Idolator
I don't know about you guys, but yesterday's New York Times Magazine profile of the trying-so-hard-to-be-bewitching duo CocoRosie was excruciating to read—I actually only got through it on a third pass—thanks to the "how does it feel to be so incredibly awesome???" vibe given off by profiler Fernanda Eberstadt, coupled with the Casady sisters' overarching preciousness. They eat lots of hard-boiled eggs! They have their own blend of tea! And a kooky entourage! I'm not 100% sure if the goal of this profile was anthropological, i.e. showing Times readers what two young women who were fully hatched from a place of complete privilege look like right before the end of our nu-Gilded Age, but I did know that every time I tried to sit down and really read the damn thing I kept getting flashbacks to the Sunday Styles bro-down with Vampire Weekend from a few months back. A few choice quotes after the jump.
Sierra: "If there's a poetic to our work, a weird continuity of deliberate mistranslation, it's what comes off the streets and is purified and reduced by the dollar stores. I've been reborn by the idea of artificial paradise, an urban hustle. We are finding our way to God through the dollar stores of this world." To which Bianca added an "Amen." While wearing "a pair of supersize purple-and-gold Adidas sweat pants in velour, with matching sneakers, a black XXL T-shirt bearing the logo Black Pit Bull and a riding coat constructed from two quilted nylon dressing gowns, one of them red tartan, the other pink-and-green-flowery, with large Japanese Manga-esque appliqués sewn on them." And one fake pink eyelash. Wait, they sell pink eyelashes at dollar stores? Dude.
Sierra: "[I] wanted to finish high school, go on to college, but my parents wouldn't let me. They said it would destroy my creativity. They were so right." So, so right. Imagine if she'd wound up at Columbia—she'd be singing about Oxford commas instead of roller skates!
Bianca: "We never listen to music. Maybe, like, Arvo Pärt, Nina Simone, but that's it. Music's just our ticket onto the rollercoaster. We don't understand people who always have music blasting in the background. What we like is silence." This would seemingly contradict the assertion of friend and fellow teenage homeless person hanger-on Danielle Stech-Homsy, who said that Sierra was always singing, as well as Sierra's past studies of opera. But perhaps the music they create is just on another level.
There's more, but trying to cut and paste them is giving me serious agita. At any rate, I'm just sad that Eberstadt, during her full-on sloppy kiss to the sisters Casady, didn't find out whether or not they're still palling around with the Pumpsta. (Although I guess this story points out that Bianca's tendencies toward "not[ing] her wordliness" haven't subsided one bit.)
Twisted Sisters [NYT]
Comments
Excuse me m'aam...but is that ONE pink eye lash? Why...you must be the most fascinating person imaginable! Now, since your personality is in now way manufactured, what say you and exchange addresses and become pen pals? That way, I can save all our letters in a leather bound tome entitled "My Coorespondance With the Most Intersting Person Alive"!
^I think I ripped that off of Tompkins.
Never believe a musician that tells you "I never listen to music." (Or that their new album is "our best yet.")
"[I] wanted to finish high school, go on to college, but my parents wouldn't let me. They said it would destroy my creativity. They were so right."
This, by the way, is the key to the whole article. Pulp's "Common People" was written exactly for such people (although the girl in "Common People" apparently made it to college).
I sort of agree with cocorosie, i too prefer silence over music. Actually just their music.
I thought this band would dissapear, given that everyone seemed to hate their last album, but here we are.
CocoRosie
HoeHoeHoezy
BabaBooey
I was wondering if they had a new album coming out or something because why in the fuck would NYT kill so many trees to print this shit? Kill Whitey indeed.
The Rush Limbaugh article was more interesting, and that's not saying much.
arggghh, there is not an artist out there that rubs me more wrong than these two ladies. their art school obsession with hip-hop culture is, in my mind, borderline racist and their music is pure bullshit.
The coming mass human die-off after the oil and food crash is beginning to look more and more appealing every day.
"Nowadays, who would want to be white? But back then, in farm country, anything other than button-nosed blonde didn't fly."
@iantenna: Now that's racist.
@mike a: You are so right, that is exactly it: Their put-on commonness and eccentricity. "We're not boring rich white girls if we dress kooky, right?" I want to say "no," but the NYT Mag screams "yes."
And really, that is the main problem with them: their music is fucking boring as shit.
*sigh* "La Maison de Mon Reve" is still one of my most beloved records this decade. they make it so hard to keep defending that album.
Reading about them has to be easier than listening to them (see also: Joanna Newsom). But not reading about them is even easier.
I would say they are like the Hilton sisters for retarded people, but that would be redundant.
Ya'll are karazee man! CocoRosie are ALWAYS on a fresh tip musically. The juxtaposition of beautiful and ugly in their music (and style) is unsettling and obviously polarizing but I guarantee most people who've commented today haven't spent time with a full album or a live performance. Folks are quick to jump on the haterade bandwagon with these girls and that gets under MY skin, damn.
i also love that one paragraph below the assertion that in france cocorosie are considered "queens of a vegan generation" the author is eating hard-boiled eggs with the band.
@sicksteanein: and idiotic.
@jackieo: actually, i've listened to all 3 of their albums (i even kinda like the first one) and have seen them live. that's not the fucking point. their new record could be the most amazing record of 2008, it still wouldn't change the fact that they come off in interviews as ignorant, racist, classist, self-absorbed, art school dropout shit for brains.
@jackieo: i really, really, really hate the rise of the word 'haterade' and all of its related words. saying that disagreement with you is nothing more than 'hating' kind of kills conversation, especially when those disagreeing opinions are actually backed up with reasoning.
sorry for calling you out, that term is just a pet peeve of mine that's gotten considerably more irritating over the past few days. it's the 'random' of 2008!
Their music doesn't do that much for me either way, but trying to read that article was the most painful thing that happened to me all weekend, and that includes the leg cramp I developed on Sunday.
@ maura and iantenna
My point, not well written or even spelled out (sorry!), is that there are plenty of dolts out there making fantastic music. I don't know why it's such a hot topic when it comes to CocoRosie. As a person who enjoys their music immensely, I get SO TIRED of the backlash. I actually enjoyed the story in the Times and even laughed out loud some. They are crazy b's no matter how you paint it.
Lastly -There's plenty of idiotic and redundant comments here besides my usage of haterade. Let's try ART SCHOOL DROP OUTS for one. Insert (www.sadtrombone.com).
Deep dark secret...I love the word "haterade". Also "totes".
But I also agree full heartedly with Maura here, otherwise.
It must be a hard life to feel so compelled by wealth and mediocrity to defy convention in such meaningless ways. Maybe joining the Army, as one suggested, would have been a more revolutionary way to get on "the rollercoaster".
@jackieo: ok i love you for pointing me to that site.
I can't believe people that mind-numbingly inane actually exist. It's difficult to believe that anybody is really that eccentric when they've quite clearly spent a great deal of time pondering over and then contextualising their own behaviour. Free spirits indeed.
I can't confess to having listened to a full CocoRosie album, and now if I did I'd just be determined to hate it to reinforce my opinion. So I'll save myself the trouble!
@Lax Danja House: Is "mind-numbingly" inane at Cocorosie or the writer? Either works, I'm just wondering.
While Cocorosie's quotes in the interview deserve all the snark in the world, I'm surprised the sycophantic, boring, stupid, etc. writing by Ms. Eberstatd isn't getting more hate in these comments.
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