Jesus fucking Christ. America’s favorite middle class 80’s American teenage girl. With a recording studio in her garage and a fixation on Madonna’s runaway think-for-yourself success, no one has ever told Debbie Gibson she couldn’t have everything she ever wanted. A product of the MTV video age, Debbie Gibson has never grown up past the point of treating her dolls as real people. Now she plays with real people and treat them like dolls. I don’t wish to be too hard on Debs, she is so nice, after all, but watching someone else’s fantasy world being transposed onto stage can be an exasperating experience to watch especially if they have no real idea what they want from their fantasy except to (gushing) ‘stay clean, write lotsa’ songs, make lotsa’ money and possibly meet and fuck lotsa’ Billy Joel.
Her ordinariness is quite appalling. Not so much as she is being false to herself (for she is not, this is her true self she is revealing to us) but because this total lack of imagination encapsulates so neatly the aspirations of her teenage audience. Her band consists of two male backing dancers, pirouetting and aimlessly whirling away behind Debs, the obligatory black female singers and the standard array of keyboardists, sax players who don’t give one single shit what they play but smile gamely as the money machine clacks on. Deb’s voice is certainly nothing to speak of, she has good breath control, nothing more; the music can be described likewise. Heavy on the drum beat and featured solo, Debsy’s songs are completely without form or content.
Mentally repugnant, a limp-wristed Madonna wannabe but without one ounce of the style or common sense that makes her mentor so fascinating. Debbie Gibson was once the new breed of 80’s pop culture American brat pack singers who realize all you need to survive in this harsh yet rewarding world of rock ‘n’ roll is dedication and hard work, not talent. If you are brave enough to watch the whole concert, during the final reprise of ‘Shake Your Love’ Debs runs off to change from her rah-rah dress into her nightie and the band come back for an uncalled for encore, tout suite. I blame it all on the Russians
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