Postmadamism
Apr. 18th, 2026 07:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
setsuledWestern music seems to be entering an era of pretty young ladies. I say "seems to" because I don't entirely trust my impressions anymore since the algorithms are always putting together a particular tapestry of what it is it thinks I want. Sure, I like pretty young ladies. But doesn't everyone? Hasn't everyone always? From Juliet to Marie Antoinette to Madonna. Now YouTube is feeding me Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan, and Sabrina Carpenter. I was watching Rodrigo's new video in which she dances around Versailles in a frilly postmodern frock and asked myself if I would enjoy this song sung by a balding old man. Probably not. That doesn't make it bad, though. "Pretty" "young" and "lady" are all relevant parts of our existence and engaging with all three is certainly valid.
She makes a lot of references to older songs in her lyrics, in this case The Cure's "Just Like Heaven". In "deju vu" she references Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl". In both cases, she also claims to have special insight into the songs. She says she knows why Robert Smith wrote "Just Like Heaven" and she boasts that she introduced the music of Billy Joel to the ex-boyfriend who's now introducing him to his new girlfriend. She's the very model of the postmodern major hipster. But, hey, I do like watching her and I dig her references.
Chappell Roan seems like the artsier alternative though I'm not sure how much depth there really is in her most popular song, "Pink Pony Club", about a young drag queen in west Hollywood. We can all applaud her espousing progressive sexual values but would the song have been as popular had it been performed by an actual drag queen? Maybe not, but I find something heartening about it anyway. And there's her seemingly Caitlin R. Kiernan inspired video for "Casual" that makes me feel like, "Hey, this young person likes the things I like."
The lyrics of the song at first seem to have little to do with the content of the video but both seem to be questioning how to categorise a developing relationship.
"You said, "Baby, no attachment"
But we're
Knee deep in the passenger seat, and you're eating me out
Is it casual now?
Two weeks, and your mom invites me to her house on Long Beach
Is it casual now?"
In both this and Rodrigo's "Drop Dead" and Sabrina Carpenter's "Manchild" the singer's primary point of concern is how to define a relationship, what label to give it or a partner, or what significance to derive from shared interests. Did Mick Jagger wonder what satisfaction was when he complained he couldn't get any? Did David Bowie need to know how to label the relationship with the Rebel Rebel who didn't know if she was a boy or a girl? These young artists seem to live in compulsive analytical space. Perhaps this is just what the children of postmodernism look like. Though it may be fruitful to compare "Manchild" to "Mannish Boy", "Manchild", both song and video, is kind of peak postmodernism.
She makes a lot of references to older songs in her lyrics, in this case The Cure's "Just Like Heaven". In "deju vu" she references Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl". In both cases, she also claims to have special insight into the songs. She says she knows why Robert Smith wrote "Just Like Heaven" and she boasts that she introduced the music of Billy Joel to the ex-boyfriend who's now introducing him to his new girlfriend. She's the very model of the postmodern major hipster. But, hey, I do like watching her and I dig her references.
Chappell Roan seems like the artsier alternative though I'm not sure how much depth there really is in her most popular song, "Pink Pony Club", about a young drag queen in west Hollywood. We can all applaud her espousing progressive sexual values but would the song have been as popular had it been performed by an actual drag queen? Maybe not, but I find something heartening about it anyway. And there's her seemingly Caitlin R. Kiernan inspired video for "Casual" that makes me feel like, "Hey, this young person likes the things I like."
The lyrics of the song at first seem to have little to do with the content of the video but both seem to be questioning how to categorise a developing relationship.
"You said, "Baby, no attachment"
But we're
Knee deep in the passenger seat, and you're eating me out
Is it casual now?
Two weeks, and your mom invites me to her house on Long Beach
Is it casual now?"
In both this and Rodrigo's "Drop Dead" and Sabrina Carpenter's "Manchild" the singer's primary point of concern is how to define a relationship, what label to give it or a partner, or what significance to derive from shared interests. Did Mick Jagger wonder what satisfaction was when he complained he couldn't get any? Did David Bowie need to know how to label the relationship with the Rebel Rebel who didn't know if she was a boy or a girl? These young artists seem to live in compulsive analytical space. Perhaps this is just what the children of postmodernism look like. Though it may be fruitful to compare "Manchild" to "Mannish Boy", "Manchild", both song and video, is kind of peak postmodernism.
