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Hinder :: "Lips Of An Angel"From Extreme Behaviour (Universal; 2006)
There’s a hustler’s aphorism that has become obnoxiously ubiquitous in internet poker shit talk and lazily written crime movies:
“Anybody can take people’s money, but only a true artist can make them love it.”
Pop music exhibits this truth ad infinitum. Some of the most disturbing messages, perhaps not surprisingly, come from some of the most heavily glossed lips. Britney Spears’ first single found a sixteen year-old schoolgirl begging for a breakup fuck. The Ying-Yang twins had a breakout club hit sporting lyrical come-ons that all but the most brazen dark corner denizen would be embarrassed to actually use in the club. What’s most amazing about this phenomenon is not the blatant hypocrisy of commonly accepted radio pop, but the fact that these songs are actively marketed to the exact demographic that they should offend, and, get this, that same demographic loves it.
Hinder’s wildly successful pop grunge single “Lips of an Angel” is quite plainly about old boy cheating on his girlfriend (“My girl’s in the next room / sometimes I wish she was you”). Yet it is just as plain by the soothing tenor of Austin Winkler’s groaning verses, the muffled growl of the chorus, and the acoustic guitar twanging boringly in the background that we are meant to understand that this is a love song. Winkler is taking a break from the rest of the high-fiving revelry of the band’s album, Extreme Behavior, to let the audience know that deep down he’s a sensitive, caring guy who gets weak when, standing feet away from his sleeping girlfriend, he hears his fuck buddy say his name into the phone. And with whom does he wish to vouchsafe this little ode to misogyny? With the ladies, of course.
The ladies, in a nebulous, demographical way, do love it. The album climbed nine spots on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in its seventh week, passing established contemporaries Nickelback and Blue October. This meteoric rise despite the fact that there’s nary an afterthought of contrition here. Far from it, this motherfucker is straight up exultant about his infidelity. The success of “Lips of an Angel” relies on listeners consistently convincing themselves that they will always be Miss Angel Lips or the rock’n’roll smooth-talker, and never the discarded slumbering halfwit. A part of the fundamental appeal of pop music is to allow us to occupy roles that we wouldn’t have a chance to in real life. In this case the fantasy identity being sold is that of a homewrecker, and apparently it is widely resonant. It’s never been a good idea to take relationship cues from Top 40 radio, so the sociological effects of this song may be minimal. But if you’re in a relationship, whose mixtape does "Lips of an Angel" go on? That depends on how your partner deals with “fantasy.”
Eric Sams :: 11 September |
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