Drew Barrymore (whose forays into floppy absurdism Wiig seems capable of carrying off). But it remains to be seen whether 1) Wiig can play the real emotions required of a climactic rom-com moment and 2) Hollywood will deem her sexy enough. More to the point, turning Wiig into a Barrymore would squander her talents. Here's hoping that one summer soon, Wiig will rake in $200 million domestic starring as a suburban woman who's been possessed by aliens that have come to earth to steal all our snot.
-
sponsorship
After three weeks in Southern California, Project Runway finally took a trip to the beach.
The challenge was to create a "fun and fashionable surf wear look,"
along with a coordinating avant-garde design. And—drama alert—it was a team
challenge.
The producers ignored Logan and Christopher, Shirin and Carol Hannah, and
Althea and Louise, so it was clear they were safe. Meanwhile, Qristyl and
Epperson squabbled all the way from sketching to judging, reminding viewers that
all unhappy couples are alike: awkward and no fun to be around.
The train-wreck pairing was Mitchell and Ra'mon. Mitchell—who had miraculously
avoided elimination in both previous rounds—seemed incompetent and lazy, a team
captain who left his partner to produce everything except a two-piece swim suit
that was hidden under other garments. Only 35 minutes before the models were
due down the runway, Ra'mon was in the bathroom dyeing fabric, but in a
shocking "first time on Project Runway" twist, Ra'mon was named the
winner, while Mitchell got the boot.
The Contestants
Designer superpower: Is Johnny a living, breathing Hairy
Gary facial hair toy? Every time the camera pointed at him, he seemed to
have sprouted an entirely new beard/sideburn combination.
The Judges
Michael Kors was mysteriously absent for the second week in a row, but Max Azria sat in the
"foreign-born designer who needs subtitles" chair. Rachel Bilson was the
guest judge.
Tim Gunn's cattiest caution: "I feel like I'm in a cartoon with a superhero and a
Greek goddess." (To his credit, Ra'mon immediately abandoned the offending
garment.)
Heidi's biggest dilemma: "On Project Runway, you actually have to design and create and sew. ... I
don't know how I'm supposed to judge someone if they don't actually do
anything."
Stats
Number of times
Tim Gunn said, "Make it work!": 2
Number of crying contestants: Zero. This was a week for bickering, not blubbering.
The Results
Garment of the week: Althea
and Louise's avant-garde look, which featured a glittering bodice made from
zippers and pins with a beautifully executed cascade skirt. Unfortunately, it
got just 10 seconds of screen time.
Should Ra'mon have won? Not on the basis of his hand-dyed off-the-shoulder neoprene dress, which was bold but very poorly
finished. Still, he did the work of two, and the other design, a wave-inspired
blue, green, and brown beach look, was nice if a little gauzy for the
surf set. Johnny's
and Irina's
outfits, which both featured some form of macrame, were the only looks that seemed
coordinated.
Should Mitchell have been eliminated? Hell, yes! As he said himself, "I didn't try hard
enough," but after two weeks of playing the villain, he
at least came across as a nice guy.
Bold prediction for who'll be auf'd next: Qristyl. The judges haven't had a nice thing to say about
her since Day 1.
-
sponsorship
A guest post from Slate food writer, Sara Dickerman:
I shed a few raspberry vinegar tears at the passing of the frizzy-haired food maven Sheila Lukins, who, along with her former partner in the Silver Palate franchise, Julie Rosso, was, and is, one of my cooking inspirations. Though the country is obsessed with Julia Child this summer, in the 1980s, Rosso and Lukins truly mobilized American home cooks with their Silver Palate cookbooks, which combined then-adventurous ingredients, and French-y techniques with American whimsy. First, as the owners of an Upper West Side Deli/catering mecca, they glamorized brunch and high-end deli fare. With their line of fancy mustards, chutneys, and vinegars, they goosed the specialty food market with a dash of French country chic, and with their cookbook, they got an entire country eating brie and Chicken Marbella. I’ve always argued that because of the logistical demands of feeding hundreds of people at a time, caterers make the most usable cookbooks—think Ina Garten and Martha Stewart—and Lukins and Rosso set the standard. The three cookbooks they worked on together The Silver Palate Cookbook, The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook, and The New Basics were extremely approachable in technique, but never plain. In fact it was their inclination toward frivolous ornamentation that may have made food-lovers get a little tired of the silver palate aesthetic in the mid-nineties—the sun-dried tomato that broke the camel’s back. Lukins’ work after she split with Rosso—her populist Parade columns and her ever more eclectic cookbooks—didn’t quite capture the zeitgeist the way her earlier works did, but she remained a potent, more populist advocate for the pleasures of homemade food in the face of convenience food and casual-dining chains. I’ll miss her voice. - Sara Dickerman
-
sponsorship
Glenn Beck
brandishes a Moleskine, and a thousand amateur sociologists bloom. Your responses to my request for "the most liberal product in the land" were nuanced and hilarious and often personally insulting. (Nope, I don't hate America, nor do I wet my bed.) Let's run down the list and arrive at the No. 1 liberal product!
Fifth Place
A Frisbee. I liked the simplicity of this choice, as it implies time spent on a quad at a liberal arts college picking up ideas about recycling and universal health care.
Fourth Place
Stella Artois. Allow me to quote from the submission: "The watery beer of choice amongst hipster bobos who are too genteel and refined to serve Coors."
Third Place
Chaco sandals. There was a lot of debate about what should replace the iconic Birkenstock as the obvious sign of a liberal in the wild. Keen sandals? Rawganique Vegan Hemp Shoes? I went with Chaco because multiple witnesses identified them as the shoe of choice at Obama rallies.
Second Place
Whole Foods. "Yes, the entire store." Though it's a cliché at this point, the status of W.F. as the liberal Wal-Mart cannot be overlooked. The store was the top vote-getter, second only to Volvos.
First Place
GT's Raw Organic Kombucha. The most suggested drink was organic soy milk, but I went with Kombucha. To come across someone drinking Kombucha is to be near a food co-op, a yoga studio, or a farmer's market. Even to know what Kombucha is (fungus tea) implies a dangerous familiarity with liberal culture. To actually drink Kombucha is to be very brave, as my colleague Jessica Grose informs me that it tastes like "carbonated urine."
So, Glenn Beck: Start drinking Kombucha!
Ignore the smell and savor the boost in ratings and attention!
Honorable Mention
"It's Slate, you silly ass."
Can I get an encore?
Send me your nomination for the Most Conservative Product in America, and I will write up the results after the Labor Day weekend.
-
sponsorship
Jody, I found your description of the Taylor Swift concert at Madison Square Garden—as well as the experience of listening to her music for the past week as preparation for our discussion of Swift on the last Slate Culture Gabfest—unexpectedly moving. Top 10 hits by 19-year-old country-pop starlets aren’t usually high in my iPod rotation, so no one could be more surprised than I am that I now know several of Swift’s songs by heart. (Stephen Metcalf, the Gabfest’s host and resident curmudgeon, can be heard gagging in the background; he and Jody are currently engaged in a Taylor Swift smackdown over at the podcast’s Facebook page.)
It could be that I’m so far outside the age demographic for T-Swift fandom that I’ve circled back around and entered it again. Even before watching that clip of the 15,000-girl campfire singalong at the Garden (or getting sniffly at "The Best Day," her insidiously catchy tribute to her mother), I found that I was listening to Swift as a parent: touched by her youthful talent, worrying about how she’ll negotiate the transition from teen phenomenon to adult professional musician, and hoping to God that when my daughter is 15, she’ll be listening to something like Swift’s “Fifteen” and not whatever the equivalent of Britney Spears will be in 2019. Better yet, maybe my girl will be writing her own earnest ballads about freshman anxiety. Whether you like her music or not, it's great to think that Swift's success as a singer-songwriter (as opposed to a pneumatic lip-synching doll) could inspire the next generation of girls to pick up a guitar and learn to play.
-
sponsorship
Diane Sawyer, not the biggest star in the history of broadcast news but surely the glitziest, will become anchor of ABC's World News in January, a promotion long destined and long overdue. The former home of Peter Jennings and his well-cut trenchcoats, ABC has long aired the most flashy and cosmopolitan of the evening newscasts. As Katie Couric is to perky so Sawyer is to sparkly.
Because of Sawyer's real or perceived gravity—earned or ascribed on account of her tenures in the Nixon White House and as an energetic investigative reporter—she has managed to retain a semblance of journalistic credibility while playing the role of the glamour girl with the utmost enthusiasm. Three decades ago, she spurned suggestions that she'd be taken more seriously if she dyed her hair brown. Can it be that her refusal constituted a strike at the stereotype of the dumb blonde? And, anyway, did she also enable Fox News to hire female personalities willing to don bimbo-ish skirts and doff good taste in makeup?
Here she is on the cover of Vanity Fair in September 1987, when her name was already in circulation as candidate for anchor positions and the vision of journalist in an off-the-shoulder look was sufficient to cause a minor scandal. It is impossible to imagine Barbara Walters wearing Farrah-feathered hair and such a knowing grin. Though Sawyer will only be the second woman to become a sole anchor of the network news, she will break the glass ceiling for pageant queens. Just as NBC's Brian Williams is skillful about nodding with his handsome heavy chin, Sawyer is terribly sly about using her Junior Miss smile from its better side, the left.
-
sponsorship
After all the discussion of the blackface in this week's Mad Men, it struck me that another Caucasian cable TV character had put on the greasepaint recently. It wasn't a Mad Men-style slice of minstrelsy, though. In the Aug. 24 episode of Weeds, a white character actually tried to pass for black.
Briefly, Celia Hodes—Elizabeth Perkins' perpetually ill-tempered and ill-fated counterpoint to Mary-Louise Parker's successful drug dealer Nancy Botwin—had stolen the weed that her ex-husband and ex-lover hoped to use to relaunch their careers as legal purveyors of medical marijuana. To get their drugs back, they planted the idea that Celia was being chased by a black cop, knowing that this would immediately cause her to panic and turn to them for help, dope in hand. Only—twist!—the black cop was actually her white ex-husband, Dean, in makeup and a leather jacket that Huggy Bear would've been proud to wear.
As always seems to be the case with Weeds, the story line was complicated and weird. The guys played on Celia's racist fears—she has bullied and physically abused her ex-husband over a long period, but she freaked out as soon as she thought he was a black guy. But Weeds' writers didn't stop there, Dean couldn't just exploit Celia's racism—he got a thrill out of passing for black, and once Celia was fooled, he couldn't let it go. He wanted to go out and get laid, revealing his own stereotyped views of black manhood—Dean is the quintessential nerd in his own skin, but with a bit more melanin and a bad wig, he saw himself as a chick magnet. (As he said with a nod to Tropic Thunder, "Robert Downey Jr. opened that door.")
In its five seasons, Weeds has played with race in discomforting ways. In the first three seasons, Nancy—the ultimate sheltered middle-class white woman—was schooled in the drug business by African-Americans with little patience for her ignorance, while more recently she has found herself mixed up with Mexican narco cartels. Much of the time, the interactions are awkward—excruciating, even. The conversations aren't necessarily realistic—they're about supplying and distributing drugs, which is a pretty narrow field of experience—but they do feel real somehow.
It used to be that we shelled out for cable TV for the sex and the swearing. Given recent plot developments on Mad Men and Weeds, is it possible that we go there now to hear talk about race?
-
sponsorship
Last week, we observed that Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock is the latest in a long line of movies to suggest that getting high by accident is way more fun than doing it on purpose. So we asked Slate readers to send us their favorite examples of the phenomenon. You responded with quite a batch of films, but the three most cited were:
I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!: A number of readers pointed out this classic 1968 Peter Sellers film. Sellers plays Harold, a thirtysomething square living in Los Angeles, who, though engaged, unexpectedly falls for Nancy, a groovy hippie flower girl. When he, his parents, and his fiancé unknowingly eat Nancy's pot brownies, his fiancé tries to undress him publicly, his mother does a Fiddler on the Roof-style jig, and his father demands to play miniature golf.
History of the World Part I: Mel Brooks and Gregory Hines are fleeing from a company of first-century Roman soldiers when Hines discovers some gigantic marijuana plants by the side of the road. He quickly grabs some spare papyrus, rolls a massive joint, and lets the smoke billow out in the wake of their chariot. The Roman soldiers giving chase become impossibly mellow, stumble off into a field, and eventually dance the Lindy Hop.
Saving Grace: The Brenda Blethyn comedy has not one but two scenes of unwitting pot consumption. Blethyn plays Grace, a down-on-her-luck widow who tries to solve her financial problems by cultivating a crop of marijuana in her greenhouse. Hijinks ensue. In one scene, a pair of matronly friends come over for supper, and, finding no one home, brew a pot of fresh tea from the leaves of Grace's remarkably fragrant plants. They don some googly eyed glasses, munch on a box of cornflakes, and get the giggles over the silkiness of Grace's hair. Later, Grace sets fire to her whole harvest, and the smoke intoxicates everyone in the village, leading to a Hieronymus Bosch-style garden party.
-
sponsorship
The site Moleskinerie is dedicated to all things Moleskine, the iconic black notebook of Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso. (These notebooks are also something that white people like.) Typical posts include a sighting of a Moleskine in The Da Vinci Code movie or a hack that involves carving out a Moleskine so that it holds three smaller Moleskines. Recently, the site brought the news that Glenn Beck, the Fox news huffer, was spotted on-air clutching a Moleskine. The reaction from commenter Peggy was classic and swift:
Glenn Beck is a racist who is encouraging people to harm liberals. The fact that he likes moleskines is shocking to me. They are associated with liberal minded, intellectuals. Not the people he appeals to. This makes me almost want to thow away all my moleskines and never use them again.
Another commenter replied with a great idea for a "line of notebooks that will essentially be the same as Moleskines, but twice the price and [called] Notebooks for Liberals." It's safe to conclude that Glenn Beck's endorsement will not have any liberals tossing their Moleskines in the compost pile. But it does suggest a new tactic for pissing them off.
Mr. Beck might start brandishing a Sigg bottle, for example, and offer his viewers subscriptions to The New Yorker. Rush Limbaugh is already a big fan of Apple computers. Perhaps he can also drive a Smart Car. (Oh, wait.) Liberals can counterattack by developing a fondness for Ford F-150s and personal firearms. Without any of these obvious cultural signifiers, Americans will be confused about where they stand on the political spectrum. Not even David Brooks will be able to figure it out. In our collective fog, we'll start jotting our thoughts in notebooks in even great numbers, leading to an alarming rise in free verse and writer's cramp. In preparation for this apocalypse, I'm stocking up on Field Notes.
P.S. In honor of Glenn Beck's inner soul, please e-mail me your nominee for the most liberal product in the land (except the New York Times).
-
sponsorship
Last Thursday, the 19-year-old singer-songwriter Taylor Swift played Madison Square Garden. A headlining show at the Garden is a watershed moment for any musician. For Swift, it was exclamation point on the obvious: singing smart, catchy songs about teenage romance in the suburbs, she has become the biggest pop star in the United States.
Over the past couple years, Swift has been a one-woman bulwark against the complete implosion of the record industry. In 2008, she was the biggest-selling artist in America, with combined sales of her 2006 self-titled debut album and her 2008 release Fearless topping 3.6 million. This year, Fearless has moved another 1.6 million copies; its sales totals are second only to the Michael Jackson compilation Number Ones. Swift has released eight singles, all of which have reached the country Top 10 and the Top 40 on the pop charts. She's had four No. 1 country singles; her latest hit, "You Belong with Me," climbs to No. 2 this week on the Billboard Hot 100.
There have been other milestones. No female artist has had as many hits from a debut album since Billboard began keeping an album chart in 1964. This year, Fearless held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 200 album chart for a total of 11 weeks, the longest run in a decade. Three of Swift's singles have topped two million mark in paid downloads, a first for a country artist. And so on.
Swift's triumph is on the one hand a measure of her ability to scramble categories and defy music biz dictums. There's never really been a country teenpop starlet before. She is surely the only country artist in history to open concerts by rapping Eminem's "Lose Yourself" and to close her shows with cover versions of hits by Beyoncé and Rihanna. At Madison Square Garden, she segued from her ballad "You're Not Sorry" into Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around ... Comes Around."
Like every megastar worth her salt, Swift has built a multi-platform brand with calendars and a clothing line; $39.99 will get you a vaguely sinister-looking "Taylor Swift Singing Doll" that croons Swift's 2007 hit "Our Song." But while Swift manages her career with the ruthless pragmatism of a CEO, her do-it-yourself approach to music resonates with the codes of authenticity championed by rock purists. She writes (or co-writes) all her songs, plays guitar, answers to no Svengali, and doesn't rely on a high-priced corps of studio musicians and producers. She records for an independent label and speaks to a devoted audience in an eccentric, sui generis voice that mixes high-Nashville earnestness with the Esperanto of the foodcourt and the chatroom.
It was that voice that resonated at Madison Square Garden. The concert was a high-tech extravaganza, with video montages and backup dancers, costume changes and an onstage rainstorm. But the music cut through the spectacle. Swift's vocals have occasionally been wobbly, but at the Garden she sang with punch and confidence. What really shone, though, were the songs themselves—the rigorous architecture of hits like "You Belong with Me," "Should Have Said No," and "Love Story," whose melodies arc inexorably towards the payoff of huge sing-along choruses.
The night before Swift's Garden show, Britney Spears' "Circus Tour" played the same room. Taylor would appear to be the anti-Britney; she has plugged a gaping hole in popular culture with music aimed at young women that manages, miraculously, to be both cool and wholesome. But if songs like "Love Story," which ends with a white dress and a wedding, offer comfort to parents, Swift is not a milquetoast. She is famous for seeking revenge on ne'er-do-well ex-boyfriends in song, and for naming names. Introducing one song, she told the Garden audience that an ex made a big mistake when he "cheated on a songwriter." The sellout crowd—almost entirely female, and under 18 years old—roared, but I suspect they were cheering less about the vengeance than the songwriting. How cool must Swift seem to a 12-year-old fan—a tall, gangly girl with a guitar who can turn the exultations and defeats of her emotional life into art while whipping her blond mane around like a dervish?
Swift's bond with her fans came into sharpest focus in the evening's highlight, when the singer waded through the crowd to the center of the arena to sing an acoustic version of "Fifteen," a ballad about muddling through the heartache of freshman year in high school. (See embedded video above.) It's not Swift's catchiest song, but it's her best—an excruciatingly honest diary entry that climaxes with a confession about Swift's real life best friend, Abigail: "Abigail gave everything she had to a boy/ Who changed his mind/ And we both cried." I've seen a lot of amazing live music over the years, but few moments of symbiosis between performer and audience like an arena full of girls singing along to Swift's gentle pep talk.
When the mini-set was over, Swift plunged into the crowd and made her way back to the main stage, where she received the longest, most ear-splitting ovation I've heard at a concert. (A friend likened the din to the famous screeching sound effect in Hitchcock's The Birds.) Like a diva, Swift milked the moment for all it was worth; but as the cheering grew louder, and louder still, it seemed less about Swift, per se, than an expression of communal might. Girl power is real, and it is loud.
Dana Stevens responds, explaining why moms like Taylor Swift.