By contrast, I produced grateful/disorder for $0, which is almost $2 million less than almost $2 million. I used equipment I already owned, performed everything myself, and mixed it with free software. If you add in distribution, it cost me $35. The most expensive part was having CDs printed so I can sell them at shows. So you might say I turned a profit on my first album sale. (You might also not say this).

Who knew I could be a better businessman than Heidi Montag? And all thanks to the books at my local library.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

She’s like a more-accessible, better-singing, more understandable Joanna Newsome. She’s even a little better-looking. That’s money in the bank, right? Why fix it if it isn’t broken?

So what the fuck is this horseshit?

Ellie Goulding, “Under The Sheets” from Neon Gold Records on Vimeo.

This recording, and the video that accompanies it, is beyond execrable for a musician of her calibre. You take a beautiful, stylized voice, filter the shit out of it, throw in some auto-tune (because that’s what the kids like, right?), and then shoot this sucky, drivel and cliche-filled video. This is art-rape and I won’t stand for it.

And it’s not like she can’t sing this song well anyway. Look at this live performance: Under The Sheets. It’s a good song without all the crap! And meaningful!

Now Ellie Goulding has been working with electronic producers for years, according to her bio. As a house-head, breakbeat junkie, and electronic music fan going back to “before it was cool” I have no objection to making dance tunes. Her dreamy, high-toned voice fits dance music wonderfully. (Listen to this recording of “Guns and Horses” The production kind of takes over the words but it’s still entertaining, at least.) There’s nothing wrong with getting rich off your talent, but you won’t see me buying her album after watching this music video.

Should I expect less of 22-year-olds?

I do hope she makes a LOT of money because when you do shit like this, you lose a lot of credibility with your fanbase (it is honestly hard for me to take her seriously when I think of “Kei$ha” when I see her video). And when the pendulum swings and nobody wants to hear auto-tune and this kind of music anymore, she’s going to need all that money to keep herself fed.

:p

So fine. She’s a pop star. There have been many before her and many will follow her. But dammit if this woman doesn’t give the term “singer-songwriter” a bad name.

I wouldn’t speak ill of success or notoriety in the music industry. Everyone knows that “success” does not always follow “talent” and that’s just how the world is. Happens in every walk of life.  I can even (barely) overlook her masturbation song to Ron Paul. Perhaps she became a libertarian for the money and sex?

And until I read her autobiography, from her MySpace page, I just chalked up my dislike to a matter of taste.

But she is bent on begging for her own credibility. Here’s an excerpt:

I only enrolled in college because it was required to get a DJ job at their radio station. I wanted to play songs over the air for the world to hear at 4 a.m., so that whoever was listening would feel at peace knowing that somebody out there understood them—that somebody got their pain and loneliness… and above all, got their insomnia. I absorbed English, history and chemistry, taking notes on the Civil War, the vast space within an atom and the insanity of the Federal Reserve—not so I could get A’s, but so I could sing about it all. I studied religion fiercely, not for a good GPA or to make my parents proud, but to seek out its often inherent corruption and expose it through music. Everything—every step, every action that I have ever taken in my entire life—has been for this purpose: the mission of painting pictures for you. With all of my guts and soul, I breathe pain, love, perfection, imperfection and the shattered fragments of society into songs.

Here’s some lyrics from her song “Crazy”:

La la la la – woah
Everybody seems to agree
La la la la – woah
Everybody but me

Come baby be with me
Come baby baby be with me
Come baby be with me
Come baby baby be with me

I’m not fully convinced she “absorbed” that much “English”. Here’s more horseshit:

I am a phoenix rising from the ashes on a daily basis. I am Rocky. I am the story of defeat and redemption. I am the story of faith. I am one song at a time, and the silences between them. I am Alice in Wonderland, the Wizard of Oz, Snow White and the dirty Cinderella. I am a fairy tale and a horror story. But, I am merely one story, one voice, trying to expose both the fraud of the stupid Hollywood ending and the magnetic beauty of it. We all play the villain and the victim—the princess and the guy she’s not in love with. I am all of our stories.

Ladies and gentlemen, Aimee Allen must be stopped.