We might have expected it of Prince or Jay-Z, but everyone from Nirvana to Chad VanGaalen has sung in praise of the mimsy
On paper, there's little that links Calgary lo-fi trouper Chad VanGaalen with Kanye West: one is Canadian label Flemish Eye's biggest artist, the other needs as much introduction as cheese does to pickle. However, with the release of Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy last November and VanGaalen's brand-new album, Diaper Island, the two may have found some common ground.
Even the most fervent of fans of Kanye's magnum opus might admit to having cringed at Chris Rock's skit at the end of the gorgeously bleak Blame Game, in which Rock interrupts the sample of Aphex Twin's Avril 14, apparently to discuss intimate feminine care. "Yo, you took your pussy game up a whole 'nother level! This is some Cirque du Soleil pussy now, shit!" At the end of VanGaalen's Diaper Island, meanwhile, sits a charming ukulele ditty entitled Shave My Pussy, the chorus of which runs, "Maybe if I shave my pussy, then you'll love me/ Baby, will you love me? I'm feeling really ugly". For VanGaalen, it's about humankind's obsession with fulfilling ideals. Obviously.
While the penis is synonymous with all-pistons-thrusting cock rock, the ladygarden makes far fewer appearances in the history of pop. VanGaalen's recent musings add to a canon of pussy as politics, one of three common categories of vaginal verse.
First, sleaze and shock. Here we have Limp Bizkit ("I did it all for the chance at a vagina" ? Nookie), the Bloodhound Gang (Pussy Song) and Tom Green (The Vagina Song), mostly sung by young men whose primary experience with the organ involves a moist flannel and a squirt of conditioner. We also have feminists. Norwegian singer Jenny Hval's third album, Viscera, was set inside the body, with opening track Engines In The City declaring, "I arrived in town with an electric toothbrush pressed against my clitoris". Later on, it grows teeth. Ouch.
Then there's empowerment ? and strangely, it's often the gents who are to be found encouraging the fairer sex to own their yoni. Prince has done so much for the genre that he's practically an ambassador for the region, with the intoxicating Scarlet Pussy, and P Control, the vagina's rallying cry. Of Montreal wrote a song, False Priest, which never made it on to their latest record, with the refrain, "Your pussy is a star." Elsewhere, on Jay-Z and R Kelly's 2002 album, The Best Of Both Worlds, we have Pussy. It's hardly memorable, but when they're gripped by "the power of the p-u-s-s-y" ? the reason, they claim, they "try to dress fly" ? the poor loves are hardly going to be at their best.
Finally, we're into gooey tenderness ? My Bloody Valentine's Soft As Snow, Hefner's Love Inside The Stud Farm ? usually employing grim comparisons to velvet, and Freudian desires about setting up house near someone's hymen. Even Nirvana's twisted Heart Shaped Box begs, "throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back".
Dudes, get a room ? just make sure it's not mine. As Kanye and Chad have suggested, there are plenty of reasons to decorate downstairs (not least in the hope of attracting interested parties) but that doesn't mean you can claim squatters' rights.
Deanna Russo Cheryl Burke Olivia Wilde Paulina Rubio Kirsten Dunst
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