The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
b-side
Thursday, February 15, 2018 — 3B

In 2017, singer-songwriter 

Annie Clark, better known by 
her stage name St. Vincent, 
coyly fielded questions in an 
interview with The New Yorker 
about her supposed position 
as 
the 
queer 
protagonist 

of 
her 
then-upcoming 

album 
Masseduction. 
She 

responded to the interviewer’s 
questions with, “Songs are 
like prophecies. They can be 

stronger than you are.”

Three 
years 
before 
that 

interview, 
I 
heard 
Romy 

Madley-Croft, one of the lead 
singers of the band The xx, 
croon the first few lines of 
“Shelter” from a bruised iPod 
Nano: “I find shelter in this 
way / Undercover hideaway 
/ Can you hear when I say / ‘I 
have never felt this way.’” She 
sings above sparse background 
instrumentation, 
and 
the 

yawning ambiguity of her voice 
turns the song into a seemingly 
endless 
line 
of 
possibility, 

which — at the time — matched 
the seemingly endless line of 
long black hair that belonged to 
the girl who always sat next to 
me in seventh period art class. 
She liked to paint flowers, and 
the careful way her fingers 
sketched the curving outline 
of a rose made something in 
my chest bloom. I don’t know 
what to call this kind of quiet 
attraction 
— 
easy 
laughter 

passed between us like love 
letters 
in 
an 
after-school 

special — but I did match 
the uptick of my heartbeat 
whenever she turned to talk 
to me with the tempo of the 
beat during the second half of 
“Shelter,” so I think I have a 
start.

Many years later, in an 

interview with The Fader, The 
xx would describe their music 
as “A queer space. We avoid 
gender, we avoid sexuality, we 
avoid time and place, so people 
can have that room to connect 
and to set their own ideas to it.”

Songs that can take any 

form desired; music to free the 
questioning soul.

It’s a liberation that can 

be seen time and time again 
within the musical archives. 
The androgynous legacy of 
Prince — with his blown out 

curls, 
platform 
heels 
and 

affinity for wearing sequined 
suits during performances — 
highlights the allure of art’s 
nonconformity, the lines that 
can be blurred in expressions 
of 
identity. 
“My 
name 
is 

Prince, and I am funky,” the 
opening song off of Prince’s 
historic album [Love Symbol] 
declares, embossed with the 
golden arches of The Love 
Symbol itself. The glyph Prince 
invented to take the place of 
his name during the early ’90s 
defied phonetics and defied 
labels, an icon that melded the 
astrological Mars-Venus, male-
female signs into something 
new: a bold announcement of 
fluidity.

Ziggy Stardust, the first of 

David Bowie’s many elaborate 
personas, inspired a similar 
sentiment 
of 
eccentricity. 

Stardust dazzles in Bowie’s 
1972 album, The Rise and 
Fall of Ziggy Stardust and 
the Spiders from Mars, as 
an 
extraterrestrial 
sort 
of 

hero, 
descending 
from 
the 

heavens 
with 
a 
sleek 
red 

mullet, 
heavy 
makeup 
and 

an iconic lighting bolt streak 
of red and blue, destined to 
save Earth’s slow, apocalyptic 
demise with the power of 
rock ‘n’ roll. Unfortunately, 
he eventually weaves his own 
demise. As both the spider 
and the insect caught in its 
web, he finds himself trapped 
by the destructive nature of 
the very cult of personality he 
has created. The album closes 
with the song “Rock ‘N’ Roll 
Suicide,” and Stardust, knees 
cracked under the weight of his 
own stardom, implores anyone, 
everyone, “Let’s turn on and be 
not alone (wonderful) / Gimme 
your 
hands 
cause 
you’re 

wonderful.”

More than just convoluted 

spectacle 
of 
glam 
rock, 

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy 
Stardust melded music and 
social 
commentary 
within 

the splendor of an eclectic, 
space-age narrative. It wasn’t 
queer music in the traditional 
sense — speaking directly to 
LGBTQ experiences — yet this 
particular album, as well as 
the persona it catapulted into 
prominence, is still heralded 
as an icon for many who 
question labels of sexuality, of 
gender and of the interplay of 
the two. Within the strange 
effervescence 
of 
Ziggy 

Stardust, 
the 
outcasts 
and 

misfits who questioned their 
place in society’s norms at the 
time found a hand onto which 
to grab, a space to traverse 
their own forms of creative 
expression.

A few months after her 

New Yorker interview, Clark 
dropped 
Masseduction 
and, 

much like David Bowie’s work, 
it is more illustrative of the St. 
Vincent persona she created 
than of Clark herself. The 
overtly sexual figure that graces 
the album’s cover in a leopard-
print thong and hot pink tights, 
a glaring reminder of the neon 
glow of the 1980s, is one of 
St. Vincent’s many elaborate 
manifestations. She embodies 
the rattle of pill bottles and 
throws cheeky winks that are 
half-hidden 
behind 
plastic 

surgery bandages. “Sugarboy, 

I’m in need / How I wish, for 
something sweet,” she sings on 
the album’s fourth track, and 
then immediately parries with, 
“Sugargirl, figurine / Pledge 
all your allegiance to me.” 
Songs have gleaming edges — 
sensuality oftentimes is used 
as a weapon — and the world 
she develops is one that is 
fraught with personal tension, 
different from Bowie’s and 
Prince’s softer, more grandiose 
expressions. Yet, all three pop 
phenomena can be considered 
related in the distinct ways 
they eschew orthodoxy. 

As Clark herself said in 

a series of interviews with 
Pitchfork, “All human beings 
create their own mythologies, 
and I’m in the somewhat 
bizarre 
circumstance 
of 

creating a big mythology that 
gets shared with a lot of people. 
In some ways, doing the work 
that I do is about reinventing 
a value system. More or less, 
there’s 
a 
ubiquitous 
value 

system 
in 
America, 
these 

markers that signify your rite 
of passage into adulthood or 
into validity: getting married 
and having kids and having 
mortgages. But I always felt a 
little bit like an alien cocking 

my head to the side at various 
cultural milestones, going, ‘I 
would never aspire to that.’” 

The transcendent power of 

these artists — Prince, Bowie, 
St. Vincent and countless others 
— lies in their imaginative 
exploration of the self through 
their 
music. 
The 
various 

personas 
and 
characters 

conceived may not be accurate 
representations of the artist 
but to be autobiographical is 
not the point. In the hyper-
surreal landscapes of Ziggy 
Stardust, [The Love Symbol] 
and Masseduction, individuals 
can find echoes of private 
desires that are too fluid, too 
subjective and too nuanced to 
be so easily categorized.

“When people are growing 

up they’re generally looking for 
something in the culture that 
reflects 
their 
subconscious 

yearnings,” Grayson Perry told 
The Guardian as he described 
the effect Bowie’s pop had on 
his generation in the ’70s. I 
can’t help but be reminded of 
a certain song that one bruised 
iPod Nano used to contain.

Secondary: Music recs for 
the queer & questioning

SHIMA SADAGHIYANI

Daily Music Editor

SINGLE REVIEW: “ONLY ACTING”

 Kero Kero Bonito’s new-
est single “Only Acting” 
finds the British trio exper-
imenting with elements 
of rock ‘n’ roll, punk and 
industrial music. The track 
opens simply, with a drum 
machine and vocalist Sarah 
Midori Perry delivering her 
signature light, comfort-
able flow. An easy bassline 
works its way in next — a 
definite sonic shift for Kero 
Kero Bonito — which is 
then followed by a crescen-
doing flurry of harsh synth. 
It’s exciting to see Kero 
Kero Bonito, well known 
for their stellar saccharine 
J-pop style, experimenting 
with sounds that are a little 
edgier and more intense.
 The real payoff of “Only 

Acting” is the interplay 
between Perry’s lyrics 
and the new techniques 
employed. Perry opens 
with an assertion: “When 

I step onto the stage, I 
see the curtain raise / It’s 
apparent, I’ve got someone 
to play.” The couplet is a 
tongue-in-cheek nod to how 
embodying an aesthetic can 
be useful, but also limiting. 
In Kero Kero Bonito’s case, 
Perry is making it clear that 

the past pop-centric style 
has become cumbersome, 
and that the group is ready 
to grow out of it. However, 
that isn’t to say that they 
completely abandon the 
fun, sugary electro-pop that 
put them on the map. That 
same energy is infused with 
a tense desire for release, 
culminating in skipping 
effects, errant cymbals and 
synth as the track trips 
over itself during the final 
moments. “Only Acting” is 
a morsel of what the next 
iteration of Kero Kero Boni-
to will sound like — innova-
tive, self-aware but as fun 
as ever.

- Jack Brandon, 

Daily Film Editor

DOUBLE DENIM

“Only Acting”

Kero Kero Bonito 
Double Denim

YOUNG TURKS

More than just 

convoluted 

spectacle of glam 

rock, The Rise 

and Fall of Ziggy 
Stardust melded 
music and social 

commentary

The transcendent 

power of these 
artists — Prince, 
Bowie, St. Vincent 

and countless 
others — lies in 
their imaginative 
exploration of the 
self through their 

music

“The 
original 
show 
was 

fighting for tolerance, our fight is 
for acceptance.”

This is the sentiment that 

opens the first minute of “Queer 
Eye,” a Netflix reboot of the 
2003 Bravo series “Queer Eye 
for the Straight Guy.” For those 
unfamiliar with the show, the 
concept may seem offensive or 
demeaning. Five gay men, each 
an expert in either food, culture, 
grooming, fashion or design, 
take a disheveled straight man 
and turn him into something 
beautiful. Yet the show is not an 
exploitation of stereotypes or a 
gaudy attempt at reality; rather, it 
is truly “a fight for acceptance,” as 
on-cast fashion expert Tan says.

Dallas, Ga. isn’t exactly a town 

that 
anyone 
would 
consider 

progressive. Located in the Deep 
South with a population of just 
13,000, it encapsulates the classic 
hometown Southern attitude that 
is practically immune to change. 
But this is where Bobby, Karamo, 
Tan, Antoni and Jonathan, better 
known as the “Fab 5,” find their 
first project.

Tom 
is 
a 
self-described 

“country boy.” He’s got a lush 
beard, a rotund belly and a thick 
Southern drawl — the type of 
character who would seem more 
comfortable adorning a certain 
red trucker hat than a pair of 
suede Oxford shoes picked out 
for him by a gay man. When the 

Fab 5 find him, Tom is sitting in 
a stained recliner, drinking his 
special mix of Mountain Dew 
and tequila. He may look like a 
lost cause, and with his mantra of 
“You can’t fix ugly,” it’s clear that 
he certainly thinks he is.

Yet the last thing that “Queer 

Eye” will stand for is insecurity. 
This is a show about acceptance, 
and that means accepting every 

part of yourself and expecting 
others to do the same. The Fab 5 
are unapologetically themselves, 
and they each have a vibrant 
personality that transcends the 
career stereotypes that people 
may try to fit them into. The same 
goes for Tom, who I myself am 
guilty of placing into a certain 
category. But Tom is a delightful 
character whose transformation 
from a jort-clad lonely man to 
a confident, flat-cap wearing 
grandpa 
was 
honestly 
tear-

inducing.

And 
it’s 
through 
this 

realization 
and 
through 
the 

interaction between the men 
that the significance of the show 
becomes so evident. The politics 
are not obvious, but they are 
certainly present. Nobody has 
to ask what might be strange 
about bringing together these 
two demographics that are so 
often pitted against each other. 
But watching Tom cuddle up on 
a mattress with Jonathan and 

Bobby, talk love with Antoni and 
be vulnerable with Karamo — it 
makes a person start to question 
everything they thought they 
knew about how we should view 
and treat each other.

Normalizing this behavior is 

why it is so important that we 
have such queer representation 
on television. This decade is no 
stranger to a proliferation of queer 
characters on hit TV shows. From 
“Modern Family” to “Andi Mack” 
to “Will & Grace,” queer people 
are representing all different 
walks of life. And while all of that 
is wonderful, “Queer Eye” brings 
a new, perhaps more favored form 
of representation. In “Queer Eye,” 
queerness is obviously central, 
but it isn’t a plotline or conflict 
or ploy to get publicity. Rather, it 
is just something that permeates 
every aspect of the show, in all 
of its pure-fun glory. If you’re 
watching “Queer Eye,” you are 
going to be having a good time. 
Incorporating 
queerness 
into 

such a feel-good, relatable show 
not only encourages, but also 
fosters, acceptance.

As humans, our differences 

may seem far more important 
than our commonalities. It is 
hard to look at someone who 
leads such a vastly different 
lifestyle and believe that they too 
share the same hopes and wants 
and insecurities as you do. But if 
“Queer Eye” teaches us anything, 
it is that some prejudices and 
assumptions run only skin-deep 
and no matter the circumstances, 
there is nothing that a great 
makeover can’t fix.

SAMANTHA DELLA FERRA

Daily Arts Writer

‘Queer Eye’ begins a new 
quest for representation

NETFLIX

SECONDARY
TV REVIEW

“Queer Eye”

Netflix

