Chantal Claret puts it all on the line

Chantal's got soul

I went to see the sweet and sassy Chantal Claret at Skinny's in North Hollywood this Saturday, where she was warming up for her first UK show in London, a few weeks from now.

I first heard Chantal Claret just a few months back, when she opened for her husband's (James Euringer aka Jimmy Urine) band, Mindless Self Indulgence.

Like MSI, Chantal Claret has got a sound you can't fit neatly into a clear-cut genre (not that those things exist in music anymore). The two bands hardly sound alike, but they share an intensity that can only come from pouring your whole self into what's being made, and damning the critics before they even get their grubby little critical hands on it.

Chantal Claret is a badass. She channels Tina Turner and Joan Jett all at once. Her Motown Punk sound stands apart from the rest, from what is and what was in the musical universe. She's Turner, she's (Johnny) Cash, she's Elvis and Madonna. But, really, she's not any of them. She's Chantal fucking Claret, make no mistake. She's a woman that's not afraid to bare her soul, but she makes it clear that she didn't get there overnight. Chantal just ditched her band and kept the backup singers, making her setup even more Motown than it was before. 

And on Saturday night, at the intimate NoHo venue, she stepped into the middle of the crowd, and invited everyone to take a seat. Then she knelt down on her knees and sang her fucking heart out in her delivery "Pleasure Seeker," a song about her father.  A genuine demonstration of passion in action. It's not about the music, it's about the heArt. 

Is Miley making art?

Art and sex are fairly familiar bedfellows, so much so that the line between the two tends to get quite blurry at times. So much so that sometimes it's hard to even tell whether some things are artistically provocative or blatantly exploitative. 

As I write these words the eyes of the world are focused on two women, each artists in their own right. Miley Cyrus stole the show at the MTV Video Music Awards, landed a ridiculous cover on Rolling Stone and is ostensibly the next in a line of crash-and-burn young female pop stars. Sinead O'Connor will forever hold a place in pop culture history for going against the status quo and checking out of the sex-and-money ruse of the music industry, among other things. Today, as that issue of Rolling Stone with Cyrus on the cover, looking all kinds of trashy and licking her shoulder, is flying off the news stands, O'Connor's website has broken under the weight of traffic pouring in to read her open letter to the young pop star.

Cyrus noted O'Connor as an inspiration, and even goes so far to assert that her debased performance in her latest music video for "Wrecking Ball" borrows from O'Connor's "Nothing Compares."

O'Connor appeals that Little Miss Montana has musical talent that will shine without the self-exploitation, but no one is pretending that racy performances aren't part of the pop star game, least of all Cyrus herself. While Miley may be calling the shots, some would dispute her motives. 

When is a creative work art and when is it entertainment? No doubt they can be in one the same, but is this always the case? Certainly some art is made to evoke strong reactions--Miley's performance at the VMA's included. There is something to be said for ruffling feathers, but could her racy performance be a legitimate act of pushing the envelope, or challenging the staus quo?

Miley seems to think so. "No one is talking about the man behind the ass," Cyrus tells Rolling Stone reporter Josh Ellis. "Obviously there's a double standard." The flood of complaints to the FCC following her performance only serve to confirm her argument, in which Miley is characterized as "slut," "whore," and "hooker."

Was it tasteful? Well, no, but that's hardly the overarching objective of art. Likewise embracing the lost art of open letters, Amanda Palmer suggests that art has a higher purpose than entertainment, and all the attention that Miley and her tongue have gotten since the VMA's speak to a social issue. 

"It's a Chinese finger trap that reflects the basic problems of our women-times: we're either scolded for looking sexy or we're scolded for not playing the game," she writes in her letter addressing O'Connor.

Does art bear the burden of social responsibility?

After the VMAs, Pharrell told Cyrus: “You are not a train wreck. You’re the train pulling everyone else along.” Miley surely didn't invent twerking, but she sure did bring the party to the public eye. O'Connor might abhor Cyrus' behavior while Palmer champions it, but it is Miley that is fueling their feelings. Twerk on, Miley.