Warner Bros announced this week that the heiress Paris Hilton will release her debut single, Stars are Blind, on July 31, and her album, Paris Hilton, a week later.
Why should we care?
1 Pop is in search of a princess — and Paris may have arrived just in the nick of time. Britney is too busy commuting between stages of hormonal angst to consider releasing anything other than tears, Gwen Stefani has just dropped a sproglet herself and Brave Kylie still isn’t quite ready for her close-up. Girls Aloud are gearing up for their greatest hits album, a sure sign that the end is nigh, while Charlotte Church is too busy advertising crisps to write any decent songs.
2 Paris rose to fame after a “leaked” sex tape of herself did the rounds on the internet. The video to her new single, which shows her rollicking around on a beach in various states of undress, follows basically the same storyboard, only with better lighting. “If you show me real love, baby, I’ll show you mine,” she purrs, while getting wet. She could be as filthy as Peaches — while actually selling some records.
3 Hilton is famous already, so no marketing budgets are needed — just “leak” a few more MP3s and videos on to the net and then watch the people who actually pay for records head down to Woolies to see what all the fuss is about. Paris Hilton is the queen of the accidental emission — how fitting that somebody born into privilege gets the great unwashed to do her marketing for her.
4 In the wake of the Sandi Thom debacle, we’re spending more time analysing artists’ claims to authenticity than we are actually listening to the songs. Pop is in trouble and needs a pointless superstar to bring it back to its plastic pinnacle. When Milli Vanilli got into hot water for miming, even the righteous Sting came out in their defence and pointed out that they should be given their awards back as nobody ever believed they were doing anything other than moving their mouths and smiling nicely at the cameramen. With the current vogue in music for all things homegrown, it would be a nice holiday from earnestness to have a popstar who does not even pretend to like music.
5 The hotel heiress is so rich that she won’t get involved with any of those annoying Make Poverty History campaigns. With her profligate spending habits, she doesn’t seem to have noticed that poverty exists at all, although she did make a TV show, The Simple Life, about trying to live without Gucci.
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6 She is the American version of Lily Allen. With their lilting cod-reggae, famous dads, it-girl statuses and internet route to fame, let each rule their respective airwaves this summer. Clearly, Lily Allen would win in a fight, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Actually, let’s hope it does. Charlotte Church has already been cruising for a Hilton bruising with her claims that the song was produced with “Nasa technology”.
7 Paris’s album is to contain cover versions of Rod Stewart’s Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? and Blondie’s Heart of Glass. The Stereophonics made the theme tune to The Office with their Handbags and Gladrags. Where might Paris’s Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? end up? Atomic Kitten tried covering Blondie’s The Tide is High, which was originally released by the Paragons in 1967. Oddly, Paris’s new single sounds almost identical to The Tide is High. Excitingly, the foodchain of pop is doubling back on itself.
8 The ludicrously entertaining Southern hip-hoppers Three 6 Mafia want to work with Paris Hilton — hers is rumoured to be the only offer they’ve accepted since winning a music Oscar. “We want to work with her because she’s Paris Hilton!” they explained. Quite.
9 Paris started out famous, then starred in a riches-to-rags TV show, and now she’s releasing a record. If the record is so dreadful that it sends her into a downward spiral, she will have lived out the ultimate pop dream — backwards. Yet again, a groundbreaking move.
10 As long as she’s singing, she can’t be speaking, and that has to be a good thing.