No, they won’t. I can stop listening/consuming, sure enough. You can too. But the people who she makes rich will make sure she’s in the public eye as long as she’s making them money. I don’t like or buy Cyrus’ music, and she’s still around. There are lots of artists I dislike and they won’t go away, because others do like them and buy and pay attention. I’m a grain of sand in our vast cultural beach here, I’m afraid. You too.
why, he didn’t use the word “is” 
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Well, fair enough. We might not take down the industry, but we can probably have some influence on the effluent.
I’m not even that optimistic, but I could just be having a bad day/year. The industry just manages to absorb challenges, including structural challenges, and moves on.
And “effluent”? You mean the waste flowing into the sea?
Yep - that’s pretty much how I see the pop music industry. Effluent flowing from studios into the cultural sea of humanity.
We should gather together into a communal “Don’t pay for any bad music” week each year, see what the numbers are. These corporations have nervous investors, even tiny blips make them panic - because their industry is based on viral success, they totally fear the viral kickback.
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But who gets to decide what’s “bad music”? Tons of people love Jack White and the White Stripes, but I could do without them. I also don’t care for the Dead, Zepplin, and probably lots of other stuff that people who love music love, but does that make any of that “bad music” or just not my thing…
So, maybe it should be a “don’t buy music from major labels”? Including subsidiary labels?
YOU GUYS!!! Annie Lennox is weigthing in on this now!!! Now I want Kate Bush, Kim Gordon, Kathleen Hanna, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, and Bjork to all say something!!! Or maybe they can all just get together and make an album!!! Screw talking, let’s ROCK!!!
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Or - only consume live music. Simples.
What’s wrong with recorded music (though that’s a good idea, actually!)?
Nothing, if it’s Jack White, the White Stripes, the Dead, or Zeppelin.
ok kidding. Nothing. But money works as the perfect incentive. More live music is likely better music - you actually see the performers!
Cyrus never said people need to be like her and her way is correct. She is just doing what she is doing - the difference is that O’conner insist her position is the only correct position.
We also don’t need to SHAME people who confirms or does NOT confirm. Women should not have to go around worrying if they have too little clothes on or in cases of Muslims - too MUCH clothes on. I hope for a place where we didn’t feel the need to control women for what ever reason.
Right, she said she was following in the footsteps of her “role model” (Sinead) and that her video was to be compared to a video that is a hallmark in Sinead’s career. Sinead was thus compelled to clarify her position on the matter (and rightly so).
If Miley hadn’t made those comments we likely wouldn’t have heard a peep from Sinead. Sinead has gone to some lengths to not be treated as a sexual object. Why can people not understand why Sinead doesn’t see herself as Miley’s role model? I’ve never heard of Sinead writing letters to other pop-star-tarts. The difference is that Miley pulled Sinead into this.
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nah- they are both the same. Sinead have changed her look/et.c. to be against patriarchy and stereotype of what women are supposed “to do” , and Miley engaged for her own gain. Either way, they are only reacting to the same force and changing themselves for that- not entirely for themselves.
Sorry about not knowing Miley has instigated this. I thought Sinead just wrote out of the blue!
In the same manner that cats and whales are the same…
and water and ice are the same…
and Hitler and the Pope are the same…
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actually, more like how Christians and Satanists might be the same. Or rather more specifically , people who will worship “anti-christ”. That might mean that they actually believe there’s Christ to be anti- about in some sense. Maybe in practice and philosophy, this is untrue- but on the surface, they sound like people who believe in christ’s existence.
Women can’t win on this ground. If you look too sexy, then you are just playing into or buying into one idea- if you go against it, then you are just not yourself because you are only expressing retaliation to something. that thing is making you who you are anyway while men are still respected in the entertainment industry if they are overweight, and celebrated when they are sexy. I really say leave women to be.
Yep - Miley invoked the spirits of pop music past, she played with the ouija, and now she’s in a battle she can’t … oh wait.
She’s lost hands down to anyone reasonable or grown up. But her money-makin’ audience are sub-intelligent, juvenile, and get a kick out of her apparent disrepect towards O’Connor. And they love it.
She doesn’t really get what she’s doing, but the money people do. Invoking Sinead was more than likely their idea.
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But I think on a fundamental level, Sineads point was really about the music industry and how it gives young women bad advice about how to run their careers. She was pointing about something specific based on what Cyrus said. I didn’t read it as “slut-shaming” so much as pointing out how Cyrus’ sexuality is being used and abused to sell records. She’s being told, most likely, that this is a good idea, “use it while you got it”. Moreover, this sort of thing is regularly being positioned as “empowering” for women.
And I agree, 100% about how we can’t win. But there are plenty of women who completely embrace sexiness and their own “imperfect” bodies. I didn’t see Sinead calling them out in the same way. Jennifer Lawrence, Amanda Palmer, Beth Ditto, etc, regularly make light of the standards women are held to and talk about it in terms of being happy with their bodies and how they look. It fundamentally comes down to the message we are sending. Frankly, the notion that displaying our bodies for the purposes of making others rich is probably a notion we can all do without.
saying " don’t prostitute yourself" is slutshaming. The language is vile . I am sure Cyrus will have no complaints about the money she is making. I agree much more with Amanda Palmer, speaking of http://amandapalmer.net/blog/20131003/ I don’t understand what you are saying - you should only be criticized for being sexy if you are conventionally beautiful? That women are allowed to be sexy without harassment only if they are considered somewhat “imperfect”? who is deciding these things?
For the record, ANYTHING we work for is making the men rich. that is the very nature of corporate capitalism that we live in. This is not an exclusive issue to women’s bodies. It’s everyone’s bodied that does anything.
I don’t agree that what Sinead did was slut-shaming, though it can be read as such, so fair enough. But I think you’re making the assumption that all decisions about how to present yourself and your body within the corporate capitalist system is the same/morally equivalent and doesn’t matter as long as it’s the woman making the choice, but that ignores the fact of pressure from outside to act in certain ways. No one is calling her a “slut” or a “prostitute”, or at least I didn’t read it that way, but Sinead is pointing out how she is being exploited for the profit of others.
I find it highly unlikely that, given the way the industry functions, that Cyrus is seriously making all her own decisions, with no input from a team of industry guys that her father probably made sure were in place as she became an adult. I don’t think she should be less sexual provocative, or dress like a matron, or shave her head like Sinead… but to think that she is somehow a completely independent actor, with no input or pressure from outside, is I think a bit naive. I also think that she might be a in a position where her financial house is secure, due to her father being a part of the business before her, many other young people come into the system with no idea how it operates, and get royally screwed. Or maybe her father is just using her to make a fast buck, too. Wouldn’t be the first time parents exploit their children for cash. I can’t say that either way, though. I’d like to think he does have her best interests at heart. The industry tends to treat artists as disposable, and gives them contracts which give them no protection, and keeps the products for sale in the hands of the corporation. The number of people who ended up in abject poverty after what seems like a long and lucrative career due to these sorts of contracts is numerous and rather legendary.
I agree its not just about women’s bodies, but all of us and our horizon of choices in the corporate/capitalist structure, which in terms of choices that matter (rather than a set of choices premade for us and sold in your local mall–how is Hot Topic different from Gap? It’s not! and We all know it). But we aren’t completely free on our choices. We don’t have real endless choices, here, but a set of choices, which are less and less depending where you fall in the privilege hierarchy.
As for AFP… I love her and am proud of how she presents herself and her art to the world. Her music means a lot to me. She does it on her own terms and I find it something to be celebrated and applauded. Yet, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a critique for her or think she’s some sort of prophet of an iron clad feminist reality. She is making truth-claims, just like the rest of us, and as such, she is open to debate–just like you and me (I do think she opens this stuff up, not to shout at us, but to open a dialogue, so I love that about her, too). My argument about Palmer is that she is buying into the post-fordist, individualists, neo-liberal new vision of capitalism–that there is no outside and it is only via individual work can one be independent (kind of Randian, but with a soft, punk ideological underbelly). Fair enough, she is working within the system for her own benefit, as are millions of others who do contract work in creative fields every day. It’s this sort of thinking that, while freeing the individual, limits the choices available to the vast majority of people–in the case of the music industry, the idea of setting up a label for work that you find important, and giving those artists a fair cut (Mute, K Records, Alternative Tentacles, etc) are quickly dwindling, after a rather high point in the mid-80s, where there was an honest to god viable alternative that knit together artists, independent merchants, and fans into a community. Not that AFP has “brought that down”… lots of other indie artists have been working this way for a while now and for good reason, as the “indie community” route has been seriously gutted since the “Nirvana boom”. This is not about Palmer, per se, but about showing how the post-90s boom put the final stake in the heart of independent music.
Addtionallly, I’d argue that AFP has been and is in a privileged position in life. I’m sure she realizes that, nor do I think that this makes her a “bad” person or whatever. As I’ve said before and again, I love and support her work and give her my money as a result. But I think it’s a fact. So was/is Cyrus, for that matter. These are bourgeoisie women, with privilege. I don’t mean this as a criticism of Palmer, really. It’s just a fact. Sinead comes from a completely different social/political/class background and had a different trajectory around her career that informs her world view. She is of working class stock and frankly, that matters. She was not given the same advantages Palmer and Cyrus had in their lives. So what tends to get glossed over is that they had access to things that Sinead and other artists did not (I could make a similar argument about, say, Kate Bush, whose background is also middle class in origin). This is probably why they see the deployment of sexuality differently, given that the exploitation of working class women’s sexuality is pretty evident. I am sure Sinead had a much closer view of the real violence done to women sexually speaking. That’s probably given her a different perspective, because she sees that as a destructive force. I’m sure that is pretty common for working class women to think. It’s not a “horizon of choice” for millions of women around the world, but a forced condition. Rightly or wrongly, Sinead has connected, in her mind, the inner workings of the music industry with women being sexually exploited. I can understand why she’d do that.
Okay… I think I’m rambling at this point. All I can say, is I don’t think all choices to present yourself in a certain way are the same and are equally defensible. I don’t think Cyrus is making her own decisions, even if she thinks she is doing so. I generally agree with Palmer, and get her point, but I think it’s off the mark. And I can understand where Sinead is coming from. I don’t think that she is “harassing” Cyrus, nor do I think she should be shamed for her choices, but that doesn’t mean we can’t say we think they are wrong and why we think they are wrong…
Does that make any sense, what so ever? I hope so… Again, I’m not discounting anything you are saying, as I see this more as a dialectal discussion of these issues. I think you are bringing up some important points. But this is how I see this debate… 
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At this point, it seems that people are arguing about their differing perceptions of various celebrities. Miley Cyrus is a canny, cynical media manipulator; Miley Cyrus is a helpless waif being exploited by the bad mens in her life. Sinead O’Connor is a fearless truthteller; Sinead O’Connor is a messed-up self-appointed slut-shamer. AFP is, well, who and what she is. In the meantime, the government shutdown continues, and the people responsible for it are trying to pretend that it’s all about Obama keeping vets out of memorials and military chaplains from saying Mass. But by all means let’s continue worrying about the fallout from a third-string awards ceremony that most people didn’t even know was going on, let alone bother to watch.
