In the first installment of Forgotify’s Finest, which was also the only installment until today, I laid out a few ground rules I’d be abiding by for the series. I’m sure you have them memorized, but I’ll restate them here just to be safe:
The track must be actual music, not just any sound recording.
The track must be SOMEWHAT professional-sounding.
The track must be attached to a full project, so I have more material to work with.
After about an hour or so of browsing, I discovered I could control Forgotify about as well as a sailor can control the tides. It’s rough waters out there. But eventually, after sifting through all the duds (and track after track of classical music), I found something I thought I might want to talk about.
The song I landed on is “Serial Womanizer” by an artist called Catty Jax. Before I even pressed play, this one had me curious. Aren’t all womanizers serial by definition? I knew I had to give it a listen.
Which brings us to the content of the song. After listening to a few seconds, the title started to make a little more sense. “Serial Womanizer” was released in 2010. Just two years before that, pop star/socialist revolutionary Britney Spears released her own song about serial womanizers, succinctly titled “Womanizer.” Now, to be fair, these two songs don’t sound all that similar. I am not implying plagiarism. But there’s a lot of thematic overlap. And from a sonic perspective, this is a VERY late 2000s-sounding pop song. (We get it, Catty Jax, you heard The Fame.) It wouldn’t surprise me if they tweaked the title to avoid as many copycat accusations as possible.
Now for my favorite part: the guest verse. Our featured artist here is Dreadlox Holmes, who also appears to be the producer and label owner. And interestingly, he’s identified himself as the very sort of serial womanizer this song is criticizing. Bold stance. While I appreciate the nuanced handling of such a complicated subject, the song ends up a bit uneven. To his credit, Holmes does attempt to reconcile these two opposing viewpoints. He concludes his verse by asking “if no one’s having sex, then how the hell did we get here?” And unless that thing about storks delivering babies is true, I’m forced to admit he has a point. Just not one that’s especially relevant to a song about promiscuity.
Unfortunately, the fun pretty much ends here. Aside from an optimistically created radio edit of “Serial Womanizer,” Catty Jax has no other music on Spotify. She doesn’t appear to have any social media presence either. I’m guessing that either Catty Jax made this song just for fun, or she abandoned her career after it failed to gain traction. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Dreadlox Holmes is still quite active, and it sounds like he’s doing some cool stuff.
As silly as it seems to start questioning a series after just two installments, this foray into Forgotify had me seriously second-guessing the concept. I don’t have any ideological issues with music criticism. I believe that most artists are aware that when they put art out into the world, they will receive a variety of responses, both negative and positive. But with Forgotify as your method of discovery, every single artist you come across is… not doing great. 99% of the time anything negative you say just feels like punching down. I’m less bothered by going after “Serial Womanizer,” because Catty Jax doesn’t exist as an artist any more, but a lot of the musicians I’ve stumbled across are still active.
I would hate to be the reason someone stopped making music. And since I’m trying to get my own creative endeavor off the ground, I would feel hypocritical going after a fellow amateur. Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. So going forward, my only guideline is that the music I review can’t purely be notable for being bad. Which, I’m hoping, is only going to make this series more fun.
Time to really get weird with it.
Lyle B.