Creatures: Anima Animus: Pitchfork Review

Creatures
Anima Animus
[Instinct]
Rating: 3.8

Good morning, I hope everyone had a good weekend. Today we'll be discussing the reinvention of the female musical icon. Open your book to Chapter 3 and take notes. This will be on the test.

Let's start with Cher. Nobody knew that she would become a middling actress when she told Sonny that he "had her, babe." Of course, nobody knew that Sonny would become a Republican Congressman and then commit ritual Pinebranch Hari Kiri, thus leaving us with perhaps the most clueless Congressperson ever-- his widow? Bono.

Cher always shot for the most basic pop instincts of the masses. There was the ditty with Sonny, then "If I Could Turn Back Time," a powerlove song that was accentuated by her bare, tattooed ass. Then we were all asked to believe in life after love as we got down on House Night at our local dance club. All in all, Cher's musical legacy has been mindless and harmless.

Madonna requires a bit more thinking, which is the problem. In order to fall for her Zentronica reinvention we have to believe that she's as clever as every pussy- whipped critic made her out to be. If you fell for it, you should drop this class, because you will fail.

That's brings us to Siouxsie Sioux, who can be viewed with slightly less suspicion because she has never pandered to her audience. In fact, it just so happens that, on the odd occasion, she fit her audience. As the female equivalent of Robert Smith-- bookish and cryptic in her most sunny moments, but still somehow able to connect with outcast teens-- Siouxsie has always been best imagined as the main attraction of a Victorian cabaret/ circus sideshow. With the release of the second Creatures album (her side project with Banshees percussionist and love interest Budgie), it seems that she plans on following Smith into the cutout bins.

Points to remember for the test:

Budgie, whose percussion background would lead you to believe he might understand the beat orientation of dance music in the '90s, is clueless. The few attempts at sustaining a House or trance beat, like "2nd Floor" and "Say," are laughable. The rest of the time he seems too intent on taking the life out of the rhythm. Boomerang, the original Creatures project, was helped along by baroque drum arrangements. Nothing approaches that on Anima Animus.

Siouxsie may still have a roomful of issues she'd like to purge through her lyrics, but while her body and mind have grown older, she's still singing the same old song. And she's still got more drama than substance. That's all fine and good, and I suppose you shouldn't ask a showpony to be a racehorse, but the showpony should know when it's time to retire.

It's difficult to lay claim to any groundbreaking when your new songs are so heavily influenced by musicians half your professional age. "I Was Me" is clearly influenced by PJ Harvey and "Don't Go to Sleep Without Me" is so modeled after Portishead that I imagine the latter band's attorneys are warming up their copyright infringement pens as we speak.

In conclusion, it seems that, with some exceptions, the only reinventions that work are those for which the reinventor was whimsical to begin with. Everyone else should go on vacation and try to spend all that money they made in the '80s.

That's the end of today's lecture. See you next week, when our discussion will be titled "David Bowie: Can He Really Be Taken Seriously After Tin Machine?"

-Shan Fowler