Rusko Star - "Attention Whore" (2007)

Rusko Star - "Attention Whore" (2007):

This image is really all you need to know.

Have you ever watched a music video with someone like Ke$ha or Britney Spears, and wondered what it would be like if a man were singing it instead? What might talking about posting photos to social networking sites or acting like a “bitch” look like if a man did it instead? Well, pop singer Rusko Star is here to answer that question once and for all!

Look, I'll admit that bubblegum pop isn't my thing. In fact, it's pretty much the opposite of my thing, so I am a little out of my element here. But this song was just so bizarre to me that it demanded a review! I mean, when is the last time you saw a generic female pop song performed by a male model? I can't think of the last time!

Let's get this review started...

Let's begin with Rusko Star himself. Unfortunately, information is pretty sparse, (I couldn't find anything substantial on AMG or Wikipedia), but he's been doing music since at least the late 2000s, and “Attention Whore” was the first song he uploaded to YouTube. It's also his best known track to date, apparently you can be less than internet famous. He's produced other music since then, and basically kept his image of a Real-Housewife-but-as-a-guy image intact. The only other notable thing I could find out about him is that he's a male model.

The song itself was made in 2007, and believe me, it really shows. The production sounds like any other pop song from the late 2000s, down to the sampled claps in the percussion and the synthesizers being put on the "strings" setting, with the whole track having a very digital feel. It's basically every complaint I've ever heard about pop music over the past several years in one song: there's no real instruments in this whole track because it sounds like it was made with ProTools. Lyrically, this song is also very 2007-- there's even a reference to uploading pictures to MySpace! Actually, that line about MySpace brings up a good point: how will all the songs that reference current-day social networks like Instagram or Facebook age? Because this song doesn't really bode well for them.

Mom! Grandma's listening to her old people music about selfies again!

As for Rusko's character in the song itself (please let it only be a character), it's pretty unbearable. The song is about an “attention whore,” and my god does it deliver! Apparently Rusko can't be out of the limelight for five minutes (“Look at me!/ Talk about me!”). It's like someone took all the worst parts of teenaged girl's vanity and made a song about it, with the end result being just as narcissistic as you'd think. If you met someone like this in real life, you'd probably start inventing excuses to not be in their company. Really bad excuses too, like sorting a sock drawer even though you only wear sandals.

The only way you can make this song more bearable is if you assume it's coming from the opposite point of view, of someone who will never have enough attention trained on them. If the song were about an attention addict instead, it would make for a pretty interesting song. For example, the acoustic version of the Weezer track “Can't Stop Partying” turned a generic pop tune about hitting up the clubs into a song about being addicted to partying just by singing the song over an acoustic guitar. It's an interesting example because you hardly ever see party songs interpreted that way on the radio. If Rusko had written it that way, then "Attention Whore" would be like the "Can't Stop Partying" of vain people.

With all that said, I'm not so sure that interpretation holds up because Rusko seems pretty shameless about being so needy. He isn't ashamed about needing so much attention, he's proud of it! Lines like “I'm such a fucking attention whore” at the end sound as convincing as those people who always say they're fat when they really aren't. Come to think of it, teenaged girls say that a lot too, which means I've come full circle.

Conclusion:

Really, the only point of interest in this whole song is Rusko himself, who basically sung a fairly generic pop song. It makes an impression because Rusko's a guy, and doing songs like this as a guy is pretty rare. With that said, if this song were sung by a woman, it would have simply blended into the musical background. I would only recommend you listen to this song if the idea of a man singing this sounds funny or interesting to you.