Photo by Little Ghost
The cult of celebrity never seems to lack in willing initiates, forking over sizeable portions of their cash and their souls in pursuit of the arbitrary concepts of standardized perfection and socially acceptable beauty. A nip here, a tuck there, and a couple weeks recovery are all it takes to keep up with the Kardashians in a never-ending arms race to remain one step ahead of the natural progression of time and two steps ahead of the competition.
The high visibility and unnatural absurdity of these plastic acolytes makes them an easy target for critics as icons of a larger societal ill, one that places a greater value on style over substance and enables what basically amounts to a monetized addiction to social media likes. Courtney Love made a career out of blasting her fellow Angeleno glitterati over professionally sculpted pounds of flesh but could never have predicted the sheer amount of overexposed celebrity skin on display now that everyone carries a networked camera in their pocket. With the bar for entry into this digital flesh trade set so low oppositional voices have become louder as well, quick to call out phony personas with the exacting efficiency of surgical scalpels.
“Hotel Celebrity” is a sunny, bubblegum b-side that stands in stark contrast to the titular Halloween doom on the a-side of The Paranoyds’ brand new 7”, Pet Cemetery. The sun-blasted day-glo track revels in a kind of gritty, fuzzed and fried vibe that defines the band’s native Los Angeles as much as the laundry list lyrics rattling off cosmetic surgical procedures and casual Ambien addiction with the cavalier nonchalance of reciting a grocery list. Injected with a double dose of cynical sarcasm “Hotel Celebrity” is a plumped up kiss on the cheek to brash riot grrrl traditions with ping-ponging indie guitars and short-circuit keyboard riffs filling out the track into an irresistibly attractive three minute bop with just as much brains and beauty.
The track’s video casts the band as a trio of insular perfectionists obsessed with attaining glossy, magazine-ready perfection as they go under the knife again and again for a parade of procedures that stretch, inflate, and contour their bodies into homogenized mannequins existing in a perpetual state of privilege induced lethargy. Fish-eyed, off kilter camera work underscores the cartoonish augmentations with the kind of elasticized body horror of Terry Gilliam’s iconic, dystopian Brazil smashed headlong into MTV-era new wave overstimulation. There’s even a sly ocular nod to Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon that foreshadows the horrifying lengths at which cosmetic cultists will go to maintain superficial supremacy. The video never descends to that kind of blood bath, but the hint of menace remains until the final moments when the blast from an oversized hairdryer blows away their paraphernalia of celebrity revealing three normal women piled in a corner amidst the discarded refuse of unhinged revelry. Empty vessels like so many champagne bottles drained of their contents for fleeting moments of intoxicated delirium.
‘Pet Cemetery’ is out now on 7” vinyl from Suicide Squeeze. Stream the tracks on Spotify and follow The Paranoyds on Instagram.
