mmm, FTZ maybe. maybe. probably not.

Patronising 'women's journalism'

(am feeling suitably venomous and bored of everyone being on holiday and running off with attractive Europeans whilst I am looking for pictures of the elusive faux-Grecian drape dress by Isabel Toledo, so this will have to do.)


There is only one music website that is worse than DrownedinSound.com (no link provided, luckily, one wouldn't want to increase its page rank) - the 'brilliantly titled' Lipster.com. Though it loses the stifling air of pretension that hangs over aforementioned website like a canopy, the (almost) shield against sense is replaced by a far more poisonous literary atmosphere - one of comfort food, comfort telly, comfort clothing. One of 'it's a women's site, for women, by women! We promise!'. But most importantly, one of, 'look! we're women! we don't really care that much about all this faffing around with experimental drone and ambient techno, give us a Youtube video of Patrick Wolf displaying his manhood and we're happy! We're not serious! Come sit down and have some tea, let's have a gossip, we're only women after all!!!!!'

"On the Lipster you can expect to read youtube-riddled pieces about Madge, Wino, Lily and Eurovision one minute and Bon Iver, Super Furries and Indiana Jones the next" Brilliant! A posh perez hilton (no capitals, NEVER CAPITALS, the man is fictitious)! With a vagina! I can get my 'daily fix' of 'madge' and 'wino', because I'm a woman, and this is the kind of thing we like! Mike Diver and Sean Adams (DiS overlords) must be bloody brilliant with women, because they really do have them 'sussed'. The whole sordid affair was probably thought up on a drunken afternoon in the DiS office, when the remote control was lost and the satellite was busted so ITV was constantly playing, and suddenly, majestically, out of the pre-watershed reactionary ramblings of Jeremy Kyle (oooh, I love him, me. What a hunk!!!) came the Modern Voice Of Feminism And Petty Arguments About Men, Loose Women.

"Brilliant! This is just what we need. DiS is a testosterone magnet, we need pink, we need fluffy, we need something for The Women," cried Diver.
And to that, Adams replied, "It shall be called The Lipster. And it shall be brassy and sassy, because I heard Sarah Jessica Parker say those words in the movie and they sound apt. Go, now, Michael! I must review Johnny Foreigner's album again, giving it a higher score!"

The site screams 'HIPSTER HOUSEWIFE' - while Diver interviews Serious Music people (Primal Scream, Ratatat, Wild Beasts), Lipster gets the enviable exclusive of interviewing Kat Von D (famous boyfriend, naturally) and Gok Wan (fashion person, yeah? We're women, remember? That's what we do!?!?)*

"How much fun can you have on 900 calories?" asks the headline. Not much, apparently. Baked beans for every meal, leaving us gaunt. Oh, us women care a lot about staying thin, don't we? Oh, we are silly, aren't we? Just writing to inform, though, have to please the womanly masses. Though, does DiS have articles on erectile dysfunction? Articles relating to Men and Their Musical Needs, like gratuitous news features (with pictures, OBVIOUSLY) about Lily Allen looking 'buff' with her new pink hair are plentiful, however. It seems The Lipster and DiS are merely fingers on the same hand, both patronising - one is subtle and underhand, under the guise of jokey irreverence, the other, a step back in the struggle for the acceptance of women in music journalism, or indeed, any form of journalism. Ohhh, women, eh? We're only good for telly and food, after all. Brilliant.



*Bjork interview, though. That's quite nice.