From The Brady Bunch to Freaky Friday to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, pop culture and everyday life are replete with examples of wishes gone wrong. Some well-meaning sap—possibly even ourselves—dreams a little dream that, when/if it materializes, turns into something grotesque. We’ve all heard stories of lottery winners who wound up bankrupt, right? As Aesop’s Fables teaches us, in other words, be careful what you wish for because you just might get it—or, in the words of Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Ziziek, “We have a perfect name for fantasy realized. It’s called nightmare.”
Vivienne Blue’s second single, the pop-minded “JC Superstar,” delves into just that via the prism of infatuation. When the heart colors perception, the reality we see is not always the reality that is—unless and until, that is, the rose tint fades. Deception, whether self-induced or the product of a paramour’s false front, has the hallmark of failed romances forever and a day, unfortunately. Cupid’s arrow doesn’t just sting; it hurts, scars, wounds and mars.
The song, which she wrote with producer Preston Cochran (boygenius, Lucy Dacus, Suki Waterhouse, Ashe), scrapes the veneer off of a short-lived love. “You can’t be my fantasy,” she sings to the one-time object of her affection, the phrase a mantra for embracing the reality she previously eschewed.. It’s a ghostly—and addictive—demarcation of woe that’s accented by her haunting vocals and, too, a chainsaw-like guitar.
The Old Grey Cat 