Hurt Me! Hurt Me! (But The Pants Stay On)

About 2 weeks ago, I found myself jumping hysterically up and down in a sea of sweating bodies, all shouting simulatenously "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" Although I was previously ambivalent at best towards this 9 minute + LCD Soundsystem romp, it was another story when it was being performed live. The frenzy and the elaborate build up was palpable and I never wanted it to stop despite my being utterly worn out way before it reached the climactic finale. It was the best moment of a night chockful of superlatives.

Like most of the crowd, I knew all the lyrics to the new album, despite it being out only a few days. And to my surprise, my favourite songs on the album, the slow and admittedly sappy ones, were far from my favourite performances. Rather I came to see what I thought were the lacklustre songs in a new light with James Murphy's fervent singing and cowbelling. It was especially hilarious when the crowd screamed along "we are North American!" in their Spanish accents and there was a general hurrah when he sang about the parties in Spain going all night.

And them parties really do go all night. And boy do my feet pay when I go bopping until 7 in the morning. Of course, most people don't really go out until 2 in the morning anyways. Two weeks after the LCD Soundsystem concert, I returned to the same place for a concert that didn't start until 3.30 am.

The concert itself was the most horrendous thing ever. I somehow got cajoled into going to Samantha Fox (not the pornstar, but rather an aged popstar in her 40's trying to cling on to her former glories). Her set was quite painful but mercifully short - she struggled to sing in tune, she insisted on singing songs from her new album which nobody had heard and nobody wanted to hear, she oafishly pretended to get it on with her ugly dancers, and even her "I love you Barcelona" exclamations sounded desperate. Aside from a few rare moments, most of the gayboys were looking at their nails.

Perhaps I'm being uncharitable here, as she was before my generation and I had really never encountered her before. I knew she was more famous for her bust than her music, but hey, Paris Hilton's album wasn't bad. And as a "pop fiend" (or so my sister labels me), I can't really bemoan a popstar for not being able to sing well - it's just one part of a package. And I'm sure I'll be a lot more forgiving of the current crop of popstars when they're way past their heyday, as I've come to know them inside and out. I'm sure I'll still love Kylie and Xtina when they're 50 and still narcissistically touring, I'll download everything Patrick Wolf does even if he is only just playing ukelele on the latest Scott Storch-du-jour album, I'll stick with Girls Aloud and Sugababes through subpar solo albums and doing-it-for-the-money-only reunions galore, and I'll buy whatever Beyonce and Ciara (video) compilations and retrospectives the record companies decide to release. Once a popstar has entered my pantheon, he or she is thus unimpeachable, come sex scandal or sex change. If I can preemptively exonerate my beloved popstars from whatever sins they may commit upon the musical world because of the current record of aceness, perhaps I could forgive Samantha Fox's egregiousness by delving into her past contributions to the world of pop.

And so I delved into Samantha Fox.

With the aid of good ol' Youtube, I discovered that in her heyday she was not that bad at all. Yes, her voice leaves much to be desired. Her work with the Stock Aitken Waterman laboratories are what you would expect of them, servicable pop that sound much better in the videos than when she performed them. Some of her songs even have an 80's hair metal tinge to them. There were a few highlights:

Touch Me (I Want Your Body) sure ticks lots of the boxes of a lost 80's pop gem - denim, leather, hair, sexy moaning, air-punching, electric guitars, lyrics about "full moons" and "heartbeats" and the saucy line "Like a tramp in the night, I was beeeeggging for you to treat me body like you wanted to... ah ah ah..." When she performed it that night, it was probably the sole moment when almost everyone was happy, even though it was nothing compared to the version in the video.

It turns out, however, that Samantha Fox can be seen as something of a musical pioneer. These days everyone from Madonna to Bjork are fighting to work with the likes of Timbaland and The Neptunes. But how many (white) pop stars were working with hip-hop producers in the mid-80's? I'm willing to bet close to zero. Samantha Fox though, of all people, was collaborating with hip-hop producers Full Force. It resulted in the unbelievable Naughty Girls (Need Love To). The video is a comically confounding relic of a period past - what are those guys wearing? Why is a white girl cavorting with those black men in denim? Is she rapping!?!?? OMG that spoken word breakdown - "No More Fun & Games Of The Mind!" It's shocking yet remarkably prescient of the ubiquitous presence of rappers on all the pop songs that aim of urban credibility today. It is odd to think that that woman I saw the other night who had lost all sense of good judgment was so groundbreaking in her day. It is a shame she didn't perform this or any of her Full Force collaborations when I saw her, but then again it is probably a blessing, as she would most certainly have massacred them.



Finally, there is the wonderfully titled Hurt Me! Hurt Me! (But The Pants Stay On) (That girl sure loves the parentheses). Another sublime Full Force production, it has some great guffaws, Middle Eastern sounds, and the great "Hurt Me! Hurt Me!" chorus to sing along to and, not to mention, the somewhat twisted take on sexual politics.

So, Samantha Fox, I forgive you.