Crushing On

Crushing On: Caught In The Act by Courtney Act (2022)

January 16, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

I can both love and loathe celebrity auto-biographies, but I definitely loved Caught in the Act.

I can love them because they are a glimpse at the inner life of someone whose art I’ve spent years – sometimes decades! – consuming. They can add fresh context to work that I already appreciate.

I can loathe them because they are often more artifice than reality. Prose is just another method of performance. Sometimes you wind up with a few shocking revelations or debaucherous anecdotes, but that doesn’t meant you’ve gotten any closer to truly knowing the author.

(I should know – I’ve been doing it for nearly 22 years now.)

No, I’m not talking obliquely about Prince Harry’s new bestseller, Spare. The first physical, non-graphic-novel book I read this year is Caught in the Act, a memoir in three parts by Courtney Act – contestant on Australian Idol Season 1, finalist on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 6, winner of Britain’s Celebrity Big Brother Series 21, and finalist twice-over on Australia’s Dancing With The Stars.

That’s quite a resume. I first glimpsed Courtney in her “Meet The Queens” interview for Drag Race in 2014 and I was instantly transfixed. I had seen drag queens before and I understood they were often men dressed in exaggerated versions of feminity, but Courtney looked more like a glamorous pop star.

Little did I know how right I was, but also how much that dichotomy often plagued Courtney. (She is credited both as Courtney Act and as Shane Jenek on the book’s cover and is comfortable with either he/him or she/her pronouns.)

The three acts of Caught in the Act are Courtney’s childhood in suburban Australia, her coming out of the closet and into the Sydney drag scene, and her international stardom (and ensuing relationships). I found each portion fascinating, but I think the one that affected me the most (and most unexpectedly) was the portion of the book about Courtney’s childhood.

Courtney and I virtually the same age, separated by only a few months. Even though we grew up across the globe from each other in different cultures, we were exposed to much of the same pop culture. Courtney talks about Madonna and the X-Men, which is shockingly familiar to me. She also talks about years of suffering in silent confusion as she tried to work out why some things in life were “boy things” and some were “girl things.” That felt familiar too.

Early in the book, she says:

I wish there’d been honest and frank conversations going on as well as visible queer people in the world and on TV. I can’t begin to explain what a significant difference that would have made, or what a difference increased visibility since then has made for queer kids today. Growing up in a world of queer invisibility was so isolating. The strange part is I didn’t know I was isolated – I didn’t know I was learning shame, or to hid who I was for safety: it came instinctively for survival. Every now and again I wonder if I’ve retrofitted shame where it didn’t exist. Then I remember: shame is a deposit made for a future debt, and it accumulates over time with compound interest.

That idea that we can’t tell if our adult shame is the same as our childhood shame bowled me over. I stopped and stared in shock at that page for a long while. I’ve never read someone so clearly explaining why the process of coming out can be so long and slow, even when surrounded by an entirely supportive environment. Courtney captures the emotions of childhood, but adds the the adult lens of someone who is on the forefront of conversations about gender all around the world.

What shocked me most about Caught in the Act wasn’t Courtney’s backwards tumble into fame, her drug use, or her sexual encounters. No, the most-revealing aspect of this book is just how long it took her to come to terms with her own gender identity. [Read more…] about Crushing On: Caught In The Act by Courtney Act (2022)

Music Monday: “Break My Soul (The Queens Remix)” – Beyoncé, featuring Madonna’s “Vogue”

August 15, 2022 by krisis Leave a Comment

Beyoncé went meta with her “Queens Remix” of lead single “Break My Soul” by interpolating Madonna’s “Vogue” into her instance classic House song, and I cannot stop devouring and dissecting it.

Somehow, Beyoncé just improved my favorite pop song of all time.

I’ve been spinning Beyoncé’s new record Renaissance for a few weeks now. If there’s one quick way to my music-loving heart, it’s to produce an album full of durable songs that’s dancefloor ready from front to back. While I’m not an official BeyHive member, but Beyoncé is on my list of artists of whom I keep a complete discography – so, I’ve had (and have heard) all of her songs.

My complete collection doesn’t usually extend to remixes, but in this case I made an exception. That’s because this remix of “Break My Soul” interpolates Madonna’s “Vogue” and ads a whole set of new lyrics from Beyoncé riffing on Madonna’s classic film star rap in the original song.

It’s well-established on this blog that “Vogue” is my personal gold standard of pop singles. When Madonna released it 32 years ago it struck me like a lightning bolt, as much for it message of finding acceptance on the dancefloor as for its House beat.

“Vogue” was Madonna’s first dabble in House music, thanks to co-writer and producer Shep Pettibone and his samples from The Salsoul Orchestra’s post-disco classic “Ooh I Love It (Love Break Groove).” Voguing itself was a NYC ballroom culture dance style that hadn’t broken through far into the mainstream at the time. It’s unsurprising Madonna would hear a house beat and think of the dance, but it was pure serendipity that she wound up making the word and the dance synonymous with House music across the world.

(This was memorably documented on the first episode of Season 2 of Pose, “Acting Up,” which gives a fictionalized glimpse at how the NYC ballroom scene initially reacted to Madonna’s track.)

As I’ve grown and learned more about house music, voguing, and ballroom, I realize that even though Madonna was using “Vogue” to shine a spotlight on ballroom culture, she was also appropriating it for her own use. It was the moment that marked her ascension to global dominance. She used that platform to preach acceptance and to raise awareness for HIV/AIDs, and she employed many dancers and choreographers along the way, but it’s not as though of all her success trickled down the people who were innovating Voguing in the ballroom scene. [Read more…] about Music Monday: “Break My Soul (The Queens Remix)” – Beyoncé, featuring Madonna’s “Vogue”

Music Monday: “Feeling So” – Shea Coulée

July 25, 2022 by krisis Leave a Comment

I am a sucker for any song that uses layers of instrumental riffs to emphasize an insistent, galloping, every-quarter-note rhythm, and Shea Coulée’s “Feeling So” does that in the best possible way.

Every time I listened to “Feeling So,” the first thought that pops into my head is “wow, this is like an update of ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ by Tears For Fears.” Every single time I think it is a new thought, and I am impressed with myself for noticing the reference, and then after a minute I think, “Hold on, surely this has occurred to me before…”

I think the the thing the two songs have in common is how they layer different instruments with slightly differing rhythms to achieve the net effect of emphasizing every beat. In “Rule The World,” it’s the way the insistent bassline marries to the back-and-forth step of the synth, later topped with the peal of of guitar picking from the intro.

“Feeling So” is built the same way. It has an opening synth riff that continues burbling in the background like a melodic fountain. It has the same driving gallop of bass. And, it has that same step-and-repeat of passing synth chords.

The difference is how “Feeling So” later breaks that that rhythm. When the staccato chords of the pre-chorus interrupt the bassline it feels like a change in temperature – as if we’re on the verge of a shock. But, the song eases us back into the familiar gallop with the reintroduction of the bubbling synth in the background of the next section.

I think it’s the continuous rhythm, break, and return that has encoded this song into my brain so deeply, tempering my neural pathways with every repeat of the cycle.

Also that it really does song like an update of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” with a hint of the sunny disposition of Madonna’s “Cherish” – and that’s a sonic lineage that I cannot resist.

Music Monday: “The Wrong Year” – The Decemberists

July 18, 2022 by krisis Leave a Comment

I can fall in love with a song because it means something specific to me.

Other times I fall in love with a song because of something it only implies – because I can find so many different meanings inside of it.

“The Wrong Year” by The Decemberists is one of the latter category. Every time I hear it I want to cry, and I’m not sure if they are tears of joy, of grief, of relief, or some other emotion entirely. There’s some unquenchable ache it creates in my chest that feels like only my tears can fill or expel it (maybe both).

The Decemberists write hyper-literate chamber-pop that’s also hyper-specific – and, often, historical. For a long time I assumed there was something obvious I loved about the lyrics to this song that I simply didn’t recollect between listens.

Diving more deeply into it, there’s very little to the lyrics. Each verse is about some ungraspable fey person – first “Grey Jane,” then an unnamed “he” who is “struck down as a summerchild,” and finally the author themselves – sleeping like a ghost all winter.

Yes, “Grey Jean” could be referring to Lady Jane Grey, the teenaged so-called “Nine Days’ Queen” of England who was swiftly dethroned and not too long after beheaded. And, in fact, “struck down as a summerchild” could even refer to her brief rule in July of 1553.

However, that’s not what has drawn me in all of this time. I didn’t know about any of it until this very moment!

So, what is it that makes “The Wrong Year” make me ache deeply in my soul every time I hear it.

First, the chord progression. It couldn’t be simpler or more common: G D(7sus4) Em Cmaj7. At first when I hear them played with this jaunty rhythm it evokes the verses of Ben Folds’ “Rockin’ The Suburbs.” However, after a few listens just now I realized that these are also the chords to something much more familiar: the first line of “Don’t Stop Believin'” raised a minor third!

In fact, the first line of this song closely echoes the first line of “Don’t Stop Believin'”! [Read more…] about Music Monday: “The Wrong Year” – The Decemberists

Music Monday: “Underdog (Save Me)” – Turin Brakes

July 11, 2022 by krisis Leave a Comment

I have a secret favorite band.

They’re not only a secret because I never talk about them publicly. They’re also a secret because I don’t know a damn thing about them. I don’t know who they are, what they look like, why they’re a band, what their politics are, or when they’re putting their next album out. I’ve never seen them on tour and never watched a video of them. I don’t even know if they play live!

All I know is I love every song they have ever released.

It is highly unusual for me to fall madly in love with something and not want to hoover up every single facet of its existence. You’ve seen the name of this site, right? That’s what the “Crushing” part has always been about – what I’m crushing on, and what’s crushing me. When I have something crushing, I want perfect 100% knowledge of its complete breadth and depth.

Except this one band.

Turin Brakes.

I don’t know anything about them, but I can tell you exactly how I found out about them.

Their song “Underdog (Save Me)” was on the Q Magazine’s “Q Best of 2001” sampler CD that came with their end of year issue that December. I almost certainly bought it at an airport magazine stand en route to stay at my grandmother’s condo in Florida for the holidays. That was pre-iTunes, so I probably listened to it once or twice on my CD Walkman and then shelved it’s paper sleeve alongside the rest of my compilation CDs and promptly forgot it existed.

Then, in 2003, iTunes came to Windows and I spent a month converting my massive CD collection to MP3, including that Q sampler on November 8th, 2003. And then I didn’t listen to it for another year, until I bought my first iPod for my solo trip to California to hang out with Laura and Sara.

Clearly I was working my way through a playlist of unheard songs while on my trip, because several other tunes from that sampler have their first (and only) plays in that period. And then, the very day I returned to Philly, I added two Turin Brakes records to my collection. I might’ve even bought them at the historic Amoeba Music in Los Angeles!

Why? What was so special about “Underdog (Save Me)” that made me so eager to hear more of this band?