Fannypack
“Cameltoe” is not just a novelty record because it’s a joke. It’s one of those records, like “Loser” or “My Name Is,” that’s unmistakably new, that makes you stop whatever you’re doing when you first hear it. That’s because Fannypack MCs Jessibel Suthiwong and Belinda Lovell are the rawest you’ve ever heard on commercial radio. They have zero showbiz affect; they’re American anti-idols, unmitigated Brooklyn, from a block like Jenny hasn’t seen in years. Listen to the liquid way they say “girl,” or try to find the second t in that’s: these kids have not been to any Orlando pop-star finishing school. They’re not the Shaggs–they’re obviously quite comfortable in the idiom–but their mix of unashamed amateurishness and confidence beyond all reasonable expectation is probably unprecedented in a hit single. They’re the musical counterparts to the cast of Peter Sollett’s film Raising Victor Vargas, the year’s other notable collaboration between the culture industry and New York City teens.
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But while the kids in Victor Vargas were clearly in full effect with Bertolt Brecht, the relationship between the Fannypackers and the means of their production is less clear. How did this sound get on the radio? Are these kids fronting, or are we actually lurking in a jailbait chat room? How much of this stuff did they write? And who’s really getting paid here? By the second listen, these questions overwhelm the experience of hearing the song.
The record tries to address the Cat Problem–and other questions about the nature of the project–by including purported outtakes from the creative process in place of skits. One captures a postrehearsal discussion among the three front women in which it seems they are maintaining an uneasy peace: Hartwell sounds like she’s imitating her younger colleagues’ trash-talking, and they retaliate by blaming staging problems on her “hippopotamus ass.” Is this an ill-advised attempt to suggest camaraderie, or are Fannypack shopping their Behind the Music script halfway through their first record? In another snippet, Suthiwong and Lovell are made to sound like ten-year-olds as they discuss possible cover art, which they can’t have liked. Elsewhere, after freestyling through a round of “How Funky Is Your Chicken?” Lovell winks at the guys in the control room: “I know you’re recording me / ‘Cause I can tell when you’re recording me.” Alan Lomax, call your lawyer.
