Holy Huckapoo! As if it isn't bad enough when David Brooks writes about Iraq, now he's an expert on teen pop. In today's column (free copy) he riffs on three "pretty much unavoidable" summer pop songs: Carrie Underwood's Before He Cheats, Pink's U + Ur Hand and Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend.
If you put the songs together, you see they�re about the same sort of character: a character who would have been socially unacceptable in a megahit pop song 10, let alone 30 years ago.
This character is hard-boiled, foul-mouthed, fedup, emotionally self-sufficient and unforgiving. She�s like one of those battle-hardened combat vets, who�s had the sentimentality beaten out of her and who no longer has time for romance or etiquette. She�s disgusted by male idiots and contemptuous of the feminine flirts who cater to them. She�s also, at least in some of the songs, about 16.
Had we but world enough and time, there'd be no end of things we could say about this column, which goes on to draw grand conclusions about divorce, hookup culture and Charles Bronson. But let's stick to the basics. Would this character really have been unheard of 10, 20 or 30 years ago?
Hey, I can answer that off the top of my head! Last week, I put together a mix CD for my drive upstate (yeah, yeah �my iPod is dead) on which I just happened to pair Girlfriend with a certifiable megahit from 27 years ago sung by the same "character." Maybe you know it.
Well you're a real tough cookie with a long history/ Of breaking little hearts, like the one in me. / Before I put another notch in my lipstick case/ You better make sure you put me in my place.
Again, that's the example that just happened to be going through my head. Feel free to suggest your own. You only have to go back 10 years, but it's possible to go back 70 if you try.
Update: Vance points out that Brooks can't even get his ideas right when he steals them.
