Lollipop
Popstars

Wait a minute... it's not what it seems! Let me explain.

Yes, sir... I'm going to turn myself in, but I need you, at least, to believe me. I don't know why I did it. Perhaps it was boredom, apathy, or, between us, I just wanted a bit of healthy cerebral masochism.

To the authorities, however, I'll talk about my frequent brooding over the concept of art and its most twisted exegetic expressions, and I'll play with the most varied personality disorders. I’ll tell them that if everything is indeed art, and art is for everyone, they deserve to know an anecdote of which, for now, I’ve let you become part.

In one of my previous lives, I defecated in numerous tin cans, and sold them for a fortune. That provocation was later used as a handy excuse for any unfortunate artistic work, as if to say that there was nothing worse than passing off one's crap as art; any other work would claim greater dignity. That time no longer belongs to me, and yet, even today, I can boast a more than decent following. I like to recall an episode in particular, dating back to 2001.

A show selected girls from all over Italy with the aim of forming a group (brazenly and unmistakably ''at the drawing board'') which was the peninsular answer to the Spice Girls. I can't tell you what went wrong, but they wouldn’t have seen the success of the Spice Girls even with the most sophisticated equipment from NASA. Originality was not their weapon of choice: the group was called Lollipop, the album ''Popstars''; titles such as ''Down Down Down'', ''I Want You'', ''Turn Me Around'', ''Everybody Come On'' are the result of a brain activity not unlike picking one's nose, and the music, rather than giving goosebumps, causes psoriasis.

One of those records that gets into your head, and fortunately, exits just as quickly (I won't say through which passage). Yet, I was intrigued by the fact that, to carefully select the girls and teach them a very simple choreography, the production spent about 8 months. It was obvious, then, to believe that the result of such zeal would surely be a masterpiece. In my deviant perspective, I was not wrong. ''Popstars'' is one of the most successful pentagrammatic applications of the theories I was talking about. It is the sublimation (in a chemical-physical sense more than anything) of crap into something intangible like music.

Maybe, they weren’t even aware of it...

Well? Why are you looking at me like that?... What are you doing? Stop!!!!! Where are you taking me?? Nooo!!! Helpppp!!!! Nooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!