Feist is the best example of how to kill your indie cred and look beautiful doing it. Formerly a member of Peaches‘ legion of STD infested European skanks, Leslie Feist is a Canadian born performer who has been hovering on the verge of international success for half a decade. She may have finally found it with her video for, I shit you not, this is the name of the song, "1 2 3 4,". Why, after years of struggling as a musician, having only the story about how she opened for The Ramones this one time in her success column, is she suddenly being catapulted to success in America? Because she let Apple use that song to sell iPods, thus selling out as hard as an indie musician possibly can.
Girls who haven’t washed their hair in a month are such a turn on.
If you clicked both of those links, you may notice that Feist and Peaches have drastically different styles, despite having been room mates together while living in Berlin for three years. Peaches depends on a mind numbingly repetitive electro beat, audience participated screaming, and grinding her crotch on loudly humming speakers in order to sell her music, whereas Feist is just a non-insane Bjork. Because of this vast difference in personalities, Peaches is probably going to be restricted to the underground scene for her post-post-Madonna act and loud opinions, but Feist has a chance to become the next… uh… Avril Lavigne or Nelly Furtado? No, better than them, because her music isn’t made to be infectious like most radio crap. It’s excellent indie pop, with organic piano music, a steady hand on the drums, and the artist actually performing by singing, dancing and playing her own instruments.
Like Moby, Of Montreal and The Arctic Monkeys before her, Feist is at a crossroads. Achieve immortality in the underground music scene by keeping her dignity, or move to L.A., and get a famous producer to make all of her music for her while she poses for cameras in ass chaps, or whatever is the next women’s butt trend (please let it be ass chaps!).
Fallen indie angel
It wouldn’t be surprising if she went with the latter. Of Montreal was once a highly respected band, but they might as well have strapped on some blonde wigs and whored themselves out at the Las Vegas Bunny Ranch when they adapted their biggest underground hit into a jingle for Outback Steakhouse. So could Feist betray the self loathing world of being a barely successful musician for a chance at Beyonce-like status? Yes.
I hope she doesn’t, though. Because she’s making great music on her own, and achieving the level of success she deserves, oddly enough, will change that. I’m looking at you, Dido.