Since everyone is talking about the new President, I thought I'd follow my usual pattern of randomness by discussing something else- song.
I never forget sitting in my car with the first guy I dated in Los Angeles, Mike, a cute CW type. We were zooming down the 101, he was in the passenger's seat and as 50 Cent came on the radio I turned up the volume and started bobbing my head to the beat. Mike abruptly turned to me with a frown and said disparagingly: "You are so pop." We didn't last long.
Yes, I've been accused of being "pop" and, more often then not, having "black woman's taste" in music- as if being a white chick from Britain would make that disingenuous (hey, look at our new President, sometimes whites have taste).
But seriously, as I rummage through my CD and iTunes collection, after moving to a house, I see that I do in fact have very few "white men" albums. People always think we Brits are into fellow countrymen Radiohead, Travis and Oasis. The truth is, if most of us listened to those guys, combined with our grey, dull weather, we'd be depressed nihilists (which is true of some but they do a s*&tload of drugs.)
You wanna know what my British friends listen to? Hip hop and cheesy 70s music. I swear, I've never seen so many tatooed skinheads dance to "I Will Survive" as one winter evening in a Fulham pub.
Sorry to shatter the image and street cred but beneath that tough exterior of we-don't-give-a-crap British hooliganism, we really would like nothing more than a glass of red wine and sing-a-long to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" in the privacy of our own bedrooms.
See most of us are dying for some real romance. The kind that we see in Hollywood movies and the reason we too went to see Titanic 5 times, to watch Leo let go of a piece of floating wood.
Now when YOU come round we'll pretend we're all hip and "in" with the underground rock bands from Brixton and that we saw the crazy, French art film down the road. And you'll believe us and appreciate our bohemian, non-corporate taste. But little do you know....
God Bless America!!
