Everyone Loves You When You're Dead. Neil Strauss
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rolls off the couch, staggers sleepily into the bedroom, and returns with a small, lined notebook.
AGUILERA: I wrote this song, and it has kind of a gospel feel. Have you heard Mariah’s first album? It’s kind of like “Vanishing,” but it’s more personal. I wrote it with Heather Holley, who wrote “Obvious.” I wish I had a tape with the piano part. It would mean so much more with the music, but maybe you can just imagine it.
(She turns her head away, so that she’s gazing out of the picture window, and sings:) “The world seems so cold / When I face so much all alone / A little scared to move on / And knowing how fast I have grown.” The piano gets really soft here. (Singing again, her voice crescendoing:) “And I wonder just where I fit in / Oh, the vision of life in my head / Oh yes, I will be strong . . .” Then there’s this whole belting thing in the chorus.
She finishes the song and sinks into the sofa exhausted. Minutes later, she is under the covers in bed, curled on her left side in a crescent shape.
True to her word, years later, Aguilera spoke at several women’s shelters, donating $200,000 to one of them.
More than most other musicians, you’re under a microscope all the time. Why is it that other entertainers can discuss doing drugs, but—
BRITNEY SPEARS: But if I go out and have a drink, it’s like, “Oh my gosh, Britney went and had a drink. What’s going on?” I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why. It’s really bizarre.
Maybe the reason is because early on you set up an image for yourself that people are holding you to?
SPEARS: See, that’s such an irony. People are like, “You were so innocent, da da da da,” and all that. And I’m like, “No, I wasn’t. You guys said I was too sexual when I first came out with ‘. . . Baby One More Time.’ ” You can’t win, man. You know what I mean?
Well, we can probably figure out why everyone held you up to that standard.
SPEARS: I don’t know why.
Maybe it’s because—
SPEARS: I don’t know. I have no idea.
Maybe it’s because you did play a part in making your virginity an issue and telling teen magazines that you wouldn’t drink or—
SPEARS: I’m growing up. I’m twenty-one. I can’t play with dolls forever. I mean, I love my dolls and I still collect them. But you understand what I’m trying to say.
So how do you keep people’s expectations and criticisms from getting in the way of just living your own life?
SPEARS: Well, I try not to read anything, because it’s all bull at the end of the day. It’s really silly. I mean the stuff about me, personally. Trust me, I’m such a victim of going and sitting there and buying Us Weekly. I find it so interesting. I do, I do. But I choose not to read stuff about me. It’s just weird. I try to make it basically about my music and that’s it.
It’s interesting how every record you make, people always say it’s your “grownup record.”
SPEARS: I think you never grow up. If anyone says that they’re completely full-grown, what’s the fun in that? It’s like every day you want to learn something new. Every day you want to challenge yourself and get better. It’s not like this one’s the grown-up record: This was just a moment in my life that I’m going through. I’m not grown up and I’m not a little girl. I just am.
With his catchy single “Dur Dur D’Etre Bébé!” (“It’s Tough to Be a Baby”) at number one in multiple countries—and sales of one record for every minute he’d been alive—Jordy, France’s five-year-old dance music sensation, seemed to be succumbing to the decadence of stardom. When Details magazine assigned me to meet him, the first thing he did was ask the translator to take him to the toilet, where he peeped under occupied stalls in the women’s bathroom. When he returned, he demanded that a young girl be brought into the room.
What do you want a young girl for?
JORDY: Pour jouer au docteur.
TRANSLATOR: To play doctor.
What about Alison [his girlfriend]?
JORDY: Oui, j’ai baissé ses pantalons et j’ai dessiné des fleurs sur ses fesses.
TRANSLATOR: Yes, I lowered her pants and drew flowers on her butt.
Do you ever play with boys?
JORDY: Je n’aime pas les garçons. Ils se battent.
TRANSLATOR: I don’t like boys. They fight.
When Jordy’s parents enter the room, we discuss his fame as he sketches a picture of a fire engine on a piece of paper. Oddly, beneath the fire engine, he begins drawing a row of lines dangling to the ground.
What are those lines there?
JORDY: Des zizis.
TRANSLATOR: Penises.
Ten minutes later . . .
Do you think all this attention is affecting his development?
PATRICIA CLERGET [Jordy’s mother]: He’s a very normal child. All the attention hasn’t affected him at all.
CLAUDE LEMOINE [Jordy’s father]: He still wants to be a policeman or a fireman when he grows up.
As his parents speak, Jordy jumps on the table, grabs his crotch, and proclaims . . .
JORDY: Je suis Michael Jackson!
TRANSLATOR: I am Michael Jackson.
Less than a year after this interview, the French government banned Jordy from television and radio due to concerns that he was being exploited by his parents. Jordy later legally emancipated himself from his parents and formed his own rock band.
Artist is an overused term when it comes to musicians. Most are primarily entertainers, giving the public what it wants. Their motivation is not self-expression but attention and acclaim. If no one were watching, they wouldn’t be making any noise. When I met PJ Harvey—one of the most important rock musicians of her generation—at a London hotel, I pretty quickly discovered she was not an entertainer.
Do interviews serve any purpose for you?
PJ HARVEY: Well, I don’t enjoy them.
Oh yeah?
HARVEY: I hate interviews. I don’t particularly want to sit here and talk about myself. I’m not thinking about my fans. I do them because I feel like I have to do them.
Why