The Gender Politics of Love Mixes

Hats off to Tim Finn. Dude wrote a good entry on the Grammys. Now I’m really glad I didn’t watch that shitfest.

Well, Valentine’s Day is approaching, which makes me all the more grateful that Mardi Gras is just around the corner. It’s a lot easier to get that one right — just put on funky clothes and run wild in the street. Shoot off fireworks. Drink rum. Dance. Get maced. There’s nothing sentimental about it. Am I threatened by sentimentality? Hell no, bitch. That’s why I’ve been shopping the iTunes music store for sweet love jams (to listen to while I sit in the bathtub, crying and shivering in the increasingly tepid water and drinking lukewarm Hamm’s from a can).

Now, this year, the people at Apple have made special Valentine’s Day mixes — ones For Him, For Her and For Us (and also For Steve, but that’s only available to employees). For $23.76 fellas can buy their honeys a 24-song heap of schlock and aww from the “Rock” genre that includes songs like “I’ll Be There for You” by Bon Jovi, “Big Log” by Robert Plant (clean version), “Crash Into Me” by Dave Matthews, “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker and “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton, which is one of the most hated songs ever, by my reckoning. For $11.88, laydeez can buy their men 12 songs including “Eternal Flame” by the Bangles and “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You” by Heart. What, no Sophie B.? A guy probably came up with that list (and made that skeevy tribute to Faramir, too). Still, it’s fitting that the buyer of music “for him” would be the one to spend less.