8 - Friday, September 10, 2010

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 0

8 - Friday, September10, 2010 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom 0

Swedish success

TV REVIE wP
E !'s new PR nightmare .

Swedish songstress
Robyn lets her 'Body
Talk' on latest disc
By SHARON JACOBS
Assistant Arts Editor
The road to U.S. recognition for
international electro-poppers is
riddled with undeserved failures.
Take Miranda!, the Argentine
quartet whose
sound most
closely resembles
Zoloft on ecstasy y
on a dance- Rw"Y*
floor - or see Body Talk,
Belgian power- Pt.2
house Stromae, Konichiwa
whose single
"Alors on danse"
is currently ripping up thecharts in
continental Europe. These artists
make perfectly danceable, loveable
music, but there's something about Worst ear infection ever.
them that's totally inaccessible to
mainstream U.S. audiences. don't be afraid / We
You can try to blame it on lin- and make mistakes"
guistics: The aforementioned art- ine and not patronizi
ists generally stick to Spanish and Robyn has hit her pea
French, respectively. turned off.
Swedish songstress Robyn Rarely holding on
almost fell prey to the same trend, the last note of a line
despite the fact that almost all her shattering high notes1
work is in English. The peppy blond diately and unpreten
seemed doomed to never see her ping to a lower range,
star rise beyond Scandinavia - that seems to be trying too
is, until she let her body talk. most apparent on sta
Body Talk, Pt. 2 is the second of With Me" - already
three quite physically communica- acoustic form on Pt.
tive albums slated for 2010. While in music and mood,
not powered by the same emotional tempo version effortl
rocket asits predecessor, the record in with a giddy energ
proves that Robyn has a certain once a plea to not "fo
something that lets her blast off to heedlessly in love wit
the stars while her contemporaries 1 is suddenly an off-t
stay grounded. taunt.
While opener "In My Eyes" Here, as on much,
has an unremarkable first 30 listeners will find a dif
seconds, complete with a brash from the woman who
drum-machine beat and a good ol' Pt. 1 that fembots hav
retro synth background, as soon Clearly done dancing
as Robyn's pure and precise voice Robyn is harsher and
enters she overcomes and domi- able on Pt.2. At one po
nates (with just the teeny-weeni- that "Love Kills," an
est hint of an accent). She sings murmurs on the foll
in a throat-voiced and downright "We dance to the beat
human manner, the kind of style and unrecognized gen
an artist has to master in order to distortion and lotst
make lines like "Hey little star, might be talking ab'

k
COURESY OF KONfCHIWA

By LINDSAY HURD
Daily Arts Writer
Executive producer Kim Kar-
dashian was clearlytryingto chan-
nel and combine
"The Hills" with
Donald Trump
to make her TheSpin
first show, "The
Spin Crowd," an CroWd
instant success. Sundays at
Unfortunately, 10.d0ys m.
the result is far 10:30 p.m.
from successful, E
due in no small
part to star Jonathan Cheban, who
has enough bad hair (Trump) and
fake drama ("Hills") to become the
next villain that everyone loves
to hate. If anyone could stand to
watch him.
The show follows Cheban's pub-
lic relations firm in Hollywood
while he constantly works to cre-
ate and promote celebrity perso-
nas. The program tries to display
Command PR as a thriving and
successful business with a boss
who knows all. Yet Vice President
Simon Huck pokes fun at Cheban
constantly and the ditzy girls who
"work" for them just bicker about
who is prettier. Instead of being
amusing or qualified, Cheban looks
like a crazed lunatic, and the girls
are shallow and unaware of the
real world.
The only reason this show is
sometimes not the bore that all
other copies of "The Hills" have
been is the ridiculous and contra-
dictory nature of Cheban himself.
He's so vain that he goes to a doctor
for a fat-freezing treatment, while
his hair looks like itgot caught in a

all fall apart
sound genu-
ing; and once
k, she can't be
too long to
e and brightly
before imme-
tiously drop-
Robyn never
hard. This is
ndout "Hang
y released in
1. Electrified
the new up-
essly swoops
gy. What was
all recklessly,
th me" on Pt.
he-cuff flirty
of the album,
fferent Robyn
lamented on
e feelings too.
on her own,
d less vulner-
int she warns
nd when she
owing track,
of false math
nius" through
of echo, she
out her own

early career - but in a very mecha-
nized and unromantic way.
This guarded aesthetic on Pt. 2
thwarts the careful blend of emo-
tion and clubability that charac-
terized its predecessor. It's just
as danceable but not as deep, and
that's a loss.
But the change also allows
for hard-hitting twin highlights
"Criminal Intent" - a slick and
sexy speech over blips, bloops and
siren wails - and the irrepressible
travel monologue "U Should Know
Better." In the latter, Robyn's fast-
paced calling-out of nationalities
that should know better than to
fuck with her is nearly ruined by
Snoop Dogg's most timely observa-
tion that there's a black president
in our White House (thanks for the
update, Snoop).
But sloppy guest spots aside,
these tracks have confidence bust-
ing out their ears, and the general
in-your-face-ness of Body Talk, Pt.
2 will force repeated listens. Obvi-
ously, any rising international
superstar has to keep the teary-
eyed whining out of the club. So
maybe Robyn's gritty new shell is a
good sign - here's hoping she'll be
the little international pop star that
could.

Everybody in this picture looks like a huge douche.
lawn mower. He tells everyone he's get lip injections in order to look
a workaholic, but the only thing pretty. When Erika doesn't get
he's seen doing is yelling at people permanent lip injections, Cheban
and partying with bogus celebri- freaks out on her and tells her she's
ties. Finally, he claims he hangs ugly and that he's upsetto be work-
out with some of the biggest names ing with someone so "homely."
in Hollywood, yet the only star This misogynistic act is not only
he does business with in the first outright evil, it perpetuates a false
and harmful message of the impor-
tance of looks in having a success-
ful career.
Cheban knows "The Spin Crowd" doesn't give a
worthwhile look into the world of
dram a, but not PR. Cheban has made the careers
public relations. of Paris Hilton and the Kardashi-
p~uilC rans, but one would never know it
from watching the show. Instead
of focusing on the business, the
episode is C-lister Mario Lopez to show spends much of 30 minutes
promote a men's tanning product. concentrating on Cheban's odd
Lopez even points out the irony requests and obsessive behaviors
that he is of Mexican heritage and while everyone else laughs at him.
already has dark skin. If Cheban has what it takes to be
Worst of all, Cheban is outright successful in the world of PR, then
offensive to his newest employee, it seems any woman-hater with
Erika, and tells her she needs to bad hair could be a success.


LEBOWSKI
From Page 7
delinquents to porn directors.
The Dude's friend Walter is a neo-
conservative Vietnam veteran who
is by no means an exemplary citi-
zen. Jesus is a pederast in a purple
jumpsuit. The Dude's time is one in
which nothing is sacred.
And nothing in that time
deserved to be treated as sacred.
Any character who's supposed to
mean something - to have done
something for America -is exposed
as a phony and a failure. Lebowski
the millionaire didn't really make
his own millions. The Dude himself
was a hippie who wanted to make
change and spent his college years
occupying various administra-
tion buildings. One of the German
Nihilists cuts off her toe for a mil-
lion dollars. Between the Vietnam
years and the world of Lebowski,
something in America was lost. A
tradition was broken and it became
easier to abide than to act.
It's easier not to act because
no one wants to be exposed as a
phony and a failure, and that fear of
exposure drives "Lebowski." As a
who-done-it film investigating the
darker side of an American nature,
"The Big Lebowski" falls into the
tradition of a film noir. Noirs were
often channels of fear during the
Depression and World War II years
in American cinema. Yet "The Big
Lebowski" was released at a time
when there seemed to be little to
fear. In fact, the whole film mocks
the idea of fear - the bad guys are
just nihilists. Even death is a bit of

a farce as Donny's ashes are placed
in a Folger's coffee can and dumped
somewhat anticlimactically into
the Pacific Ocean. But maybe that's
the point. Maybe there's a reason
why a ridiculous noir like "The Big
Lebowski" still resonates today.
Perhaps there is something to fear
and worry about if we are living in
a society where everything is com-
pletely devoid of meaning.
I find the irreverence and in
some sense, anger, of "The Big Leb-
owski" tobe perfectly justified and
part of why it's so popular. For one
thing, the Dude's time and our time
are remarkablysimilar.Granted, it's
only been about twenty years but
we're engaging new enemies in the
Middle East in wars that are hard to
make a whole lot of sense outof. The
war in Iraq has often been titled the
next Vietnam. But the thing is, none
of it is about Vietnam (as much as
Walter would like to believe it is) -
not bowling and not even that war

in the Middle East.
The Dude is the man for his time.
He's not a hero exactly, but he does
make people realize that no coun-
try and no people can construct
an identity if each generation is
growing up under the shadow of
the kitschy stars of a romanticized
bowling alley. But the movie does
construct an identity and a sense of
a community because it teaches us
to laugh at the mistakes of the past.
After all, the human comedy does
keep perpetuating itself.
The Coen Brothers are trying to
analyze the direction the human
comedy has taken in the years since
the Vietnam War and what they
have to say in their film doesn't
seem to be entirely pleasant or
hopeful. But in a time where noth-
ing is as itseems, corruption is to be
expected, and cynicism is the norm,
the best thing to do is probably just
to abide and know the dude is out
there, taking it easy.

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