Heyyyy… how y’all doin?
I apologize to the three people that asked for the delay in content delivery. I am disappointed to announce that on the eve of my typical release date two weeks ago, my streak of being better than everyone else ended:
After two years, I finally contracted the novel coronavirus.
That’s right folks, there’s a new bad bitch in my household, and her name is COVID-19. The only solace I find in succumbing to the illness that gave us endless spring break is that every hot girl also got COVID in the middle of May. Just more evidence to support what we already knew!
I fully intended to release a special COVID edition of Oversharing during my work furlough, but turns out Miss Rona’s got hands and I was not strong enough to overpower her and write something even mildly coherent. For the morbidly curious, here is an excerpt of what I did manage to get down:
Which form of “girl-e” do we find to be more derogatory?
Girly with a y?
Or Girlie, ie.
Girlia.
I’m not sure where I was going with that, but I digress.
I’m pretty impressed with myself that I had made it this far without getting COVID, but even Achilles had his heel. What ultimately brought me down?
Germ-ridden children at the Olivia Rodrigo concert. She was right – it is brutal out here.1
I’m not happy about it, but I can report that the worst is over and I am back to my healthy hot girl self. :)
It was a difficult few days.2 The cabin fever had me grasping for any kind of social interaction. I couldn’t leave my apartment to go to Trader Joe’s and get hit on by my emotional support cashier.3 None of my suitors sent me flowers or a warm meal.4 A girl can only watch Little Women so many times before she starts to lose her grip on reality.5
I found this text I sent to myself 6 and I think it explains my mental state very well.
So yeahhhhh, wasn’t doing great. But at least I had my man to keep me company:
Harry Styles.7
This brings us to today’s topic! Sorry for ghosting everyone and thanks for sticking around! To make up for it I will be releasing an extra Oversharing next week!
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An Ode to Pop Music.
Part 1: Screaming from the Nosebleed Section.
Two weeks ago, I attended Olivia Rodrigo’s SOUR TOUR in my city. It was a beautiful display of all things contemporary pop music: Merch with the artist’s face plastered over it in such a way that when you wear it their face is always warped. Plenty of Instagram-worthy photo-ops. Concert goers dressed to the nines in lavender ensembles, feather-brimmed cowboy hats, and plenty of glitter. Gaggles of children far too young to have their drivers license accompanied by their weary parents who dropped a pretty penny to be there, and some I suspect were equally as excited to be there as their kids based on the attempts at color coordination. At least they have enough life experience to relate to the songs! Knowing they had to sign up for presale and fight for their lives in the Ticketmaster queue, they have my full respect.
I was the eldest of my group and — excluding some of the parents— among the eldest in the crowd. I definitely felt like it, considering I could see just fine from the back because a good portion of the audience was not done growing. Despite the strong “mom friend” responsibility I felt, I pledged to play my part as a pop-loving girlie. I dressed up, I wore glitter in my hair and knock-off Docs on my feet. I sang my heart out and turned my voice into gravel. I cried when we got to the bridge in “drivers license” because how could you not? And then cried some more, to the point that my falsies came off. I felt my age showing when Olivia covered “Complicated” and the crowd did not know the words but I did for I was there when it was written. You could say I understood the assignment!
I live for concerts like these. Live music in general is an amazing experience. Growing up in the theatre8, I learned to value everything that goes into live performances and the role audience plays in the experience. And while all live music is great, there’s something special about pop music and its need for spectacle. It takes a lot of talent to be a good musician, but to put on a show takes an entirely different set of skills and an extra je ne sais quoi, especially for soloists.
A few months ago I saw Dua Lipa live for her Future Nostalgia tour, a dramatically different experience. While Rodrigo has just one album out and was playing a smaller venue (although I suspect she could have just as easily sold out a larger one), Lipa has been in the music industry for longer, has two full-length albums under her belt, and more experience as a performer, as well as lots of resources at her disposal. I don’t think it’s fair to compare these two artists beyond the basic fact that they are both female pop stars with large followings who have grown in popularity over the last year or so. While Lipa’s most recent album drew upon disco and retro influences, Rodrigo draws from rock and punk and it’s evident in her performance. Her outfits are designed to contrast, with pastel plaid adorned with frills and fishnets and platform combat boots. Her hair is loose and appears to not be heat-styled. She performs with an all-women band and has few visual effects beyond some shimmery curtains and disco balls. She relies on the audience to provide her the energy to perform and wow does she PERFORM. Watching her run back and forth across the stage while still hitting some impressive notes made me want to get into running. Her energy is everywhere and her love of performing is palpable.
Lipa, on the other hand, can be described as sleek and restrained. Perhaps it’s her British sensibilities, or maybe it’s due to the criticism she drew from the start of her career for her lack of stage presence and unsatisfactory dancing, but her performance feels calculated. Visually, it’s a feast. She appears on stage with twelve backup dancers dressed in jazzercise-esque body suits, while she wears a neon yellow lace catsuit. Her backdrop is enormous, with many of the visuals featuring her posing in slow motion in computer-generated backgrounds. Her aura is slick. Not a flat-ironed hair falls out of place as she follows the improved yet understated dance moves. She’s not nearly as stiff as she used to be, and in order to combat the “go girl give us nothing” accusations, she’s planned her performance down to the last wink. Every second is choreographed. When she breaks away from her dancers to croon to the audience in the pit, when she addresses the city the concert is taking place in with a prepared and often cheesy bit (in Houston it’s always something to do with NASA. Lipa’s was “I wanna go to the moon with you!”), when she takes a moment to pick an audience member and flirt with them during a particularly sensual song, saying the same. thing. every. show. I don’t mind a choreographed show. There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to productions as big as Lipa’s, one that includes a “levitator” the singer stands on and flies over the crowd for an entire 2 minutes in the fourth act. There are marks that need to be hit. It can be dangerous to not be in the right place at the right time. However, I felt a lack of spontaneity that was present throughout the entirety of Rodgrigo’s act. Rodrigo has no background dancers, few timed marks, and one costume change during which her band vamps just long enough that it isn’t awkward. Her performance is shorter, but she gives it her all the entire time. Rodrigo has a clear connection to her lyrics and to her young audience. Her tales of heartbreak resonate with the crowd, leaving us teary-eyed one second and jumping up and down, cathartically yelling at our exes the next. Her concert felt like a sleepover where you stay up talking about crushes and getting deep about your emotions until someone announced they’re craving chocolate chip cookies and end up in the kitchen at 3am.
Lipa, on the other hand, felt like watching the story of a night at the club as told by the hottest person you’ve ever seen. I could understand the story being told, but I didn’t feel like I was a part of it. I was there to engage in the spectacle and take it all in. Her show had four acts, each with its own costume change. Some of the transitions were accompanied by dancers on rollerskates advertising Truly seltzers, while another was a straight-up blackout, disrupting the energy that had been built up during the show right before the final act, in which Lipa emerges wearing a stunning scintillating black bodysuit designed for her by the late Thierry Mugler. I’ll speak for myself, I paid to see the Mugler with my own eyes. For me, that costume was the star of the show. Amazingly, the garment doesn’t overpower Lipa. In fact, it gave her just the push she needed to end the show on a high note, finally presenting alone and dancing with dramatic strobe lighting. It was the moment that, in my eyes, crowned her a pop star.
Girly pop music is a stigmatized genre. It is seen as superficial at best and vapid at its worst. Much of this criticism can be attributed to the type of person that is associated with a typical listener and creator, i.e. young girls. My love for pop runs deep, but it’s fairly recent that I have begun to accept the identity of being a pop-loving girlie.
When One Direction was in its heyday, I shied away from being a fan because I thought people would judge me. I didn’t want to be like “other girls”, the verrrrry sexist narrative that gained popularity in the early 10s that discouraged girls from enjoying stereotypically feminine things. Me subscribing to this idea ultimately led to me missing out on (and I know some of y’all about to be real mad but understand that I was 16 and insecure and did not know better!)...
Meeting One Direction when they filmed the Drag Me Down video at NASA.9
I KNOW I HATE MYSELF TOO.
I have since learned my lesson and now express my love for 1D unabashedly.
Since joining the ranks of stans, I’ve discovered something special. There’s a sense of solidarity between fans. I have made some of my closest friends bonding over our mutual love of boy bands and pop stars. I love the feeling of community at live events. I love making friends in the line to get into the venue and asking your new friend to hold your place for barricade if you need to go to the bathroom because they know you would do the same for them, despite having known each other for just a few hours. I love the mutual respect between fans when you’re buying tickets to a sold-out concert and the seller doesn’t try to sell you tickets at a ridiculously high price (except sometimes they do and if you do that you SUCK!).10 I love stan culture when it’s positive. When it’s negative… that’s a story for another day.
I’m getting a bit too old to fight for a good spot in the pit and have grown wise enough to accept the concert will be less enjoyable than if you just bought a seat instead. The music will be way too loud just the same.
As I said, my passion for pop music has been a part of my life since I was old enough to dance. I’ve always thought that if I were to give a TEDTalk about anything, it would be about one person who started my obsession, the one who taught me how to move my hips and make sure they never lie.
But I’ll save that story for next week.
Stay safe, wear hearing protection, and get your booster!
Love,
Valeria <3
This is my first time using an em dash. What a moment. I’m not entire sure I used it correctly.
Cue the world’s tiniest violin
Chivalry is dead! Send me some soup you cowards!
The answer is once. That movie altered my brain chemistry and I have not felt the same since.
The girls who get it, get it and the girls who don’t, don’t have ADHD.
Stream Harry’s House! My favorite song is Daydreaming :)
I could not find a video of Miss Darbus from High School Musical saying “THE-ah-tre” so this will have to do.
Missed out on this by proxy, my best friend’s stepdad worked at NASA in the media department and she was asked if she wanted to meet them and said NO also bc of the “not like other girls” cult! But if she had said yes it stands to reason I would’ve been invited!!! We were robbed!!!!
I’m looking at you Instagram user @m*sb*hv*lj* who tried to sell my friend pit tickets for 4x their original value after asking for her to sell hers for face value. That’s not very Treat People With Kindness of you!
FROM ONE POP LUVER TO ANOTHER! 🪐😋
this is my fave newsletter i look forward to it every time i see it <3