One thing fans of contemporary pop country love is some sense of "working class roots" in the artists they love. No matter how unbelievably filthy rich they might be now, the fact that they once were not adds some seal of "authenticity" to them, for some reason. Never mind the fact that most recording artists were at some point not incredibly well-to-do (with the exception of people like Lady GaGa or the usually talentless children of other celebrities like Kelly Osbourne), and had to work their way up from the bottom. Gretchen Wilson fits this mold perfectly. According to her Wikipedia page, she grew up in relative poverty with her young, single mother. She dropped out of school at 15 to work in restaurants and began singing in some cover band by the age of 18, at which age she was overheard by some bar manager that booked her to sing cover songs. There is a giant gap between this part of her biography and her signing to a major label in the early 2000's, but who really cares? She was poor, and now she isn't! She made it! And if she can become a giant star because of her karaoke skills then so can you and I!!!
To me, an artist shows what they are worth not because of their upbringing (because that can't be helped), but what they do with their notoriety once they achieve it. Take the excellent example of Mike Watt. Watt also came from humble beginnings, but even though he has performed in many influential bands and appeared with many successful artists (including Sonic Youth), he has still maintained a hard work ethic in his current ventures, and has not allowed his (relative) fame get in the way of his art. Between playing in countless bands (including, recently, Iggy Pop and the Stooges) Mike Watt hosts a podcast that updates on a regular basis and has penned a book. His dedication to his craft is readily apparent, and his working class aesthetic is incredibly genuine because of it.
Such is not the case with Gretchen Wilson. As with basically all contemporary pop country stars, her music is intellectually lazy, catering to the lowest common denominator in order to sell more copies. ("I'm a redneck!", "I like to get drunk!", etc. You get the point.) This is compounded by the fact that she doesn't even write her own music, but rather has a team of songwriters that write for her. Her music videos are nothing more than shoots of parties that her record label is hosting, usually featuring one or more noted celebrities (once again, to sell more copies of the single), from Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr. to Larry the Cable Guy and other famous people that make my east coast stomach turn just thinking about.
Of all her annoying, lazy songs, there are none that top "Work Hard, Play Harder".
The first thing that strikes me about this song is its inherent dishonesty. While she might have held some challenging jobs in her adolescent years, it has been at least the better part of a decade since Wilson relied on that type of work to pay her bills. I seriously doubt that she looks down at her hands and finds these callouses that she alleges to find there, aside from the ones on her fingertips from occasionally strumming her guitar. This song (once again not penned by her) is a blatant attempt by the songwriting team to appeal to working class folks in the midwest, and sadly, these people go for it. Gretchen Wilson doesn't actually work in a diner and bartend through out the course of her week, only to get dangerously inebriated on Friday nights. In fact, even when she was working in those types of places, she was far too young to be gathering her "rowdy" friends and going to these honky-tonk watering holes she speaks of, so any claims of this being some way of her paying homage to her roots would be patently false as well.
Secondly, there is the laziness of the video that serves as the promotional tool for this song. One would think that in a song about working really hard during the week and cutting loose on the weekend the video would feature Wilson dressed like a waitress "working hard for her money" or something. That would be the obvious choice, and since we have learned that Gretchen Wilson Inc. favors the lowest common denominator, that would be the way to go! Apparently, though, Wilson can't be seen in a music video not donning classic "redneck" attire, so we get nothing of the sort.
Instead, we get scenes of her riding around in a convertible, scenes of her "playing" with her band, and (the one that really gets me) Gretchen Wilson standing by the side of the road, lip-syncing the song while clips from her older videos play on the barn in the background. That's right. They couldn't even be bothered to record enough new footage to fill the three minutes of this song, so they instead recycled footage from older videos, especially the parts that featured the celebrities.
Lastly, if you are a relatively popular recording artist, and you are going to hire people to write your songs for you, you want to make sure that they are not plagiarizing the songs. (For comparison, the Black Crowes song they are alleging that GW Inc. stole is this one, and I have to say, they have a very valid argument.)
No comments:
Post a Comment