An Iggy Situation

Ricky keeps walking around whistling "Fancy." I must figure out a way to make him stop.

When I first heard of Iggy Azalea, I didn't know what that was. I had heard of Iggy Pop, who is the closest rival to Keith Richards for the "Ancient Rock Star Who Looks Like He Should Be Dead" award. And I knew that an azalea was a flowering shrub. But because I am around young people all day, I did eventually find out that Iggy Azalea is a musical artist, and her big hit song is the one with the catchy line, "I'm so fancy."

I must say it has just taken every ounce of self control I have to keep from putting quotation marks of sarcasm around musical artist. That's because several weeks ago I saw Iggy Azalea perform (more desire to put quote marks) on "Saturday Night Live." Here I will give you a description of what I saw.

A young, blond Australian woman wearing fake, lumpy padding on her butt walked around on stage while sticking that butt out in a series of awkward poses while talking over canned music playing in the background as professional dancers worked really, really hard over-dancing in double time around her. Miss Flowering Shrub paused from talking (thought not butt posing) periodically so that someone else whose name I do not know could actually sing the verse, the part of the song my husband has been whistling.

Yes, I know there has been a long tradition of hit songs with catchy hooks by singers who are not overly talented. But at least those singers sing the song! Their voices may be auto-tuned, but at least they move their mouths and have the lyrics come out. And while I am not a fan of rap, I will admit that good rap artists have talent in the same way of performers of poetry or literature who present material in an engaging way. But in the SNL performance I saw, literally anyone can do what Iggy Azalea did. Anyone.

Now here's this in the news: Last month at the American Music Awards, Azalea won best rap/hip-hop album, and this month she will be honored at the Billborad Women in Music Awards.

If I could whistle, my tune right now would be a requiem for the music industry.