March 21, 2007

MUSIC: American Idol: well, don't I feel stupid...

An addendum to my comments on LaKisha's "Diamonds Are Forever": I had never heard the song before last night, and didn't catch all of the lyrics; what I came away with was a song about the joys of material things, and frustration that LaKisha wasn't capturing the fun of that kind of bitchy materialism. As several people have pointed out, when you look at the words more closely, it's actually a bitter lament about how men are all evil backstabbing betrayers, so let's take what cold comfort we can from our diamonds.

This does make my comment about LaKisha not having enough fun with the song seem rather silly, but it may actually strengthen the bigger point: If there had been any emotional substance to LaKisha's performance, if she had communicated any part of the pain and bitterness that's in the lyrics, then it wouldn't have been even remotely possible to think that the song was supposed to be a proto-"Material Girl" romp.

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