by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2008/03/21 03:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2008/03/21/8326989.aspx
Content of Michael Kaplan's personal blog not approved by Microsoft (see disclaimer)! Plus it is entirely offtopic so if thst kind of thing bothers you, then you should just move on....
I have found myself listening to Louis XIV a bit more than I ever actually was before.
I mean, I had their first album (The Best Little Secrets are Kept) and I thought the cover was really out there (more on this in a moment). And I vaguely recall havin listened to it.
I didn't have their second album until very very recently.
Even now, Louis XIV is a guilty pleasure for me. I think I like them for the same reason I like South Park -- because even though I have trouble imagining I might enjoy hanging out with the band, I enjoy the lines and the double entendres. I feel evil for enjoying it, but I do. But then I feel evil for laughing at some of the stuff in South park, too!
It was new virtual friend Samantha ("You can call me Sam. Do I have to call you Mr. Kaplan? Well, you are like nearly half my age... just kidding!") who got me listening to them a bit more closely.
Though I think her interest is different than mine -- I am in it for the lyrics, while her interest seems like Rachel Green's interest in going to soap operas parties or Penny Lane's interest in Gladwell -- she wants to be a groupie, to hang out with the band....
I have yet to find a woman who enjoys Louis XIV music who doesn't fall in the groupie category though I admit I haven't asked most of my female friends up until now what they think given my embarrassment, perhaps this blog will stimulate a conversation or two! :-)
Here is the "Walmart cut" of the CD cover (technically it is even "cleaner" than the Walmart one, actually -- I trimmed further up than they did!):
The actual cover shows a bit more of Karen Miller (the model on the cover) than this picture does. I explained to Sam that the album I had actually contained two extra songs (It's the Girl That Makes Him Happy and The Grand Apartment) but they probably couldn't get Karen to come back in to get redrawn on -- especially not with the "font" size used since there wasn't space for two more songs!
Sam was actually really impressed that I knew who the cover model was, she thought that maybe I knew the band?
She seems like she could easily enjoy being a groupie for these guys!. Truly!
I had to let her down on that count -- I had just read a backstory piece about it entitled The Making of THE BEST LITTLE SECRETS ARE KEPT Design, which I remembered vaguely from back then because of the fact that the Parental Advisory was given to the album solely due to the cover art, not the music. From the article:
The cover ended up taking on a life of its own once in public. It set the tone for interviews and reviews. The Best Little Secrets are Kept is apparently the first album to ever have a e content sticker solely for its artwork. The content of the CD is the same for both versions of the CD. The only difference is a little ass crack on the cover and back. That's an uptight country. A friend of mine informed me that the cover had ended up in the design magazine PRINT. He said it didn't have a very kind write-up. "Sexism isn't the worst thing about John Hofstetter's design," it read. They said I had blatantly and inappropriately mimicked the stencil titling on the West Side Story soundtrack. We also copied the cover of an Eric Clapton album. EC Was Here has the title written on a girl's back in lipstick with a similar crop to ours. The Eric Clapton album has a horrible image and is an unmemorable cover. I like Eric Clapton and I had never seen the cover. It did seem similar to the Clapton cover, but West Side Story? Come on. We didn't copy either. But this wasn't the first time it was called sexist. I'm not going to speak for the music, only for the design. I don't really understand the sexist claim. There's a girl's back with writing on it. I think it's a tasteful image. I don't consider myself sexist. I guess sexism is the act of objectifying woman. I suppose you could make that case. Maybe we are sexist. I don't know. Does sexy always have to be sexist?
The whole notion stuck with me and I remembered the title, so the article was an easy Google search away.
Irregardless, Samantha seemed kind of impressed by the fact that I remembered what I did, but then again she found my blog when (in her words) Googling for "Love Monkey" "Barbarian Brothers", and was briefly convinced that she (like the young lady I have mentioned here previously) had fallen in love with my blog, though (with my help) within 1.5 conversations she realized (to quote Aimee Mann when she spoke about Noel Gallagher) at a show a few years back:
This next song I wrote about Noel Gallagher from Oasis, because I had a crush on Noel Gallagher from Oasis, about eight years ago when they first came out, just pre-rock stardom. And actually of course the crush was almost entirely fueled by barely knowing him and having nothing in common. Which always seems like such a romantic idea, like "well the thing they have in common is the love part" but that really doesn't do you much good when he is passed out on the floor from sniffing glue or something. Not implying that Noel Gallagher himself would be passed out, but you get the point....
...So I had this crush on Noel Gallagher. I had met him a few times, and I was in Boston. and he was in New York, Oasis was playing in New York I actually got on a plane to go down and see if I could hang out with him, which was totally pathetic. I didn't even have his phone number! It wasn't even like "come on down and hang out." It was like I was going to show up and then go "Hi, remember me?" so it was a pathetic as you can imagine.
But we did wind up at some big rock and roll party with lots of like hot girls and drugs later and I just thought "This is, this is not about him. This is about me...."
that it wasn't really about me. It was just about my blog. :-)
The other bit was about a Samantha Ronson song too, which is also themed on a situation it is best to avoid when possible -- her thinking she is in love, convincing him of it, and then realizing she was just infatuated -- which leads to him blaming her and leaving her wondering if its a flaw in her since it seems to happen every time. what can she do but start over and try again?
I have a friend who I really identify with that song -- she told me that she seemed to be in a rut lately, unable to make a relationship last longer than two months, each time she was the one who did the breaking up. She really does get left wondering if she is to blame, for real.
This all came up around the time that Sam asked me if I wanted to go to Vampire Weekend with her and her friends (after I mentioned in a blog that I had given away the tickets I had and then I saw them on SNL and thought maybe I should go but before I convinced her I wasn't actually her type and that I was almost old enough to be her father and that we have so very little in common other than musical tastes and mostly not even that).
I decided not to go, I am sure there will be some other time I'll see them. There is always more music....
Hell, I will be seeing Nada Surf on Leno in less than half hour and possibly kicking myself for passing on Showbox tickets to their show on the 27th, too. So there is a pattern -- I need to see more shows!
In any case, I enjoy lots of the lines in Louis XIV songs, even if some others of them make me almost a bit uncomfortable -- actually, just like some of those South Park episodes now that I think about it. Take Pledge of Allegiance for example and the lyrics there. We are insane collectively about the Parental advisory crap in this country, but being worried about a bit of a girl's ass on the cover and somehow not worried about lines like
We don't have to go to the pool
If you want me to make you wet
and so on (personally I don't mind either one, but the inconsistency of the advisory stuff just annoys me). I have no kids but if I did I think the latter would concern me a hell of a lot more than the former -- everyone has an ass, but not everyone has to talk like that in public. Which of the two are kids more likely to emulate -- being models doing nude shoots? Or quoting naughty lyrics?
Tons of double entendres, obviously mostly about sex but some of it about more than that, too.
They gave a great almost closing line to my conversation with Samantha, after I begged off of Vampire Weekend:
Her: Ignoring the age thing, why not just go for it?
Me: I'm not really looking for that right now, I'm just not in that place.
Her: Are you seeing somebody?
Me: Um, no.
Her: Would you tell me if you were?
Me: Hmmm. Good question. Perhaps not.
Her: Why?
Me: If its not in my blog, it's a secret, and...
Both: The best little secrets are kept.
Me: Exactly!
Whoa, song lyrics and album title. Cool!
Enjoy Vampire Weekend and Nada Surf, those of you who are going, and if you go be sure to let me know if I should be jealous of you kicking myself for passing or thanking my lucky stars I was washing my hair those nights or whatever....
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sam i am on 24 Mar 2008 10:15 AM:
moi, a groupie? never!
Michael S. Kaplan on 24 Mar 2008 12:50 PM:
No comment. Though you can always take Aimee's lead and go try and hang out with them if you want to.... :-)
referenced by
2008/05/09 The etymology of the Homo-Sus hypothesis