If they've got it, female pop artists are flaunting it
By VANESSA JONES
The Boston Globe
Sept. 4, 2003

Call it the case of the incredible shrinking clothes: A bevy of once-demure pop princesses are invading pop culture in extreme states of undress to promote their latest CDs.

And no, it’s not because miniskirts and short shorts are in style this season.

Earnest, folky Jewel trades her jeans and T-shirts for leg-baring dresses and bra tops in the video for her uptempo tune ‘‘Intuition.’’

Beyonce bounces through her ‘‘Crazy in Love’’ video wearing bottom-hugging shorts and a lacy teddy.

Ashanti glances from the cover of the July issue of The Source in a bikini shot that introduces readers to her flat abs and firm thighs.

These forays into flesh are a familiar rite of passage for teen singers eager to show — to take liberties with the words of Britney Spears — that they’re not girls but women. Spears did it by pledging: ‘‘I’m a Slave 4 U.’’ Christina Aguilera simply got ‘‘Dirrty.’’

Along the way they bombarded viewers with confusing images of sexual independence that defined ‘‘women’’ as people who dress in skimpy clothes.

Now it’s being tried by singers who used to cover up a little more.

‘‘Most of this explicitness is driven by the music industry,’’ says Tricia Rose, a professor of American studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz, ‘‘(which) is trying to figure out a way to keep consumers, particularly young male consumers.’’

The industry’s solution? ‘‘There’s no doubt that you get . . . a whole lot more attention, a whole lot more media value, and a whole lot more ratings the less clothes (a woman) has on,’’ Rose says.

The women who show the most in this battle of the flesh can boost record sales and become major stars. But if they reveal too much, it can scream ‘‘desperate’’ to savvy teens or send raunchy messages they may not intend.

So what compels these ladies to take it off? The artists themselves aren’t talking; several singers were contacted for this story, and all declined to be interviewed. Ask Misa Hylton-Brim, the hip-hop stylist who creates publicity- generating looks for P. Diddy, Lil’ Kim and Mary J. Blige, and she suggests it’s a matter of ‘‘if you’ve got it, flaunt it.’’

‘‘These women are young and famous and successful and beautiful,’’ says Hylton-Brim, a fashion editor at The Source who styled the Ashanti cover. ‘‘They’re working out hard, they’re watching what they eat, they’re changing their lifestyles for their careers.’’

Sales and popularity are a frequent outcome of this skin game if it’s played correctly. Jewel’s eye-popping ‘‘Intuition’’ video smartly parodies the fleshy excesses of hip-hop videos by showing the singer being hosed down by muscular firefighters and strutting through scenes in a sequined minidress. The 29-year-old rode the joke to the top of MTV’s video countdown show.

‘‘She was nowhere near ‘TRL,’ ’’ says Jorge Ramon, fashion director at Teen People, referring to MTV’s ‘‘Total Request Live’’ show. ‘‘Now she’s all over (it).’’

Beyonce, who turns 22 in September, makes a less successful transformation. Beyonce was the least-clothed member of Destiny’s Child, and now her bottoms are shorter and her bra tops smaller as she promotes her first solo CD.

Rose says, ‘‘For Beyonce, it’s a little bit shocking that someone of her musical talent would on her first album have to raise the stakes. As if she wasn’t already sexy. As if she wasn’t already scantily clad. The idea that you have to get as nude as possible to sustain a viewership is a losing game. There’s really nowhere to go with that but naked, and then what?’’

Some artists do take the game nearly to its conclusion. Aguilera appeared nude with a strategically placed guitar on the cover of Rolling Stone last year to publicize her sophomore CD, ‘‘Stripped.’’ Liz Phair strikes a similar pose on the cover of her self-titled new CD in a bold attempt to capture mainstream ears four albums into her indie-music career. Spears currently battles for relevancy by posing topless on the cover of September’s British Elle magazine.

But the more skin pop stars flash, the more teens sense desperation. Take Mariah Carey’s nude dip into her bathtub on a segment of MTV’s celebrity homes show ‘‘Cribs’’ and her ever-sultrier video appearances.

‘‘It’s just like, ‘Could you put on some clothes?’ ’’ says Boston high school student and former fan Alyssa Arzola.

There are those who won’t or can’t go to those extremes. Michelle Branch and Avril Lavigne are the anti-Britneys determined not to follow Spears’ breast-baring path. Missy Elliott simply doesn’t have the body to compete with her nubile peers.

With her six-pack and sculpted legs, Mary J. Blige can pull off the racier styles, and she’s done so in the past. Now she balances her look, pairing short shorts with long-sleeved tops in the first video for her new CD, ‘‘Love & Life.’’ There will be no publicity shots in bikinis.

‘‘She’s not comfortable that way, and she’s not going to do that,’’ says Blige stylist Hylton-Brim.

Will a public raised on provocative images allow singers to backtrack? Take the case of Jennifer Lopez, whose recent ‘‘I’m Glad’’ video, a mini version of the 1983 film ‘‘Flashdance,’’ is a blatant homage to the body Lopez. In her latest visual confection, ‘‘Baby, I Love You,’’ a soft-focus camera concentrates on her glowing face, with only glimpses of her body clad in loose pants and a modest T-shirt.

The video received a thumbs-down from ‘‘José of the Bronx’’ when it premiered last week on BET’s video countdown show ‘‘106 & Park.’’

His complaint? ‘‘She didn’t show no body.’’