In defense of girly music

I bought the new Tori Amos album today. It was F-ing $14.99 on itunes.

Big surprise, I know.

Me!

She who sleeps in a Righteous Babe Records T-shirt!

I'm a huge slut for "girl music", which I'm sure defeats the purpose of girl music, but who can care? I love it all. Any lady who plays her own instrument and sings I will support. You got me. I am your target audience. PREACH! I will buy it, even though it's $14.99 on itunes.

What I think is funny is the sneering girl music gets. Yes, I know the Spice Girls ruined everything early and loudly, but they've since all mostly procreated and found other things to talk about, like Katie Holme's new house, or whether or not Eddie Murphy is their babydaddy.

I think it's all fair in the great equilibrium of music. If women are still bitches and ho's, then there's an asshole to sing about and you SING IT loud and all purdy-like.

And I don't feel the need to be ashamed of this. Yes, I like other music too. It's not like I'm monogamous with girl music. Like i said, it's my weakness. Like boys who wear glasses and have blazers with elbow patches.

So this album is my weakness, that is, if I could just get past the 2nd song on the album.

I cannot stop listening to Big Wheel, the first single.

I should get past it. There's a whole rest of an album to love! I mean, I'm a freak of a fan. I have B-sides and T-shirts.

And an example!

My parents did not know what to do with my combat-boot wearing, slip-sliding good-girl attitude in high school. They soon figured out their idiot 15-year-old daughter was making out with someone older than she was. They may or may not had figured out exactly what that "Icicle" song was about and they were appalled that was oohey, gooey and girly could be so nasty.

So they tore through my room for my diary and read it. Where I kept detailed accounts of my trials and tribulations getting to second base when I couldn't drive myself anywhere to make out in peace. I had been writing everything down in EXCRUCIATING (read: embarrassing) detail-- so much so, that they feared it was going to burn our house down with the fiery fury of the Virgin Mary.

They broke us up. I knew it was trouble when my mother AND father were both home from work when I got home from school.

I screamed and yelled back at my parents screaming and yelling. At one point my mom actually said out loud she blamed the music I listened to (?!) as a reason for getting to second base. As if 15-year-olds aren't surrounded by overt sexual messages, she blamed my role models! My swearing, combat boot wearing, men-dissecting idols.

So I screamed back, "MOTHER, Ani and Tori did NOT TEACH ME THE WORD", and I paused for teenage drama, "FUCK!!".

And then she promptly took the Cd's, tapes, posters and everything and tied them up into a neat little bag and hid it.

And so my friends furiously taped me everything they had. They clucked as they stroked my hair how wrong my parents were were for robbing me of my two lady loves on top of stopping me from seeing an OLDER boy from ANOTHER school. Oh, the humanity!

So I have a long history of being dramatic and fiercely loving Tori Amos.

And this new album is no exception. AND THIS SONG! I have listened to it no less than 157 times today. That is freakish! Adolescent! Lame!

I. DO. NOT. CARE.

This song just SLAYS me.

Yeah, it's nice sounding and stuff, but it's not pretty. It actually rocks. PRETTY HARD. Impossible not to tap your foot in a slow white girl "Proud Mary"-esque way.

It's the big belt on my swagger of a playlist. I imagine this song is what I'd hear if I were starring in "Saturday Night Fever: DC Faux-Hipsters Don't Dance, They Just Stomp To British Music" (Does she count? She lives in Cornwall.) It makes my spine straighten up. It makes my lips purse in some ridiculous Ashlee Simpson impression. It makes me think of that "Sex and the City" episode where Charlotte poses in drag for that weird artist guy and all she can talk about afterwards is the power she felt. I can imagine what it would feel like to be a man in a suit walking down a street in this town and feeling like it's his god-given right to tell me about how my ass is looking today.

And I think that's why I like girl music. Especially THIS girl's music. Yeah, yeah, women's rights blah blah blah. I know. I know. Life isn't hard for me, in 2007, a 25-year-old white girl. Boo hoo my rights, your laws, my body blah blah blah.

But every woman who has walked down the street in front of a construction site, a frat house, or your ex-boyfriend walking hand in hand with another woman needs to have this song blaring in the boom box of her brain.

Or at least, the recording studio of your bathroom.