The dark sound and minimalist instrumentation on “If I Was Your Girlfriend” demonstrates Prince’s willingness to bend and distort expectations with a lyrical and sonic playfulness that challenges the listener to think beyond the obvious gender stereotypes inherent in most popular love songs.
You wanna hear a good joke? Nobody speak, nobody get choked.
Tony Orlando & Dawn’s “Knock Three Times” vs. Suzanne Vega’s “Luka” in the soundscape of urban living.
Defamiliarizing gender to highlight its constructedness.
Dialogics represent the rejection of a finality of meaning. It moves back and forth like a crossfade.
Songs that explore the more complex reality inherent in the tension between the intensity of romantic feelings and the experience of serialized monogamy.
The Nike commercial is simply a recapitulation of the song’s co-opting of revolutionary affect to sell popular music itself as a commodity and line the Beatles’ pockets.
