I agree that the way female artists are discussed (if we could you use this term) on this forum is shit. I was not too sure why you'd highlight people's perception of Beth Ditto before your curiousity about the opinions on The Gossip on your first post in the thread, that's all.

Ranting is good. Keep on ranting, please.

as i mentioned before, that's not what i heard is absolutely incredible.

I think there is a second side to the coin that a lot of fans of, I guess, "controversial" bands like the Gossip are just, if not moreso, obsessed with the controversy around the groups image to an equal extent as their music. The group proves something or exposes something that the fans identify with and champion. It's kind of a self-fulfilling banner flung which has faint traces of revolutionary idealism, though be it in a single issue.

As I mentioned before, I don't think that i articulated my initial post correctly. I wasn't trying to perpetuate that crap.

the gossip have always been pretty forward about their politics of gay rights and all. and yes, i can totally admit that one of the reasons i'm a fan is because the music is so queer and i can identify with it.

Well, I wouldn't say their music is ''queer'', it sounds really conventional to these ears. I think they attract a (certain) gay contingent because she's a dyke more than the music itself.

there are bunch of gay mentions in her songs. and, in both shows i've gone to, she's dedicated songs to the queers in the audience.

i bought there first EP about 9 or 10 years ago, it's pretty decent although i didn't really follow them after that, then about 6 years later the got really huge which was kind of unexpected, and a bit weird. i don't like their new stuff (i.e. the stuff that got them popular). but i guess it's good to see a band who have spent years in obscurity paying their dues acheive world wide success.

yeah. their newer stuff doesn't nearly match their older stuff. i never really liked the standing in the way of control single. but whatever, it's fun enough. and i agree - they deserve success.

I can easily see how they appeal to various fringes of homosexual types. I think the electronic direction they're going for now could be a direct influence of the sort of music often played in indie gay clubs, where electro is played next to indie rock, with the odd hip hop/80's pop number thrown in.

I was referring to the music itself. Not even in their less famous incarnation I thought they were any good, certainly not queer-sounding by any stretch of the imagination.

gang of four guitars or some shit like that.

very "rock journalist" word, isn't it?

It's gross, OK. People have the right to find certain things attractive and certain things not attractive. If I remember correctly, don't you have a thing against muscular guys?

they don't particularly impress me musically, but it's good and she has an amazing voice.

i mean really fucking good voice.

also, herself and the content of the lyrics, they're the only let's say mainstream band at the moment closest to the definition of subversive, which is what "alternative" music was supposed to be all along.

you see. thats my point.

why the fuck people think that imposing shit and saying people are gross because they are not the same is ok?

And make that subversive alternative sound like a watered-down, anaemic-sounding version of the real deal. Thanks for nothing.

Exactly

i made it very clear i wasnt talking about the music itself.

i never claimed muscular guys to be 'gross'. there is a very big difference between claiming something to be unattractive to yr own personal preference and something to be 'gross'.

id say that it's probably more because that's what's selling right now. indie electronica is everywhere, not just in the gay scene.

speaking of which, the gossip played with j.d. samson's new band MEN

I have never heard any The Gossip.

What's subversive about them, music excluded?

but I have seen this picture.

i think i said herself, and the lyrics right?

wasnt their first famous song something about the result of homophobic general feeling stopping civil rights like gay marriage?

because that's what I got.

also sadly being fat and not being afraid of it is not only rare but constitutes subversion of the order nowadays.

these little things, you know, are still more than any other mainstream rock bands have been attempting.

i think she speaks to people, and the kids specially need that.

^ standing in the way of control was written as a response to bush trying to ban gay marriage.

i totally agree with what you (knox) just wrote.

If by subversion of the order of things you mean that things happen because some homosexual singer writes about injustice perpetuated by a sexual majorioty on a sexual minority. The more tiresome, frustrating, much less glamorourous work that political activists take upon themselves in order to make it a recurrent issue makes her ''subversion'' happen. Beth Ditto is just a reflection of that. I'm glad she exists, and I'm sure she's not just some cynical, opportunistic human being, but that's where her subversion starts and finish, a mere blink in the eye of the perpetuators of injustice.

and?

the gossip's music is not about to totally transform the nature of heterosexism, however it does provide a good anthem. music is important because it makes people feel less alienated, you know

a blink in the eye is better than no blink in the eye.

i hope my 2nd post makes sense a bit because editing text on a mobile phone is a bitch.

i hope my 2nd post makes sense a bit because editing text on a mobile phone is a bitch. Certainly from this carcass of a keyboard.

i wouldn't have bothered.

basically, you agreed that yes the gossip is slightly subversive, which is what we've been saying.

sure. Still not cause to call it subversion.

you're subversive

any subversion is subversion.

the same way any penis - regardless of the significante of its size - is still a penis.

the same way contaminating material is still contaminating - regardless of how much it will contaminate.

you know.

this

tell me about it. It is plain wrong to attribute tasks to it that simply aren't sustainable for an artistic form that feeds its very existence from the happiness, misery, and all the other feelings inbetween which make human life what it is.

gibberish