Have you ever looked at one
of those Jackson Pollock paintings and just thought to yourself, how the hell
is this considered art? A few drops of paint on a blank canvas and now it’s
some abstract form of expression? That isn’t art, even I could do that!
Well, what’s interesting is
that those paintings are considered art, not because of what they are but because of what they represent. Their artistic value is
determined by the perceived intentions of the artist as well as the
interpretation by the observer. These two things are able to transform splashes
of colour that, out of context, would be seen as nothing more than, well...
splashes of colour. Much the same can be said of Teen Mom star Farrah Abraham’s debut album My Teenage Dream Ended that accompanies her autobiography of the
same name.
Listening to the ‘music’ on
here is the aural equivalent of having your face shredded with a cheese grater.
It’s harsh, arrhythmic, and there are certainly no sing-along pop choruses to
be found. Abraham’s voice is autotuned to the point where she no longer sounds
human and the lyrics (the intelligible ones) are so poorly written that
comparisons have been made with Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” The production is
nonexistent, the music is choppy and lacking any kind of cohesion, and
everything just sounds like it was
fashioned by a vapid teenage girl. It’s easy to tell that there was definitely
no artistic intention here, as Abraham has said herself in an interview with
MTV. “I was just playing around with music and people took it way too serious.”
So if we are to view My Teenage Dream Ended as a piece of
art, we can already rule out the first criterion. Here’s the thing though...
this album completely subverts the conventions of pop music by holding up a
broken mirror to its ugly face. It’s the musical equivalent of Ke$ha throwing
up on a copy of one of her own albums and selling it on eBay. It takes all the
aspects of modern pop music and distorts them until they are almost
unrecognizable. The vocals are completely devoid of emotion in a context where
conveying emotion should be absolutely non-negotiable. And just as you think
you’ve reached a moment in the album where there is a genuine confession being
made, like the fragile opening to “Liar Liar” or the lyrical sincerity of
“Searching for Closure,” the next track comes in and shatters it. It’s a
bewildering experience to say the least.
The final three tracks are where
My Teenage Dream Ended is at its most
interesting. These are perhaps the most experimental pieces of them all and on
another album they may well have been seen as a stroke of genius. “On My Own”
is probably the darkest song on the album, with Farrah rambling uncontrollably
over a repetitive synth line. Between each verse the song comes to a standstill,
sounding as though it’s decomposing under the weight of its own madness. “The
Sunshine State,” on the other hand, is a one and a half minute ode to teenage
partying that is really about Farrah repeating her initials again and again
during the chorus-of-sorts. If “On My Own” took My Teenage Dream Ended to a much darker side of madness, “The
Sunshine State” brings it right back into bewilderment. After the song ends, it
is revealed that “Aloha ‘Oe” has been playing in the background, the perfect WTF
ending to the perfect WTF song. “Finally Getting Up from Rock Bottom” closes
the album suitably with lyrics about Farrah finally dealing with the situation
she now finds herself in – as a teen mom.
At the conclusion of the recording it may be difficult to comprehend exactly what you just heard. Flashes of unintentional brilliance ("our bodies will hold us together") followed by naive schoolgirl diary entries ("hope and hate equals hard"). So the question
remains: is it garbage or is it art? Well that’s entirely up to you to decide.
If you’re interested in art and want to dig deeper into what exactly makes
something artistic, give this a listen and think about it. If you want some
light entertainment and feel like hearing music worse than Rebecca Black, press
play. As for me, I’m undecided. I will say this though: everything on here is
paradoxical in some way or another. And for an album that seems to try so hard
to sound emotionless, it sure packs one hell of a punch.
Rating: ?/10
No comments:
Post a Comment