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© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019.Swift, Cardi B and Missy Elliott bring girl power to Video Music Awards show
By Jill Serjeant NEWARK, NJ©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
34 Comments
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starpunk
'Girl power'? What a joke, there are plenty of talented female musicians out there - Lindsey Sterling, Kimbra, Frankie Rose, Lucy Wainright Roche, Joan Jett, and all-female acts like Heart, the Plastiscenes, the Courtneys, Courtney Barnet, Hatchie, Shonen Knife and more. These ladies have talent.
These VMA 'winners' have nothing and don't hold a candle to the other ladies I listed above. Check them out instead.
Luddite
They are women.
sourpuss
Hate to pile on...but if men had dominated, would they have called it "boy power?"
How old are these "girls?"
Toasted Heretic
Missy Elliot is back! A true innovator. Her duet with Lizzo is great fun.
Musical snobbery is so passe.
Joe Blow
Cardi B's "music" is pure junk. Nothing to celebrate there!
JJ Jetplane
@Joe Blow
Is Taylor Swift’s music any better? Eventually she will run out of ex boyfriends and songs to make about them.
@Toasted Heretic
Missy never left. She just shifted her focus behind the scenes.
Jimizo
Taylor Swift is good. I can’t say I’ve heard anything from the others. I’m a bit out of touch these days.
@Starpunk
Can’t people just be allowed to like what they like without being ‘educated’ on what they should be listening to?
Toasted Heretic
Breakup songs are the basis for so many songs.
Look at Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, Amy Winehouse's Back to Black, Beck's Sea Change, Joni Mitchell's Blue, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours.
Toasted Heretic
Sorry, meant albums but yeah, love/breakups are a staple ingredient of so many songs.
Amir Marzouk
I don’t think taylor swift is break up music. I think it’s ranting over someone she just needs to get over and move on from. It’s not about reminiscing. Her songs are more about bad mouthing them.
Toasted Heretic
Well said. My Half Man Half Biscuit albums sit contentedly aside my Thin Lizzys, ABBAs, Iron Maidens, Marvin Gayes and Beyonces etc, etc.
It's all personal taste.
Jimizo
Half Man Half Biscuit could sit alongside Shakespeare, Keats and Tolstoy as well as those fine people you mentioned.
David Varnes
Got any Queen or Meat Loaf on that shelf?
lostrune2
She's back to her cheery songs again, like when she was country, She's patched up with Katy Perry and have forgiven Kanye West. Incidentally, she's also by far Forbes Highest-Paid Woman In Music 2019:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2019/08/26/the-worlds-highest-paid-women-in-music-2019-taylor-swift-doubles-up-no-2-beyonc/
Dango bong
nice bod!
starpunk
My goof. I forgot Missy Elliot. She's got more musicality and talent than the others put together. She's got more class than the other VMA 'winners'.
Numbers don't mean anything. DJs and programmers and media gods shove the garbage on the sheep public of America. Just because you make millions doesn't mean you're good, let alone an 'artist'.
Just suggesting. I like women musicians who write their songs, sing them, play instruments. Is that too much to ask for in a musician? Sorry, but these overchoriographed types who just strut around, lip-sync and flaunt sexuality are a joke. I don't care how good any of them look. I just can't take these posers (or the 'boy bands' either) as serious musical artists. I just can't.
The lady artists I listed in my post above are serious about their work and it's just the tip of the iceberg and that's why I listed them. Talent should take precedence over looks.
starpunk
Very well said. ABBA, Marvin Gaye, Iron Maiden, Duran Duran, Bangles, INXS, Midnight Oil, AC/DC, ELO, Phil Collins, Bryan Ferry, REM, Kenny Rogers, Ziggy Marley, Pink Floyd, Little River Band, Grateful Dead, U2, Apples In Stereo, Dan Fogelberg, RUSH. All that and more in my CD collection. My tastes, not what's dictated to me.
oldman_13
Lots of hate here.
Lighten up, Francis
mike1492
BabyMetal is girl power.
extanker
It's too bad all the men that Cardi B drugged and ripped off when she was a stripper won't come forward. Funny how she can still work after admitting that. I guess it's 'girl power' for a woman to do it to a man.
Toasted Heretic
For sure. Music going back to Robert Johnson all the way up to Missy and everything in between...
Currently listening to Kojaque and Fontaine's DC.
Joe Blow
At least Swift can sing. Cardi B just mumbles and in this horrible, ratchet voice too.
starpunk
That's just being a revengeful sour shrew. Nobody likes that. Real 'girl power' is where a woman can stand on her own 2 feet and do things her way and not take any crap from anyone. IOW, it's like what that Aretha Franklin and Eurythmics song says. 'Girl power' means not standing behind anyone. She is her own woman.
Many figures thruout history - from Florence Nightingale, Joan of Arc, Susan Anthony, Yoko Ono, Oprah, the above listed women musicians I listed in the above post and more. Strong independent intelligent women.
starpunk
I remember reading something about that. And I saw a video clip on Rolling Stone magazine's website where Cardi B started a ruckus with Nicki Minus (sp?), calling her obscene names and acting like a juvenile 10-year-old. 'Girl power'? God help us.
Alfie Noakes
I've never listened to Cardi-B's music but I do have several very nice cardigans I enjoy wearing when the temperature allows. So I do feel somewhat sympathetic to her for that reason alone.
Now you're talking.
Several of my old mates are musicians/producers and general music business types. They all rate Taylor Swift and some are absolutely nuts about her. I've never really listened to her music but I bow to their much superior knowledge there.
This week I've enjoyed the new 808 State stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htYHQ5agIdc
Kestrel
starpunk,
you lost me with yoko ono and oprah.
starpunk
they are both women who became notorious and successful because of their intelligence, on their own merit and not because of any association with a man. We know about Oprah's rise to fame and notoriety. As for Yoko Ono, she already was well known, notorious and respected in Greenwich Village, NYC art circles due to her performance art - long before she met John Lennon. Of course she gets unfairly blamed for the Beatles' breakup but she is an independent-minded woman of her own right. She does things her own way and she is a 'feminist' icon because of that. Paul McCartney said it best when he said, 'I like Yoko. Yoko is Yoko.'
Toasted Heretic
Janelle Monae is also someone I have a lot of respect for, in the pop world. Very creative. But I wouldn't say she's better or worse than any other artist. Yoko Ono is a fan and vice versa.
lostrune2
Swift got started writing songs and playing guitar while she was a pre-teen. Then, when she was just 14 years old, the whole family relocated to Nashville where she paid her dues as a country performer working at bars and restaurants. After a few bumps in the road, Swift signed on with Big Machine Records. It took 3 years after signing on for the first album.
Here's a video of her performing guitar of her early hit song she wrote for her high school freshman talent show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGFr6yRAtzQ
Wrote the song - check
Sings the song - check
Plays the instrument - check
Is that still asking too much?
Strangerland
It’s weird watching people disparage Swift. Her music is not my style whatsoever, but I’ve had a few of her songs stuck in my head multiple times over the years. And look at how popular she is. It’s silly to think that she’s not obviously an extremely talented musician.
extanker
Cardi B admits to having drugged and assaulted multiple men, yet is being held up as an example of 'girl power' right here in this article. Not sure where you are seeing the disconnect, I am pointing out that she is only a couple steps away from what Bill Cosby did, but is still being looked at as some kind of obscene role model.
Kestrel
@Starpunk,
Yoko Ono would be nothing more than a minor footnote if she hadnt hooked upwith and married John Lennon.
Kestrel
Lennon promised her early on that he would advance her career. She always blamed him because she never became anything more than what she always was - a second rate scammer of the "art" world.
bass4funk
Please don’t compare Oprah to Swift or Ono....
YES in that particular and odd circle.
I think Paul McCartney would disagree vehemently.
Also Paul said things to keep the peace which I understand given him and John’s relationship, but they definitely don’t care for each other.