At long last, the main performer at this year’s Pride festival has been announced, and amazingly it’s not a moppet from the Bush Sr. era.  (My Martika prediction was off, I guess.)  No, this year the headliner is the comparatively au courant Amber, the forty-year old Dutchwoman whose lone venture into the American Top 40 was the 1996 hit “This Is Your Night.”  (According to Wikipedia, at least; apparently the far more memorable “Sexual (Li Da Di)” only made it to #42 back in 1999 and, lest I sound like I’m undermining the achievements of the Low Countries, she’s had five #1’s on the Dance Club Play chart, the most recent of which was apparently a 2002 single entitled “The Need To Be Naked.”)

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Long-time readers of this blog know that while I often like pop music made by teenagers, I’m also very particular about it. Last year, the organizers of Rhode Island Pride decided to spend God knows how much of their relentlessly fundraised money acquiring Tiffany, the mall enthusiast who had a couple of hits in 1987 that sounded mildly tolerable then but which are completely unlistenable today to anyone over the age of maybe nine. (A friend of mine pointed out the fact that her appearance wouldn’t have been nearly as awful had she actually played inside the mall, as opposed to just across the street from it, and I’m inclined to agree.)

This year, in a story I kind of announced before they did, they’ve decided to up the ante by bringing in Deborah Gibson. Gibson, known in her Reagan-era heydey as Debbie, was a teen singer superior to Tiffany in several regards. Namely, Gibson wrote her own songs, and more importantly those songs weren’t terrible. She was the youngest person to ever write, produce and perform a number one single, and to this day nobody’s beaten that record. Also, the Pixies have a song about her, which automatically makes her cooler. (I mean, it’s a b-side, and it’s the only Pixies song that David Lovering ever sang, but still.) And then there was Electric Youth perfume, which many of my friends claim to have sworn by and which is somehow still allegedly for sale.

She’ll be performing tomorrow at 7:45 in Station Park, according the Pride Guide (which is worth picking up mainly if you’ve ever wanted to see employees of LaSalle Pizzeria wearing see-through underpants.) Though the show’s right across from the State House I’m guessing that Governor Carcieri, who should probably be back from his appearance on The 700 Club by then, will probably not be making an appearance.

After the jump, a quick little journey through her hits: more »

So, tonight is David’s big fundraiser, but if for some reason you can’t make it over to Nick-A-Nee’s, or if you want to party-hop or whatever, it’s also the opening of Gallery Q in the Westminster Street location previously occupied by Butterfield (which is in Wayland Square now, if you were wondering.)  

Gallery Q is the art component to this year’s Pride Festival.  While I generally loathe the Pride art shows with all of my being, I’ve been told this one might be a little more interesting; the programming is, at least.  There’s some sort of Queer Lit (?) happening tonight, and over the next two weeks there’s panel discussions and stuff.  Check this un-proofread postcard for more deets.

Also downtown today, there’s the grand opening of Kennedy Plaza’s summer season.  That starts at the skating rink at five and there’s supposed to be food and music and other stuff.  Both events are free.

So, you know, you should check them out either before or after but not instead of David’s fundraiser.

Those of you that have been reading this blog since last year may remember my consternation that the Pride people spent probably an ungodly amount of money booking 80’s teen starlet Tiffany, a woman who twenty years ago made a name for herself singing songs that other people had previously done much better.

This year, it seems, they’ve heeded my advice, sort of. The entertainment, at least according to this one dude’s unsourced Tumblr page, is going to be Debbie Gibson.

This is a step in the right direction, sort of. Debbie wrote her own songs, and they actually weren’t horrible. To this day I put Only In My Dreams on mixtapes, and Out Of The Blue, while it doesn’t necessarily work with a coffeehouse tabla arrangement, is pretty catchy. On the other hand, the star of Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus was last musically relevant in 1991.* Why can we not celebrate our identities with music from after the first Bush presidency? Really, now. There are people of voting age who were not alive yet the last time Debbie Gibson was in the top 40.

(*Well, she actually had a minor adult contemporary hit just three years ago, with a duet on Jordan Knight’s solo album. But I don’t consider that relevant, because I’ve never heard of it before just now.)

As this blog’s resident expert on 80’s teen-pop and homosexuals, I have to say that I’m doubly shocked and appalled–or at least disappointed and confused–that the headliner of this year’s Pride festival is Tiffany.

Tiffany, a girl who had three, maybe four hits twenty years ago, two of which were covers of songs that were hits for other, better people twenty years before that.  I mean, don’t get me wrong; I thought she was awesome when I was six, but that doesn’t mean I particularly want to hear her now that I’m twenty-seven.  And I say that as someone that still kinda likes The Party.

But, you know, I figured I’d give her a chance.  Last night I listened to her old singles.  All of them, even the ones I didn’t remember, like Radio Romance and the inspirational ballad from the Jetsons movie.  And I can now say with some degree of confidence that I Think We’re Alone Now is kinda lame; I Saw Him Standing There is basically unlistenable.  Could’ve Been is drecky, and All This Time, which is the one I remembered the best, is both drecky and whiny, despite probably being the best of her big hits.

I didn’t think Tiffany’s voice was particularly terrible (although both my boyfriend and my roommate disagreed with me on that point), but the production is amazingly bad.  Seriously, seriously bad.  And I’ve spent the last two days wondering what roomful of adults in Providence (and Atlanta!) came to the decision that this is someone that makes music that grown people should be listening to in 2008.  (Especially since she spent the nineties being born again…)

I have to acknowledge that I did actually like one song, though.  Danny, her first single, which the record company didn’t even bother to make a video for.  I didn’t remember it at all, but it’s got a good chorus, indecipherable though the words may be.  And while yes, it would’ve been better had Roxette done it, it’s probably the only bright spot on a terrible, terrible teen-pop career that probably should have never happened in the first place.