Episode 19: It’s Easy to Find

Back in 2003, a popular singer-songwriter named Jewel released her fifth album, 0304, a combination of Prince-esque song title spellings and scathing indictments of modern North American culture. Wrapped in bubbly William Orbit-style production, 0304 was the singer’s best work to date (remember, I also think Ray of Light is Madonna’s best album). Unfortunately, despite some critics understanding the album’s succinct point, the reaction I remember seeing most – and the one I still see – amongst people on the mean streets of middle-class neighbourhoods and university campuses is that this was the album where Jewel sold her integrity for a hit.

Now, besides the fact that the slur of “selling out” is a giant pile of horseshit that lazy assholes use to justify their own lack of success (that could be a whole other article in itself, guys), the idea that the album and its singles were an airy, inconsequential shift for Jewel is an idea that only holds up so long as you listen to the musical arrangement and nothing else, and never see a video for either the first single, “Stand,” or its more famous follow-up, “Intuition.” Because even the slightest bit of thought reveals more than just a catchy accordion hook, a phrase normally used only on Al Yankovic fansites.

“Stand” is probably the less subtle of the two, given that the lyrics are entirely about juxtapositions like a police officer holding up a convenience store and the fact that, excluding close-ups of the artist herself, the video is basically a straightforward visualization of the lyrics, which lament the absence of Marvin Gaye, Woody Guthrie and Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s dreams in the world. Oh, and there’s the fact that the last lines of the second verse, used as a bridge to the chorus:

The mayor has no cash
He said he spent it on hookers and hash

Are pretty goddamn blunt. Seriously, there is basically zero way to read this song as anything but a criticism of contemporary Western culture. It’s basically a less subtle Bruce Springsteen song, and that’s a dude who has a hit single called “We Take Care of Our Own” about how we should take care of our own, so it’s not like she had to high jump over that one.

It’s “Intuition,” however, that gets the brunt of the criticism, largely due to the bright colours, flashy dance sequences and the fact that it was later used to sell a line of women’s razors by the same name. And again, if you listen to just the accordion hook and the chorus:

Follow your heart
Your intuition
It will lead you in the right direction
Let go of your mind
Your intuition
It’s easy to find
Just follow your heart, baby

It kind of sounds like Jewel wrote a nondescript pop song. And again, I like nondescript pop songs, and if you say you don’t, you’re a goddamn liar, but that’s not the point. The point is the rest of the lyrics, because when you do pay attention to them, it becomes easily apparent that the chorus is about trying to navigate your way through a “high tech digital world” full of irony and “postmodern fad,” where we’re sold desire and image through magazine covers and “you learn love from Charlie Sheen,” which is somehow still a topical reference nine years later.

Seriously, good job on that one, Jewel.

Once again, the lyrics are aided by the song’s music video, which is admittedly more artful than the one for “Stand” is:

Make a note of how this video starts: as Jewel sings about the digital world, she and other people on the street are viewed through a grainy camcorder recording that is both claustrophobic and predatory as all hell. In a song that is largely about the pervasive male gaze in consumerism (relax, I minored in Comparative Literature), what results is a video that is definitely sexually charged, but in a creepy, problematic way.

This is what frames the entire video. The only breaks from it are, tellingly, either shots where everyday actions are turned into commercials for soft drinks, jeans, athletic shoes, fashion magazines or beer with off-putting slogans like “Change your attitude,” or dance scenes like one where a flashing construction sign gives giant red flags of “$ $ $”, “BLING” or “BIG PIMPIN’”. By the time this first dance scene comes along, there have already been three different satirical ads, so if you read it as not being tongue-in-cheek, I’m just going to have to say you’re not trying very hard.

The most telling part of the video, to me, is where Jewel sings:

If you’ve got something that you’re wanting* to sell

Sell your sin, just cash in

Because this is immediately followed by shots of protesters with legitimate criticism of corporate greed and the mercenary pursuit of profit and who are immediately turned into happy back-up dancers by the gaze of the music video. While a fake news crawler reads, “Jewel’s music sounds so much better since she started dancing! I love it! SCRREEEEAAAAMMMM!”

I mean, come on. You have to be trying pretty hard not to realize that this song and video are making serious criticism of pervasive consumerism, where anything and everything you do is something to be sold, and the media institutions that sell it to teenagers.

Of course, the concluding scene is a pyrotechnic-filled dance number where Jewel is dressed in a sexy firefighter outfit and gets sprayed with a giant hose, so it’s not like this medicine isn’t served with a healthy spoonful of sugar. As an eighteen year-old watching this video, that was basically everything I wanted out of it.

“Stand” similarly features a scene where Jewel nudes up and has a shower, and this raises what is a really fascinating dichotomy of these songs and the nature of satire. After all, the satire only works if it contains enough of the trappings of its target to be palatable, but at the same time, those are real backup dancers and a real wet shirt/hot pants/suspenders combination, in a video for a song released by a major label. As much of the reaction has shown, it’s apparently not that difficult to watch the video for “Intuition” and think it’s just an empty bit of commercialism-propping studio wizardry, or to see a commercial for Gillette’s Intuition razors and not be hit upside the head by the irony.

It’s not a new problem, either. The Beastie Boys made “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)” as a satire but it ended up being earnestly embraced by its targets. Stephen Stills wrote Buffalo Springfield‘s iconic song “For What It’s Worth” as an ambivalent statement on protesting & protest songs at best. And, of course, Springsteen‘s most famous scathing indictment of the failure of the American Dream,”Born in the USA,” was used by Ronald Reagan [Ed. Note: P'TOO!] as a campaign song. This is the enduring challenge of satire: be appealing enough to get a far reach, but have the message be upfront enough to be received. I’m surprised to say it, but apparently “Intuition” and 0304 were too subtle.

Wait a minute… an earnest criticism of consumerism and the sexually predatory nature of youth marketing wrapped up in the semi-earnest trappings of the very system being critiqued? An ultimate message that being true to yourself is the only way to navigate this kind of world? I think I know why I like this video so much:

It’s basically the pop song version of the Josie and the Pussycats movie.

You may remember that movie for its striking product placement, Tara Reid‘s utterly irony-free performance, the surprisingly dirty jokes for a movie based on an Archie property or its astounding soundtrack sung by Letters to Cleo‘s Kay Hanley, but what sticks in my memory is what an artful and succinct commentary it was on the very institution that produced it. It was filled with bright colours and corporate logos, but the entire plot was about an explicit plot by these corporations to brainwash America’s youth into buying whatever they were told. At the end of the movie, the titular character faces her fears that without this brainwashing she won’t be able to be succeed, encourages the world’s youth to think for themselves, and then rocks the fuck out.

It’s the greatest comic book movie to date. And I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

It’s got almost the same identical message as “Intuition,” too. It also wraps this message in a similar bit of sex appeal. Similarly, it often gets remembered not for its satire, but the trappings that carried it. Luckily, in recent years, Josie and the Pussycats has been increasingly recognized for its cultural commentary. While Jewel has moved on to a pretty awesome country music career, I hope “Intuition” and 0304 can be remembered for what they were: fantastic pop music - “Intuition” is easily one of the best songs of this young millennium - with a subversive message that’s just as relevant today as it was was a decade ago.

Thanks to Friend of C!TB Scott Williams for writing the initial post that got me thinking about this. Follow the link to read his piece on “Intuition” and Liz Phair‘s “Hot White Cum. I dare you not to walk around singing the chorus for the rest of the day.

* [Ed. Note: May also be heard as, "If you've got something that you want me to sell," which doesn't change the meaning at all, I just don't want to get any smarmy emails I haven't actually earned.]