In a series called Mondo Bullshittio, let’s talk about some of the most glaring hypocrisies in pop culture… and all that it affects.
Every time you think Lindsay Lohan might leave well enough alone and decide to remain out of the “spotlight” (which is really just a small patch of unwanted Klieg lighting located stage left), she seems to forget that her entire post-2005 career has been founded entirely on embarrassment spurred by “scandal” (the kind that has since barely raised an eyebrow thanks to the ability of celebrities to curate their own narrative on social media without TMZ dictating everything). In the spirit of her unique ability to blithely ignore said embarrassment (as most people with delusional tendencies would be capable of), Lindsay has, in the face of a cancelled reality show from last year called Lohan Beach Club, decided to repurpose herself once more as a “singer.” Granted, in the mid-00s, when she was first able to “credibly” bill herself as such, they were letting just about anyone have a music career–we’re talking Paris Hilton, Aaron Carter, Ashlee Simpson, Willa Ford… the gambit of talentlessness that almost makes the present musical landscape feel Bach-esque in quality.
As she tries to parlay the musical “success” she had from 2004-2005 with Speak and the atrociously titled A Little More Personal (Raw), respectively, Lohan seems to have forgotten that she is no longer in the 00s, or even the early 10s when she was still at least making headlines for her trainwreck behavior (stealing a necklace included, even though Winona Ryder did the whole white girl celebrity shoplifting thing long ago). The climate she keeps insisting she wants to “distance” herself from is the one she ends up reverting to when there’s nothing else to talk about, hence lyrics in her latest single, “Back to Me,” that consist of such “raw” lyrics as, “I know I drink too much, but it’s okay.” Really? Thought you told Oprah (the person you name-check all the time) you gave up on all drugs. Guess the Dubai lifestyle is more manageable for Lohan’s alcohol consumption considering there’s no paparazzi there.
Elsewhere in the track, she does little to separate her present from her past as she “reflects,” “My life is full of ripped up pages” (an allusion to Mean Girls’ infamous Burn Book?) and “I’ve been weak/Contagious” (a venture at coronavirus relevancy?). Other attempts at faux profundity land with a heavier thud, like the nonsensical offering, “And now these Sundays got me feelin’ like Mondays.” Okay.
Even more incredible than Lohan’s blinders to the fact that her music is trash (with “Xanax” being about the only listenable offering out of everything) is that media outlets are still willing to talk about her at all, let alone praise her “effort” as “a breezy, infectiously catchy electro-pop gem” (according to Entertainment Weekly). If that’s true, then the credit should be given to songwriters ALMA (why ALMA, why are you debasing yourself?), Chiara Hunter and Mark Ralph, the latter being the one who produced (along with more notable tracks of the past couple years, including Sofi Tukker’s “Benadryl” and Clean Bandit’s “Baby” featuring MARINA and Luis Fonsi). Alas, the one-line reviews are as generic and polite as the song itself. For this is the kind of “work” so generic it wouldn’t even be passable in a commercial for a generic product (one could see Lohan trying [under the guise of getting her “management” to do it] to insert the track in an ad for an off-brand version of a Nespresso coffee pod, for when else does when get “back to themself” if not in the early, still hours of the morning?).
Lohan described the barely three-minute track as being “about rediscovering and accepting oneself, shutting out the noise and moving forward and letting the past go. Living in the now.” Yet Lohan has dichotomously clung to her past more fiercely than any 00s personality that has been rendered an anachronism in the present. Even her longtime rival, Paris Hilton, has found a way to move forward with more grace as she bows to the preeminence of the Kardashian-Jenner Dynasty. Case in point being Hilton’s own music release last year (which, incidentally, also topped out at the two minute, fifty-three second mark), incorporating Kardashian into the premise and video with the title “My Best Friend’s Ass.” Accepting and embracing that a new era has long ago commenced in contrast to her nemesis, Hilton at least appears “in” on the joke, whereas Lohan suffers from the affliction of continuing to take herself seriously. Maybe the problem is still that enough other people are as well, fortifying her belief that she has “comeback” after “comeback” at her beck and call the way only someone like Cher should.
With the repetition of the lines, “Now I’m coming back to me,” we can only infer that, to Lohan, that has always meant a self-destructive party girl with the puerile “look at me” tendencies of the decade that raised her. If that’s truly what she’s trying to get back to, she’s picked the wrong period. Even if her decision to release the track while everyone is trapped in quarantine is an obviously calculated move, for when else would people be bored enough to listen to it?
