It Says Nothing To Me About My Life

Smart guys like Jon Spencer know about a thing called semiotics.  Without paddling out past my intellectual depth, it is the system of "signifiers" that exist within almost every aspect of culture.  If, for example, a man in a Western is wearing a white hat, we understand that he is Our Hero, not because it is explicitly stated, but because the white hat is a signifier conveying purity (among other things).  Pop Music is of course no exception, and the semiotics of Pop function as an invisible language that separates a fluent speaker like Lady Gaga from the awkward pidgin of someone like Rebecca Black.

When I found the album pictured above on the shelves of the Public Library, my hands started to shake.

"Jesus Christ," I muttered.  "What, semiotically speaking, the fuck?" (My spell-check program is trying to tell me that "semiotically" is not a word.  Silly bastard must not have gone to a good college.)

The album in question is by Tiffany.  Lest one forget her pedigree, the album cover helpfully explains "I think we're alone now '80s Hits and more" (capitalization and punctuation unchanged).  It features a mildly unflattering picture of 1980's era Tiffany in front of what appear to be a series of arcing pastel foam swim toys.  The back cover features more swim toys and three balloons.  It also, predictably, lists what songs are on the album, as well as the logo of the record label responsible for this semiotic Dagwood.

I think we're alone now - 80's Hits and more was released by Cleopatra Records.  Cleopatra, for those of you who are not compelled to know such things, was originally a goth-industrial label, putting out releases by the likes of Psychic TV and Leaether Strip (yes, that's how it was spelled).  The latter had a song called "Go Fuck Your Ass Off", if that gives you an idea of what we're dealing with here.

The semiotic plot thickened.

The album was released in 2007, and features re-recorded versions of three of Tiffany's big chart hits (one of which was itself a cover of a Beatles song) as well as nine other covers, most of which are temporally centered in the '80's.  Most.  Not all.  

The re-recordings range from the faithfully pedestrian ("Voices Carry", "Forever Young", "Call Me") to the more outlandish (and satisfying, if you've got a mind like mine).  The new version of "I Think We're Alone Now" bears strong tonal similarities to the first Nine Inch Nails album (no shit, the beat is a fairly beefy synth throb and the guitars are much more intense than anything on a Tiffany album has a right to be) and perhaps goes some way to explaining what the ass this thing is doing on Cleopatra (the massive turf-out of the world economy explains the rest... Cleopatra seems to have abandoned its roots and become an all-purpose reissue factory, which probably pays much better than putting out Leaether Strip albums ever did).  "The Beat Goes On" turns the Sonny & Cher chestnut into a Big Audio Dynamite-esque slice of chirpily awkward sample madness.  Oh, and then there's a Smiths cover.

"Panic (Hang The DJ)", aside from getting the title wrong (the original version did not add a parenthetical) is reworked as a sensuous, sinewy techno dancefloor behemoth.  This, given that the lyrics were intended as  a venomous condemnation of England's then-burgeoning Rave Culture, is perhaps more than just a bit ironic.  


To sum up:  1980's diva joins forces with a former goth-industrial label to release an album of covers (in some cases COVERS OF COVERS) remade to sound like music from the 1990's (or, occasionally, like music from LATER in the '80's).  Said Diva, an American, manages to completely invert the message of an iconic song by a likewise iconic English band.  Her cover of Sonny and Cher's ode to the eternal qualities of Pop (itself NOT from the '80's) is rendered in a style that is (amazingly) both futurist and anachronistically retro.  The cover art features a picture of her from the past that is LESS FLATTERING than what she currently looks like, and seems to have been made either with an early generation of photoshop or particularly inexpensive mall photo booth.


I hope it doesn't seem like I'm making fun of this album, because I'm not.  I love it.  The insane variety of semiotic signals it sends out give it a depth and richness that most artists are purely incapable of creating. If Tiffany had made a concept album about the vagaries of fame, it would not be able to convey these same ideas with one half the freshness, charm, and fun of I think we're alone now - '80s Hits and more.  Tiffany's distance from the Pop Zeitgeist gives her covers the quality of translations... by approaching them with a semiotic gloss that differs not just from the original conceptions but from the current set of acceptable pop signifiers, she manages to reveal hidden depths in the material and in herself.


Here's my favorites, so you can play along at home.  


Postscript - Tiffany is currently working on a Country Album.  My cup runneth over.