I am sorry this is becoming slightly over focused on music lately but alas, this tumblr is, after all, a reflection of what occupies my mind (to a limit, I doubt anyone would be interested in the dozen times I wish for pastries or other assorted food stuffs, but I digress). So, writing about Lana Del Rey last week and the responses (on the post itself and the places where the post was linked to/ discussed) made me think about music a bit more than usual. More specifically, about emerging women artists and how they are treated by mainstream media vis a vis their male counterparts.
All of this leads me to my latest obsession: Chrysta Bell. Her debut album was produced by David Lynch and released around november last year (? not entirely sure of the timeline, could have been December as well). I am on record as a lover of all things trip hop and more specifically, Portishead (though Massive Attack and Tricky come close in my adoration). Not so much Bjork, who many associate with the genre, though. I don’t dislike Bjork but I could never establish the emotional connection with her music that would make me a fan (as far as I can be a fan of anything in any case). So Chrysta Bell’s debut album is now on my permanent rotation because honestly, I love that sound. Yes, it’s straight late 90s fare and I am OK with that. But it is the album art that I am slightly horrified by. It’s the gesture of branding Lynch’s name on her face that I found simultaneously alarming and mesmerizing. His name, on her cheek, as a possession. Which, you know, given Lynch’s aesthetic and treatment of women in his films (complex and deserving of a lot more analysis than a few lines here), I find myself staring at and wondering… It’s the act of marking his name on her (makes sense as he is the album producer), however, given the context of his career and given the fact that this is a female solo artist and so much more, is not innocent nor is it removed from the context of how women artists are treated (and now I am thinking of WoC and how they are claimed in such a different way, how their bodies are marked for consumption not with a heart, as something precious, but well… many more thoughts).
I didn’t say I had articulate and well developed ideas about all this. I just said I had been thinking about it.
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