The year 2005 was a playground for pop musicians; the internet was not yet mainstreamed to the degree it is now, so album sales had not yet declined, and MTV still aired videos. Yet, by 2005, gossip sites were hitting their stride simultaneously, and Lindsay Lohan was feeling the burn.
And yet, she wasn’t going to take this shit sitting down. “Rumors” was a brave rebuttal to Lindsay’s haters, a bold assertion of her agency and right to be in the club having fun without journalists, with their pens and notepads in the club, and photographers, with their soul-stealing apertures. She is sharp; she is resolute. She is gyrating, by herself, in an elevator, closed-circuit television representing the big-brother-style surveillance she felt she was constantly under, furthered by the tense guitar stabs beneath her vocals that emphasize the gravity of the situation. Let. Lindsay. Live:
Why can’t you just let me
Do the things I wanna do
I just wanna be me
I don’t understand why
Would you wanna bring me down
I’m only having fun
I’m gonna live my life
But not the way you want me to
Lindsay did not play by the rules, despised the cage within which society kept her. Ten years ago, “Rumors” was nominated for a MTV Video Music Award for Best Pop Video, a category now occupied by the likes of Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran and Maroon 5. She lost to Kelly Clarkson for “Since U Been Gone,” a better song, video, singer for an eminently more universal concept—while most everyone can relate to the feeling of liberation after a break-up, only a select few can understand what it’s like to have a horde of khaki-wearing middle aged men chasing them around everywhere with long-lens cameras. (Haters are, of course, universal, but Clarkson’s song was simply more uplifting.)
Today, Lindsay Lohan spends her time being the Ron Popeil of Instagram and living in London. Her brush with pop stardom was brief but burned bright.
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